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Heber Light & Power Wildfire Mitigation
Utah is in a drought emergency, and wildfire danger is at an all-time high. Heber Light & Power’s service territory includes high fire risk areas with dry grass, canyon winds, beetle-killed timber, steep hillsides, and fast-growing neighborhoods. To mitigate risk, we are strengthening our vegetation management, inspecting equipment, improving outage communications, and, in the most extreme conditions, putting our system into enhanced safety settings, implementing Public Safety Power Shutoffs, or, in the most extreme cases, emergency de-energization.
Enhanced Safety Settings
Our system is designed to do everything it can to keep the power on. Under normal operations, when our system detects a fault or disturbance like a tree branch hitting a powerline, our settings allow the circuit to open and immediately reclose up to three times to clear the line and maintain reliability. This means you only see a quick power bump and do not experience a long outage. At times when work is being performed on a circuit or when conditions are not safe for automatic reclose, we adjust our settings, so one fault opens a circuit, and it remains open until we deem it is safe to manually close.
Conditions that are high fire risk mean we must put our circuits into a Non-Reclose or Enhanced Safety Settings. In this state, if a circuit opens, we send our crews to inspect the entire circuit to ensure conditions are safe before manually closing the circuit and restoring power. This means longer outage times for our customers but prioritizes the safety of our community by reducing the chance of ignition. We will send notifications to our customers when we initiate Enhanced Safety Settings, which will occur when our service territory is under a Red Flag Warning issued by the National Weather Service.
Additionally, a Public Safety Power Shutoff or PSPS may be implemented as a proactive measure to prevent wildfire from starting. This means a Heber Light & Power may intentionally turn off power in a specific area when fire risk becomes too dangerous to safely keep certain lines energized. HL&P may also be subject to a PSPS from Rocky Mountain power since we are their transmission customer and dependent on their system. A PSPS is not done casually and usually comes with warning communications to alert customers of the potential for a PSPS. Please take these warnings seriously and prepare yourself and your families for long outages. A PSPS can interrupt homes, businesses, medical devices, wells, internet service, refrigeration, and daily life. Unfortunately, in rare, high-risk weather conditions, the choice may be between a temporary outage and the possibility of a catastrophic ignition.
Emergency De-energization
In the most severe circumstances, we may have to immediately de-energize all or part of our system. This means we will intentionally shut off power due to an active wildfire. Immediate de-energization would only be done under emergency conditions if necessary to protect first responders, our community, and our equipment.
Wildfire Mitigation
We are always working on wildfire mitigation to keep our system as safe as possible. Vegetation management is a big part of this and a continuous effort. This year Peterson Tree Care has been contracted to perform critical vegetation management in our high-risk Wildland Urban Interface areas. Their scope of work includes clearing all trees and high-risk shrubbery directly from under Primary Power Lines. Trees growing into the 15-foot clearance zone will be professionally trimmed or entirely removed based on structural risk. All operations strictly follow ANSI A300 professional tree care standards to maintain plant health and structural integrity where preservation is possible. This work may not always be convenient or pretty, but it is part of keeping power lines safer and reducing wildfire risk before smoke is in the air. Additionally, we continuously inspect and replace worn-out equipment to reduce fire risk.
What can you do?
- Heber Light & Power customers should be prepared for PSPS events when extreme wildfire concerns exist. That means having flashlights, charged phones, backup batteries, water, food, medications, and a plan for family members who rely on electricity for medical needs.
- Stay informed about current conditions in our area. The National Weather Service provides an interactive Fire Weather Map that shows current fire weather conditions across Utah.
- Sign up for HL&P outage and system notifications by updating your contact information in our SmartHub Portal. You can also sign-up for Wasatch County Emergency Alerts to receive emergency messages and instructions from the county.
- Know where to find HL&P’s Outage Map. Save the outage number: 435-654-2913 so you don’t miss critical updates.
- Keep trees and vegetation clear of power lines. Create defensible space around your home. Clean gutters and roofs. And if you ever see a downed power line, stay far away, and report it to HL&P Dispatch.
Wildfire safety is shared work. The utility has a duty to maintain a safer electric system. Property owners have a duty to reduce fuel around homes and structures. None of us controls the wind. But we can clear the brush, harden the home, trim the branches, charge the phone, and make the plan before the red-flag day arrives.