‘When Our Poles Caught Fire, We Had to De-Energize’

It started on a Saturday evening in the remote mountain community of Wrightwood, a small brush fire that grew to 35 acres by Sunday morning, June 12. Firefighters thought they had a good handle on the blaze. But when the wind shifted midday Sunday, the Sheep Fire grew to nearly 1,000 acres in less than 24 hours.
"We saw very aggressive fire behavior and erratic winds," said Scott Brown, Southern California Edison fire management officer. Brown and the team leading SCE's response to the fire faced a dilemma as the flames raced toward power poles critical to supplying Wrightwood with electricity. When should they turn off nearby power lines to guard against the risk of live wires falling while firefighters battled the blaze?

"In an incident like this, early on our main goal is firefighter and public safety, whether it's de-energizing distribution lines or clearing downed lines for the safety of our first responders," Brown said.
Firefighters wanted power to the lines turned off quickly, which would mean cutting power to the town. The problem was the local water company needed that power to pump water for the firefighting effort.
"We kept the lines energized as long as we could," Brown said. "When our poles caught fire, we had to de-energize so live lines wouldn't fall to the ground."

The strategy largely paid off. While residents were asked to evacuate Wrightwood, no structures or lives were lost. About 4,000 customers were without power for between two and eight hours during the fire, depending on which circuit supplied their electricity.
But SCE's job was far from over.
"After we mitigate the safety issues, we go into damage assessment and recovery, figuring out what we're going to need to restore power to our customers," Brown said.
The Sheep Fire damaged eight H-frame structures made up of two power poles each, two single poles and two spans of transmission wires so severely that they needed replacing. Which meant power would have to be cut to customers in Wrightwood yet again so the repairs could be made safely.

The Sheep Fire was fully contained by Wednesday, the cause still undetermined. Even as firefighting aircraft continued to drop water on hot spots, SCE crews were already digging holes to prepare for the installation of new poles.
By Thursday morning, when ENERGIZED visited the site, a 500-foot crane began the complicated task of lifting the 20 new poles - some wrapped in fire-resistant mesh, others made of fireproof composite material - into place.
"All the replacements will be fire-wrapped or composite," said Bryce Lorz, the SCE field supervisor who oversaw the restoration work. "Hopefully they'll be more resistant in the future if this happens again."

For the H-frames, new poles were positioned next to the damaged ones. As the crane dropped each 65-foot pole into place, SCE crews quickly filled an eight-and-a-half-foot deep hole with gravel. Next, lineworkers scrambled up the poles to affix cross beams and other equipment to the existing, temporarily unpowered wires.
SCE initially estimated that it would take about 12 hours for three SCE and contractor crews to repair the poles and lines, but unexpected delays nearly doubled that timetable, meaning some customers were without power for almost 24 hours.
"We realize that being without power is difficult and we want to apologize to our customers for the unexpected delays in restoring service," said Kari Gardner, SCE senior manager of Consumer Affairs. "We appreciate the patience and support of our customers impacted by this outage."

Fire manager Brown was having lunch with a colleague at a Wrightwood restaurant during the restoration work. When he asked for the check, the server told him a customer had already paid his bill to show thanks for SCE's quick response to the fire.
Michael Braemer, another Wrightwood resident, told ENERGIZED, "You guys were the first ones out here and you busted your tails to get the power back on."
For more information on SCE's wildfire safety efforts, visit edison.com/wildfire-safety.