Communities across Colorado’s Front Range could see a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) on Wednesday, as Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest utility provider, announced it plans to cut power to areas where high winds and dry conditions are heightening the wildfire risk.
Wyoming communities are not expected to lose power, but Laurie Farkas, a spokeswoman with Black Hills Energy, said the company — which serves much of southeastern Wyoming — was closely monitoring the weather.
The PSPS, which Xcel Energy refers to as a “wildfire mitigation tool,” is expected to begin around noon, the company shared in a statement Tuesday afternoon. Customers in Colorado’s Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties could be affected. Weather conditions are expected to start improving around 6 p.m. Wednesday, the statement says.
The National Weather Service reports that communities along the I-25 corridor as far north as the Wyoming border will likely see critical fire weather warnings on Wednesday.
“With these fast and quick winds, called downsloping winds, we get drier, quicker air that comes down the mountains,” said Mathew McLaughlin, a meteorologist with National Weather Service in Cheyenne. “It dries out the grasses and vegetation and makes [the land] more susceptible to fires.”
Wind gusts of up to 75 mph are forecast along the Front Range foothills Wednesday.
Not As Windy In Wyoming
Jeanine West, director of Laramie County Emergency Management, said Colorado’s high winds are not expected to have as drastic an effect on Wyoming.
“We haven’t seen or heard anything, which means they [the power companies] are not worried about it affecting us,” West said. “If it was going to affect any of our areas, we would have gotten notification. They would have let their neighbors know. As of right now, we’re good to go.”
The dramatic wind and dry air is driven in part by unseasonably warm temperatures along the Rocky Mountains’ Front Range.
Temperatures in Denver reached 68 degrees on Monday, the warmest Dec. 15 on record since 1921. Monday marked the sixth consecutive day the city saw temperatures above 60 degrees.
David Eskelsen, a spokesman for Rocky Mountain Power, confirmed that high winds are forecast for Wyoming on Wednesday. But he said Rocky Mountain Power has no plans to shut down power anywhere across the state.
“It would be worth us watching it to see if anything changes,” Eskelsen said.
Farkas echoed that statement. “If things take a turn, we would activate our (communications) process,” she told Cowboy State Daily.
Black Hills Energy said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon that it does not expect to initiate an Emergency Public Safety Power Shutoff in Colorado, but “the company is taking action to support the safe operation of the electric system and will continue to monitor the need for a potential safety shutoff throughout this weather event.”
BHE also said it was implementing its operational response plans to postpone or restrict certain work tasks and coordinating with neighboring utilities to manage system reliability, “given the nature of the interconnected grid.”
High winds and dry conditions nearly led to an emergency power shut off for Laramie County residents west of Cheyenne last month. Residents were warned at 11 a.m. on Nov. 10 that a shut-off was likely from 4 p.m. until weather conditions improved. But Black Hills Energy, which put out the warning, reversed course hours before the planned outage, saying the weather had stabilized.
Earlier this year, Wyoming passed legislation requiring wildfire mitigation plans from utility companies. The bill was sponsored by Rep. J.T. Larson, R-Rock Springs.
“Up until this weekend we are expecting the winds to be rather gusty and to amplify those drier conditions,” McLaughlin, the meteorologist, told Cowboy State Daily. “We could be seeing sustained wildfire possibility or those amplified spark times.”
Cheyenne’s National Weather Service office focuses on weather in southeast Wyoming and the Nebraska panhandle.
In April 2024, more than 55,000 Xcel Energy customers were without power for more than a day after the company moved forward with its first-ever preventive blackout due to wildfire conditions.
Wednesday’s planned blackout would mark the second such occurrence for Xcel Energy.
