Republished with permission from the January 2025 issue of the Bulletin magazine. Copyright 2025 by Northwest Public Power Association. All rights reserved.
The intensity of a fire season lulls this time of year as we face new challenges brought by the cold months or dangerous winter driving conditions. These vast swings in climate are what make the Greater Pacific Northwest iconic—but also bring challenges to our daily life. As the winter months continue, we often experience the antithesis of the fears of scorched earth and bone-dry conditions of a fire season in this region.
Through the bitter cold and snowy conditions, we must not forget the struggle of the major stressors of a wildland fire. It is important to remind ourselves of the preparation needed during the cold months to prepare for, in utility terms, the “one-shot” season.
Specific to the region of eastern and north central Oregon, multiple utilities shared a high-stress 2024 fire season, including Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative in Heppner, Columbia Power Cooperative in Monument, Harney Electric Cooperative in Hines, Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative in Baker City, and Umatilla Electric Cooperative in Hermiston. Countless other utilities across the Greater Pacific Northwest faced similar struggles with different towns, different fire names, and their own cavalries of hardworking individuals dedicated to fighting the summer’s biggest threat: wildland fires.
The Lone Rock Fire started July 13, 2024, in Gilliam County, Oregon. A small wildland fire at first, it was fought by local crews with support from nearby fire crews, and locals thought it would be short-lived. In fact, fire crew assistance was called off around midnight of the day it started, as the crews onsite thought the fire was contained and taken care of.
But the next morning brought other news, and significant damages were to come across the region. By 7:30 a.m., strong winds fueled the blaze to grow to over 50,000 acres, and additional crews were called back to the fire from fire districts from around the region. Within days, multiple communities were evacuated, emergency shelters created and staffed, and some of the smallest communities in Oregon faced over 130,000 acres of actively burning rangeland and forest without containment.
Utilities in the area faced extremely challenging conditions—the fire burned in desolate terrain, extremely rocky ground slowed pole replacements, and affected service areas were large enough to travel over 4 hours.
Among those affected was Columbia Power Cooperative, the smallest electric utility in the state. The utility serves over 3,000 square miles and just over 1,000 members. On average, the co-op serves 1 member per 3 square miles. The small utility became mighty quickly, as they had about 700 poles burn in the wildfire across their service territory. The co-op’s 11-person team worked hard to spread resources and equipment across its massive service area to support the fire efforts.
“There was no scheduling for our team,” said Lisa Atkin, general manager of Columbia Power Cooperative. “We played an ongoing game of whack-a-mole to fix whatever needed solving in that moment.”
In the first 2 weeks of the effort, the co-op’s 5-person line crew clocked over 500 overtime hours—enough of a change to their regular operation that the utility’s bank called to confirm the payment before releasing funds for payroll. Atkin commended her team’s effort during the fire.
“Not only were they experiencing the Lone Rock Fire, but an additional 9 other fires in our service area were actively burning at the same time,” she said. “They have a resiliency and mental fortitude that is unbelievable—and they focused on the tasks at hand.”
Atkin’s staff faced personal emergencies on top of the utility-related emergencies in their professional lives. Every town in the area was on a “Level 3 – Go Now” evacuation status, including Monument, where the utility is headquartered. As the co-op’s team solved problems for the utility and its members, many also experienced the possibility of losing their homes, livestock, and more.
The lineworkers on staff at Columbia Power Cooperative have unique circumstances, with many being raised in the frontier region. Many of them grew up with an innate awareness of wildfire possibilities and developed skills to be prepared for the worst. The crew had also completed specialized training to perform firefighting maneuvers other utility crews may not have.
Where possible and safely, crew members got ahead of the fire to trim as much vegetation as possible away from utility structures and allowed high winds to push the fire through the underbrush quickly. Once the area began to cool, they used backpack sprayers and a side-by-side water tank to drench the system’s structures, ultimately saving many poles from becoming total losses and needing emergency replacement.
“We have over 700 poles in the black,” Atkin said. “About 50 transmission poles and just as many distribution poles were replaced in an emergency setting, as their integrity had been compromised. The remaining poles are on a schedule to be assessed and replaced.”
Mutual aid is a vital resource for utilities during natural disasters, and Columbia Power Cooperative crews called on nearby utilities for help. However, they did not request any mutual aid for linework—strictly materials. The utility did not have the backstock of transmission poles and components to replace what they needed to in the emergency. With the help of several nearby utilities, the co-op acquired equipment and transportation methods to get the materials onsite and installed.
“We were fortunate to receive equipment from a variety of utility partners, not just co-ops, but also PUDs and a nearby investor-owned utility,” Atkin said.
In addition to the line crew’s efforts in the field, Columbia Power Cooperative’s other staff jumped on board to tackle a list of “other duties as assigned” in the moment. The cooperative’s full-time mechanic and full-time warehouseman responded to the co-op’s headquarters through the duration of the wildfire. On top of their duties to work on the cooperative’s equipment, they completed mechanical repairs on fire engines and water pumps as fire crews from across the country arrived.
Looking ahead, Columbia Power Cooperative is focused on improving preparedness and resilience.
“Our experiences have strengthened the importance of our vegetation management plans,” Atkin said. “We plan to do things differently in the future and are looking to find resources to implement those strategies.”
Atkin said she is also considering opportunities for grant dollars to support the co-op’s members with costs associated with ongoing repairs after a wildfire, and she is examining the possibility of adapting the utility’s response in an emergency or evacuation setting. Not only is Columbia Power Cooperative the smallest utility in the state but it also experiences high levels of fixed-income and low-income members, straining the utility’s ability to comfortably take on added costs.
“Our members are already experiencing the impacts of rising costs to their power bills,” Atkin said. “The added costs of replacements and repairs from the damages caused by these fires only compounds the need for additional monetary support not from the pockets of our membership.”
Columbia Power Cooperative leadership are also exploring the option of a mobile command center the co-op can use in emergency circumstances. All communities and nearly all homes in the utility’s service territory were under a “Level 3 – Go Now” evacuation notice during the fire, including the co-op’s headquarters office.
“I’d like to be in a position, whether it’s fire or snow, that we have some kind of portable office setup where we can move to a place of safety and continue our operation, regardless of what is going on,” Atkin said.
As the Lone Rock Fire raged on, Columbia Power Cooperative wasn’t the only utility stretched thin by the wildfire’s unpredictability. A neighboring utility, Columbia Basin Electric Cooperative in Heppner, Oregon, faced burnt service territory, member evacuations, and loss of system infrastructure to the same blaze. Though larger than Columbia Power Cooperative, CBEC is relatively small, serving 2,700 members in 3,000 square miles.
Jake Calvert, assistant operations manager for CBEC, said the co-op lost 48 poles and a handful of transformers in the fire. He said although the fire burned about 20 miles of line, the impact on members was not as severe as it could have been.
“We only had 16 members lose power at any point in time,” he said.
CBEC maintains a crew of 7 lineworkers, all of whom were on the job for extended time periods during the fire. The line crews, local fire departments, local volunteers, and fire resources called in from other parts of the state worked to manage the blaze and knock down the fast-moving progress. CBEC quickly replaced its damaged infrastructure with equipment in storage.
“We cleared out our bunks, but we were able to replace what needed to be fixed,” Calvert said.
CBEC accepted line crew support from Umatilla Electric Cooperative, which Calvert said allowed the utility to more quickly replace critical lines. Even with the help, crews made slow progress replacing poles due to the region’s rocky terrain. Kevin Knutz, manager of operations for Umatilla Electric, said his team was proud to support CBEC and help replace burnt poles.
"For our team, mutual aid goes beyond supporting another utility—it’s about giving back to our community and helping our neighbors,” Knutz said.
Reflecting on the situation, the CBEC team expressed appreciation for their internal fire mitigation strategies, implemented prior to the fire beginning.
“Fortunately, we’ve been keeping up on our wildfire mitigation plan,” said Keenan Jack, chief financial officer for the cooperative. “Our proactive vegetation management and right-of-way fuel reduction certainly helped us to avoid more extensive damage.”
In CBEC’s service area, damage to structures was limited and the community of Lonerock was saved.
“Our crews were extremely swift and proactive in de-energizing lines ahead of the fire, preventing additional spread of fire and protecting fire crews,” Calvert said. “We’re really proud of how they each handled business safely and effectively, supporting our members and communities through the challenges of this wildfire.”
The Lone Rock Fire is just 1 example of the challenges faced by utilities and their communities during an increasingly volatile wildfire season. Each fire leaves behind lessons and underscores the importance of preparation, collaboration, and innovation in response strategies. Wildfires are unpredictable and relentless, but public power utilities stand strong together. As these natural disasters intensify, the role of utilities in mitigating risks and ensuring reliable power becomes more pronounced, demanding a unified and proactive approach. The financial and liability challenges remain significant as electric utilities across the West contend with the constant risk of fires being attributed to their infrastructure.
As an industry, we’ve experienced heightened attention related to wildfires and collectively banded together to develop best practices, strategies, and safety protocols. It is also important to take opportunities to learn from other organizations when they experience the tragedies of a wildfire in their region.
The conversation surrounding wildfire is ages-old, yet only in its infancy for our industry. All utilities must band together and engage in discussions about preventing fires, understanding the evolving role of utilities, addressing legal liabilities, protecting citizens, and minimizing utility exposure.
Working together to address wildfire issues is our collective responsibility. By doing so, we will be better prepared to protect the communities we serve, safeguard infrastructure, and ensure a resilient future for the electric utility industry.
We are more powerful together.