Black Hills Energy cancels outage watch as fire danger eases near Laramie

Residents in the Harriman and Curt Gowdy corridor west of Cheyenne could get only text, email and local media notice if Black Hills Energy needs to cut power again, and any PSPS outage could last a few hours or a few days. For Albany County-area households near the Laramie Range, the best preparation now is simple: keep phones charged, plan for medication and refrigeration needs, and avoid anything that could spark a fire when wind and humidity turn dangerous.

Black Hills Energy canceled its Emergency Public Safety Power Shutoff watch on April 23 after warning a day earlier that the company might temporarily de-energize lines in the high-risk areas. The watch was declared April 22 at 10 a.m. MT for the Harriman and Curt Gowdy areas west of Cheyenne, with the utility originally expecting it to run into late morning and evening hours on April 23 before conditions improved enough to remove the immediate need for a shutoff.

The timing matched a volatile fire-weather setup across southeast Wyoming. The National Weather Service in Cheyenne had a Red Flag Warning in effect on April 23 from 1:16 p.m. to 8 p.m. MDT, along with a High Wind Warning for Cheyenne/Warren AFB and a Fire Weather Watch for April 24. Forecast details pointed to the same ingredients Black Hills Energy watches for during PSPS decisions: strong wind and very low humidity, with minimum humidity values around 10 to 15 percent in the region.

Black Hills Energy says its PSPS program is designed to selectively and proactively de-energize power lines in high-risk fire areas so its equipment does not become an ignition source. The company uses 24/7 weather forecasting and wildfire monitoring tools to judge when conditions have crossed that line. Vice president Wes Ashton has said high wind speeds and low relative humidity can make the electric grid unsafe to operate during extreme fire weather.

The canceled watch was a near miss, not a false alarm. Black Hills Energy has used the same tool before in southeast Wyoming, including a February 24 warning for Harriman and Curt Gowdy and a March event that left roughly 300 Curt Gowdy-area customers without power while Harriman remained under warning. Earlier communications also referenced about 350 customers in the risk area during a prior PSPS event.

For people in and around Laramie, the lesson is that shutoff notices can come quickly when wind, dry fuels and low humidity line up. When that happens, Black Hills Energy says to report outages or emergencies at 888-890-5554.