SALT LAKE CITY — It's well into summer, and that means wildfire season, but Rocky Mountain Power is using a team of meteorologists to predict where wildfires may spark—and prevent them from happening.
They've created an emergency management room housing a team of meteorologists who track current weather conditions against decades' worth of data, as well as heat and wind conditions from more than 400 weather stations in the service area.
“We do this every day—millions of wildfire simulations every single day to understand the potential risk and consequences of wildfires so that we can target our action," said Meteorology Manager Steven Vanderburg with Rocky Mountain Power.
This program, just a few years old, can also proactively shut off power in targeted areas.
“We need to understand when there's the chance for outages that could lead to sparks that could lead to wildfires,” explains Vanderburg.
In addition to this program, Rocky Mountain Power has made upgrades to "harden" the grid, including insulating power lines and relocating some underground.
“If something does come in contact that can spark, we're changing out some of the other equipment to make it less likely to throw sparks," said Vanderburg.
Although the utility is focusing on the area's foothills and canyons for its power line projects,
Vanderburg warns people that they shouldn't get "lulled into a false sense of security" if they don't live in a forested or other high-risk location.
“We’re prepared, and we're going to continue to get better and better each year.”
