Many of you may already be aware but the Douglas Forest Protective Association has set IFPL 4. As a result, and in keeping with our fire mitigation plan, we will be placing all of our substation reclosures (similar to a large breaker) into their most sensitive settings. What this means is that when anything touches our lines (birds, squirrels, limbs, etc.) and creates a fault, the breaker will trip and that whole feeder will be shut off until the fault is found and the line has been inspected. Unfortunately, this will result in more frequent, longer, and larger outages than we normally experience. It is our proactive way of reducing the fire danger for everyone. We apologize in advance if you are impacted by one of these unplanned outages. Earlier in the year, we talked about having a backup plan in case of an unplanned outage, particularly if you have medical conditions where electricity is a necessity, now is the time to revisit those plans.
Again, we are not shutting power off, we are adjusting our equipment to a more sensitive setting, which will likely result in more unplanned outages. We will likely be in this situation until we get some rain or temperatures moderate.
Thank you for your patience.
-Douglas Electric Cooperative Staff