QUILCENE — A wildfire about eight miles west of Shelton prompted the shutdown of Bonneville Power Administration lines, causing a temporary loss of electrical power for 3,490 Jefferson County customers.
The Thursday night shutdown affected 1,607 Jefferson County Public Utility District customers.
It also blacked out all Mason County PUD 1 customers, which includes 1,883 customers in Jefferson County living in Brinnon and points south to the Mason County line.
The power was shut down at 7:51 p.m. It was restored in Coyle and Center Valley at 9:19 p.m. and at 10:30 p.m. in Quilcene and Brinnon.
The fire was in the BPA transmission corridor in the Skokomish Valley and burned portions of the BPA transmission lines that serve north of Shelton to Clallam County, said Kristin Masteller, director of public relations for Mason County PUD 1.
It was a ground fire that moved into the transmission corridor, she said.
It has since moved east out from underneath the corridor, Masteller said, although that could change.
“Right now, there is no danger [of another shutdown], she said this afternoon. “We’re not concerned that it’s going to reignite under the transmission site.”
The Jefferson County PUD temporarily routed power through the Chimacum substation to serve Coyle and Center Valley, said Bill Graham, resource manager with Jefferson County PUD.
The PUD contacted BPA and received an estimate of when the power would return and the decision was made to wait until the power returned rather than route Quilcene’s power through Chimacum, Graham said.
Jefferson County PUD called in extra staff to answer phones on the customer service line during the outage.
Electrical power has been restored to all of the Mason County PUD 1 customers except for less than 20 living on Sunnyside Road, where the fire still smolders, Masteller said.
Firefighters with the state Department of Natural Resources do not want the PUD to re-energize its lines until they are sure that fire is out, Masteller said.
She hoped that would be sometime tonight or Saturday.
