Squirrel contact downs power line and starts brush fire in Pocatello

What happened

A squirrel contacted a power line on a ridge just east of Valleyview Drive in Pocatello, causing the line to fall to the ground. The incident occurred around 12:45 p.m. The fallen line ignited a brush fire that scorched about a quarter-acre of land behind houses. Residents used garden hoses to limit spread until the Pocatello Fire Department arrived and extinguished the fire in about five minutes. The outage affected approximately 1,060 customers on the city's west bench. Idaho Power restored supply to all customers by 2:30 p.m. No injuries occurred, no structures were damaged and no evacuations were required.

Contributing factors

Wildlife contact with overhead line equipment.

Lessons learned

1. Wildlife contact with an overhead line can drop a conductor and start a vegetation fire as well as an outage.
2. A rapid utility response can keep a distribution outage short; here supply was restored the same afternoon.
3. A downed-line fire can stay small when fire services arrive quickly, but members of the public should not be treated as the means of controlling a fire started by a live conductor.

Source

idahostatejournal.com