Boulder County residents express frustration with United Power after several fires

Winds began to lessen Friday night after days of trouble along Colorado's Front Range and days of power outages, both planned and unplanned.

Friday night, there were still about 90,000 customers without power. By noon on Saturday, it was just over 52,000. Xcel said the restoration of power in its service area would still be impacted by high winds. Some customers were told it may not be until Sunday before power is back.

Two small fires were handled quickly by foothills departments. One near Wellington Lake in Jefferson County was about an acre and a quarter, and another on the west side of Conifer was about one-quarter acre. The most significant fire was on Wednesday when an investigator said a generator being used at a home on Pleasant Park Road in Conifer malfunctioned. The home was a total loss.

In Nederland on Friday, people said a fire sparked when United Power re-energized a line in an area along Lazy Z Road after they called to report it down.

"The moment I got off the line with United, they flipped the power on. And I don't know what happened, and I was like, 'you guys have to turn the power off.' I went outside, sniffed around, and started smelling smoke," said Nederland resident Sean Bryant. He called back.

"I was on the phone with United, this lovely woman on the other line, she started her spiel, she was like, 'thank you so much, Sean, we got this.' I was like, 'stop talking, just get the power off. We got fire, we got sparks. If we don't take care of this, it's going to become so bad.'"

Attempts to reach United Power spokespeople for an explanation were unsuccessful.

"When somebody calls in and says that there's a fire, that there's a downed line, do not turn the power on. You need to pay attention to that," said Bryant.

In Boulder, power remained out on the west side of the city Friday night. People looked on as workers dealt with a snapped pole at Kalmia Court and 28th Street. Jennifer Williams had been experiencing a lack of power from a planned outage all day.

"We don't want fires. That is far more dangerous than a blackout," she said of the broken pole. "Ideally, we just don't want to have either."