Big Bear residents endure power safety shutoffs due to high wildfire risk
Thousands of Big Bear residents were forced to endure a series of power safety shutoffs on Friday due to a high risk of wildfires in the area caused by warm weather and strong winds.
The shutoffs, which will continue through Sunday, were announced by Bear Valley Electric Service for two of its transmission lines that are operated by Southern California Edison.
"This is due to high winds and fire conditions forecasted in the region. If SCE de-energizes these lines, BVES will have very limited capacity and some or all BVES customers may experience outages for the period of concern," a news release from SCE and BVES said. "BVES continues to monitor the conditions and will keep customers informed of any changes."
Bear Valley Electric provides power to approximately 22,000 residents in the area, and said that the weather risk could cause a mainline to malfunction and possibly start a wildfire.
"We gotta really watch the conditions that'll affect the shutoff of the supply lines," said Daniel Hotchkiss of BVES.
While wind conditions around Big Bear Lake weren't necessarily high on Friday afternoon, there were reports of strong gusts in the Lucerne Valley, where there's a main SCE line that feeds BVES the majority of its power.
In order to keep the necessities, like Bear Valley Community Hospital, online, BVES shut power off to businesses and homes starting Friday morning for several hours.
"We're all trying to prevent any wildfires that have been happening throughout California," said BVES employee Tom Chou.
Officials advised people to try conserving as much power as possible when the service was on, use surge protectors for valuable electronics, prepare emergency kits in the event of a fire and keep their refrigerators or freezers closed.
"We are residents up here, we do our best to maintain the continuity of service. Not only for you folks, but for us too," Hotchkiss said.
BVES officials said that they would be monitoring weather conditions around the clock and would alert residents of any significant changes to their plans by voice and text messages, their Facebook page and their website.
