The National Weather Service in Spokane has issued a Red Flag Warning (RFW) for North Central Washington, including OCEC’s service territory. The warning is in effect from 11 AM Saturday, August through 8 AM on Sunday, August 12th. The RFW is due to predicted thunderstorms in the Methow Valley's Fire Weather Zone 704.
- In response, OCEC will move to the Red level of our Wildfire Mitigation Plan on Saturday morning, 8/22. We will return to the Yellow level when the Red Flag Warning expires or conditions improve. We will continue to update our website with the current mitigation status.
As part of this safety response, OCEC crews will set all automated line reclosers, including the substation, to non-reclose. This helps reduce the chance of sparks if a fault occurs on the line, but it may also result in more frequent and longer outages.
When a recloser is set to non-reclose and a fault occurs, the line will remain de-energized until OCEC crews can manually inspect the entire length of the line and confirm it is safe to restore power.
We understand outages are inconvenient, and we appreciate our members’ patience as we take these proactive steps to reduce wildfire risk and protect our community.
Spokane National Weather Service Notice (external link)
*Please be advised that we do not monitor text messages. If you are without power, call our office at 509-996-2228. If there is an emergency (i.e. tree across the road, or a tree on fire on the line), call 911 to activate Fire District 6 along with OCEC.