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Pole fire causes power outage

Greg Masse
Post Independent Staff

GLENWOOD SPRINGS ” A localized blackout here Monday was caused by an Xcel Energy power pole fire in Glenwood Canyon, an Xcel spokesman said.

The power failure occurred at 10:17 a.m. Monday, affecting Glenwood Springs and New Castle. It lasted just minutes in some places and close to an hour in the southern part of Glenwood Springs.

“We did have a pole fire,” Xcel Energy spokesman Steve Roalstad said. “It was a 69-kilowatt transmission line coming out of the Shoshone hydro station.”



The cause of the pole fire was still unknown as of Monday afternoon, but Roalstad said crews were on the scene repairing the H-shaped pole that burned down.

“It wound up burning the pole and the line,” Roalstad said. “In about 20 minutes we were able to get to our substation and switch it around.”



Glenwood Springs Electric Department line superintendent John Hines said he received word of the fire and subsequent outage shortly after it happened.

“They reported to us that they had a pole on fire in the canyon and had to shut power off to the city until they could get the switching done,” he said.

South Glenwood Springs was left without electricity for the longest time, about 50 minutes. North Glenwood lost power for about 20 minutes and West Glenwood was only dark for about five minutes, Hines said.

New Castle town clerk Lisa Cain said New Castle Town Hall lost electricity for six minutes.

Traffic along Grand Avenue appeared to be unaffected by the darkened traffic signals, although police officers directed traffic at some key intersections.

Some businesses, such as Rite Aid, were forced to close temporarily until the power came back on.

Contact Greg Masse: 945-8515, ext. 511

gmasse@postindependent.com


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