If you have electrical questions you’d like answered in a future edition of this column, send them to the Editor at northshorejournal@gmail.com, or email John directly at john@clovervalleyelectric.com.
Dry Vegetation and Electricity: An Undesirable Match
I was working on rewiring a hundred-year-old house on Friday when a friend called my apprentice to say that a fire had started north of Two Harbors near where they were fishing. That fire became the Stewart Trail Fire, and by Sunday morning, it had burned over 350 acres, damaged or destroyed 34 structures, closed Highway 61, and forced evacuations across the area.
On Monday morning, an update from Lake County listed the cause of the Stewart Trail Fire as a power line. However, this was not an isolated incident; the Stewart Trail Fire was part of a large cluster of fires that started around the region. The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office reported that some of the wildfires that broke out were the result of trees and power lines making contact during the high winds.
All of our local electrical utilities on the North Shore engage in vegetation management to reduce the risk of these types of events. Several thousand line-miles of electrical distribution lines exist in Lake and Cook Counties, which makes keeping tabs on every tree nearby a massive ongoing effort. After the news broke that a power line was responsible, at least in part, for the Stewart Trail Fire, I reached out to Co-op Light and Power. Their spokeswoman Megan Olmscheid said CLP “continues to prioritize wildfire mitigation efforts across our service territory through ongoing vegetation management and system resiliency planning,” including “right-of-way maintenance, hazard tree management, and projects supported in part through state grant opportunities.”
While our local utilities like CLP are continually monitoring their distribution and transmission lines, they cannot catch everything across several thousand miles of line. The conditions that allowed the Stewart Trail Fire to spread so fast were likely a combination of sustained high winds, very low humidity, and dry vegetation from a spring with little rain. Those conditions can turn any ignition source – a downed power line, a debris burn, a spark from equipment – into a vegetation fire. There are several things property owners can do to help reduce the risk to their properties.
The first is vegetation around power lines on your property. Utilities like Minnesota Power, Cooperative Light and Power, and Arrowhead Electric maintain clearances along their transmission and distribution rights-of-way, but property owners should also take responsibility for trees and vegetation near their own service drop, meter base, and any overhead conductors crossing their property. A dead tree leaning toward a power line, a branch growing into a service drop, or dry brush piled near a meter base are all potential ignition paths, especially on a hot, dry spring day. If you see a tree or limb in contact with or threatening a power line, do not attempt to remove it yourself. If it is a utility-owned line, call the utility directly – as Olmscheid noted, CLP encourages members to report potential hazards near electric infrastructure when identified. They have crews trained for that work and want to know about hazard trees before they become emergencies.
The second is clearing and maintaining defensible space around your structures. The national Firewise framework used by the National Fire Protection Association breaks this into zones. The first five feet around your home should be as non-combustible as possible – no wood mulch against the foundation, no dead leaves in gutters, no firewood stacked against the wall. From five to thirty feet, vegetation should be thinned and separated so fire cannot easily climb from ground cover into the tree canopy. Dead and dry vegetation in this space can bring a wildfire directly to your structures along the ground. From thirty to a hundred feet out, the goal is to reduce the overall density of fuel so a fire moving toward the structure can be slowed down before it arrives.
The third is testing your backup systems. Some North Shore properties have wildfire sprinkler systems – exterior sprinklers designed to wet the roof and walls of a structure during a fire event. If you have one, spring is a great time to test it out. By starting it up, you can make sure the pump works, the sprinkler heads are not clogged, any leaks and pressure losses can be fixed, and that the water supply is adequate. If your sprinkler system runs on a pump that depends on electric power, think about what happens when the power goes out. Co-op Light and Power was reporting several customers out of power during and after the Stewart Trail Fire. A backup generator with a properly installed transfer switch can keep that water pump running when utility power is lost. If you have a generator for this purpose, start it, transfer the load, and confirm everything operates. A wildfire sprinkler system that cannot run during an outage is not protecting your property when you need it most.
I wrote about generators, transfer switches, and interlock kits in an earlier column. That advice applies directly here. If you are relying on a generator to power critical systems during an emergency or want to have that option, the time to plan is not during an emergency.
Last week, I was up on the Gunflint Trail visiting a couple of upcoming project sites. Even with the amount of water flowing in our creeks and rivers, the vegetation was extremely dry. The story is the same from one end of the shore to the other right now. I think we are all very grateful to the folks who serve in emergency response, law enforcement, and firefighting (including all our volunteer fire department members who worked several unpaid days this past week). We should all take a few minutes to assess our own properties to help reduce the risk of more fires in the future.
John Christensen is a licensed Master Electrician in Minnesota and has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota – Duluth. If you have electrical questions you’d like answered in a future edition of this column, send them to the editor, or email John directly at john@clovervalleyelectric.com
The advice provided in this column is intended for general informational purposes only. If you have specific concerns or a situation requiring professional assistance, you should consult with a qualified professional for advice or service tailored to your individual circumstances. The author, this newspaper, and publisher are not responsible for the outcomes or results of following any advice from this column. You are solely responsible for your actions.
