Residents around Kamas, Francis and Oakley aren’t imagining it, the power company says. Their power is being cut more often this year.
According to Rocky Mountain Power spokesperson Jona Whitesides, the company has new fire safety settings on its transmission lines that shut them off in a range of scenarios.
“Within fractions of a second when they're either contacted by debris, wildlife or even strong winds,” he said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” July 24. “The whole purpose of that has to reduce the likelihood of equipment emitting sparks that could cause a wildfire.”
There have been 21 total outages in 2025, according to spokesperson David Eskelsen, on the circuit serving Oakley, Marion and Peoa and the circuit serving Kamas, Francis and Woodland. It’s the first year of enhanced safety settings on those two circuits.
Oakley resident Barbara Dennis is one of thousands of customers, including grocery and restaurant businesses, who have been affected.
“On the surface, [it’s] a wonderful program. However, it seems like the sensors are just — maybe need to be adjusted or something,” she told KPCW. “The challenge is, you just never know when it's going to go out or for how long. And I, like so many people in this area, work remotely. It impacts my work day.”
Sensor adjustments could be coming since residents have called and messaged Rocky Mountain Power.
“One of the things that we are doing in response to the feedback that we received from customers is that we're reviewing and adjusting the sensitivity of these safety settings,” Eskelsen said. “You know, where they are applied, particularly on these two circuits. And we're performing additional foot patrols and drone patrols of our assets to see if we can locate any areas that might be more prone to outages, and taking measures … to increase our reliability.”
Whitesides said the safety measures are temporary for areas that are more vulnerable to fires until Rocky Mountain Power can move power lines underground or install metal, fire-resistant poles.
They didn’t offer a timeline for when those improvements could come to South Summit.
According to Eskelsen, outages around Kamas and Oakley usually haven’t lasted longer than about an hour. Crews need to go and inspect Rocky Mountain Power’s equipment before the company turns power back on each time.
He said the company monitors heat, humidity and wind speed in its service areas. When the fire risk from those factors comes down, that’s when the sensitivity settings on electrical equipment can too.
In the meantime, Dennis said she’d like to prepare for more outages by buying a generator, for example. But she said Rocky Mountain Power doesn’t offer the incentive programs for generators in Utah that it does in other states.
Rocky Mountain Power offers updates on outages here.
