B.C. wildfires causing flickering lights, outages for some BC Hydro customers

Wildfires raging near Clinton, British Columbia, are disrupting power for BC Hydro customers across the province, causing lights to flicker and leading to service interruptions. The extensive smoke and ash from the fires are coating critical transmission lines, affecting the stability of the provincial power grid.

"Part of the backbone of the grid is near where there’s a lot of fire activity in the Southern Interior," explained Bob Gammer, BC Hydro community relations coordinator. "And smoke and ash is getting on some of our largest power lines down in the Southern Interior. That’s what’s leading to this flickering of the lights."

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Part of the backbone of the grid is near where there’s a lot of fire activity in the Southern Interior. And smoke and ash is getting on some of our largest power lines down in the Southern Interior. That’s what’s leading to this flickering of the lights.

Gammer noted that the intense wildfire activity makes it unsafe for BC Hydro crews to access the affected power lines to clear the buildup of soot and ash. While BC Hydro typically builds redundancy into its system to allow for workarounds during maintenance or issues, the current situation is different. "But in this case, this is so central to the whole operation of the grid, there really isn’t a suitable workaround in this case for our large 500,000-volt transmission lines," he stated.

The fires, including the Pear Lake wildfire which is rapidly approaching the Village of Clinton, have led to expanded evacuation orders and alerts. The Big Bar complex fires have already destroyed at least 20 structures in the Big Bar Lake area.

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But in this case, this is so central to the whole operation of the grid, there really isn’t a suitable workaround in this case for our large 500,000-volt transmission lines.