![\"Smoky](\"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/October-2020-image-edit-340x249.jpg\")
Photo by Thomas Elzinga<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
On the evening of Monday, September 7, 2020, the power went out at the home of Steve and Kathy Keable, who live in the town of Blue River, in the McKenzie River Valley outside of Eugene. They saw a glow across the river, and Kathy\u2014a director at Lane Electric Cooperative\u2014checked a scanner app on her phone. The Holiday Farm Fire was fast approaching.<\/p>\n
After alerting neighbors\u2014and with embers raining down on their property\u2014 the Keables grabbed their cats and fled to an evacuation site near Eugene.<\/p>\n
They were not alone.<\/p>\n
That evening, thousands of Oregonians across Western Oregon had similar stories as deadly wildfires\u2014fanned by east winds and a drought-stricken landscape\u2014created a path of unprecedented destruction. The fires, which have scorched more than 1 million acres throughout the state, spanned from the state\u2019s southern border to the coast and just outside of Portland.<\/p>\n
Rural areas served by Oregon\u2019s electric cooperatives in the mid-Willamette Valley faced significant damage, not only from fires but from high winds that caused widespread outages.<\/p>\n
At a press conference on September 9, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced the conflagration \u201ccould be the greatest loss in human lives and property in our state\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the towns of Detroit, Blue River, and Vida, which included full or partial-service by electric cooperatives, were \u201csubstantially destroyed.\u201d At least eight Oregonians were killed in the fires, with a dozen still missing.<\/p>\n Leaders of Consumers Power Inc., based in Philomath, knew early on there was significant damage to the community and the co-op\u2019s infrastructure in the Santiam Canyon, which includes the community of Detroit, a small tourist community east of Salem.<\/p>\n As the Beachie Creek Fire raced through their territory, covering about 500 feet a second, CPI CEO Roman Gillen gave a sobering account of the situation.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not sure we have any customers up there to serve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When CPI crews were allowed to enter the Detroit area, they found what was described as a war zone, with few structures left standing. A crucial substation, however, survived the blaze after a Caterpillar created a fireline around the perimeter.<\/p>\n CPI immediately set out to restore power to the area and put out the call for additional crew from Oregon co-ops.<\/p>\n \u201cThe response was immediate and tremendous,\u201d Gillen said, as linemen from Salem Electric, Midstate Electric, Oregon Trail Electric, and Hood River Electric cooperatives arrived to help.<\/p>\n Just more than a week later, power was restored to the area.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is nothing short of a miracle,\u201d Gillen said.<\/p>\n Lane Electric faced a similar catastrophe in the McKenzie River Valley. Shocking video footage showed the town of Blue River reduced to ash, rubble, and twisted metal as the Keables waited for news of their home.<\/p>\n The co-op\u2019s focus on restoring power to their members ran headlong into the forces of wind and fire.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are broken poles like I\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d said Lane CEO Debi Wilson, noting that restoring electricity was difficult even days later when \u201cparts of our system are still on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n Lane Electric, along with two other electric co-ops\u2014Blachly-Lane and West Oregon\u2014also faced a new reality that made it difficult to fulfill their mission to keep the lights on: Energized power lines could exacerbate the situation if trees, felled by wind or fire, fell into the lines.<\/p>\n The co-ops deliberately shut off power to keep their communities safe.<\/p>\n Less than a week after the fires, Lane Electric brought a 2-megawatt generator into the McKenzie River Valley, navigating a small state highway with debris and logs breaking loose from the hillside.<\/p>\n With line crews operating in warm temperatures and the worst air quality in the world\u2014during a pandemic\u2014Lane Electric was able to energize all of its lines east of Blue River, a full day earlier than expected.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are incredibly proud of our staff and crew for the \u2018can-do\u2019 attitude and grit that made this all possible,\u201d Lane Electric tweeted on September 15.<\/p>\n State officials said more than 500 homes and buildings were destroyed by the Holiday Farm Fire.<\/p>\n Days after the fire swept through the McKenzie River Valley, Steve and Kathy Keable received confirmation that while other homes in their area had been incinerated, their home had survived the fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As communities in rural Oregon grapple with unimaginable tragedy from deadly wildfires, electric co-ops band together to restore power\u2014and hope. By Ted Case On the evening of Monday, September 7, 2020, the power went out at the home of Steve and Kathy Keable, who live in the town of Blue River, in the McKenzie River […]\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Blue](\"https:\/\/www.oreca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/October-2020-image-2-edit-233x340.jpg\")
Photo by Zechariah English<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n