Fire on power pole sparks C. Falls outage

The Daily Inter Lake

Power went out late Sunday afternoon in southwestern Columbia Falls - extending west to Dillon Road, halfway to Whitefish on Montana 40.

The outage occurred at 5:42 p.m., knocking out electricity to roughly 2,000 homes and businesses, said Stephanie Wallace, community relations manager for the Flathead Electric Cooperative.

Columbia Falls firefighters were called on duty to direct traffic at the town's major intersections, including the U.S. 2-Montana 40 intersection at the Blue Moon tavern, while Flathead Electric employees worked on tracking down the outage's source and fixing the problem.

The culprit was a power pole that caught fire a few hundred feet west of Columbia Falls' Meadow Lake Boulevard, Wallace said. That fire knocked out some lines and equipment connected to the pole. Although the exact circumstances of how the blackout rippled out still were being determined Sunday evening, that incident led to the power outage.

The recent fog, moisture and snow likely damaged the power pole's insulation, allowing electrical current to leak out to spark the fire, she said.

Power was restored to about 1,000 customers by 7:25 p.m. The Flathead Electric Cooperative expected the remaining customers to be back online by midnight.