Wind blasts lead to house fire

Katharhynn Heidelberg

Daily Press News Editor

MONTROSE — Wind blasted through the state with a vengeance Wednesday, hammering Montrose from noon onward. Before winds subsided after 8 p.m., they had downed powerlines and contributed to a fire at the home of a volunteer firefighter and Delta-Montrose Electric Association employee.

Montrose Fire Protection District Chief Bob Pistor said the winds took down a tree branch at 8:13 p.m. at the firefighter's South Third Street address. The branch brought down a power line, causing a short on the meter, which energized the home's main panel and the conduits connected to it, including the gas line. Wiring in the insulation then burned several floor joists.

Fire crews were able to control the fire with foam extinguishers, but could not immediately put it out with water until DMEA crews arrived to cut the power.

DMEA spokesman Tom Polikalis said the incident caused 576 customers to lose power for approximately one minute. Because of the brevity of the outage, it was not deemed to have been major.

He said there were a few more tree-related incidents that caused outages to individual customers and also a broken conductor on the line to Escalante Canyon, which affected 40 customers.

Winds were high statewide, Brian Avery of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Grand Junction office said.

"We had a very strong cold front move through the area. It brought high winds to most of Utah and Colorado."

The strongest gust in the state was recorded on Red Mountain Pass at 91 mph. In Montrose, winds were tamer, but still packed plenty of punch. Avery said the peak gust, recorded at the airport just before 8 p.m., was 54 mph. Gusts reached between 40 and 50 mph in the afternoon and the first gust over 45 mph was clocked at 12:30 p.m.

The cold front also dropped temperatures significantly. Thursday morning's temperature of 33 degrees was a marked decrease from yesterday's high of 70 degrees, Avery said.

More wind is expected Friday, but is expected to be in the 20 to 30 mph range. "It's nothing like we saw yesterday," Avery said.

The Montrose Interagency Fire Management Unit also advised the public that a prescribed burn, called the Paxton Fire, will begin taking place Thursday 10 miles southwest of Montrose. The burn will continue through Sunday. For more information, visit http://gacc.nifc.gov/rmcc/dispatch_centers/r2mtc