BOISE, Idaho — Idaho Power opened its emergency incident response room to give us a look at how the company handles severe weather.
WATCH: How Idaho Power responds to severe weather events
Jon Axtman, director of wildfire mitigation at Idaho Power, said the threats vary by season but share a common thread of danger.
"In the wintertime it can be ice storms, it can be snowstorms, or it could be just high winds and in the summertime it's those situations that involve low humidity, dry fuels and high winds, that's what we are most concerned with," Axtman said.
Derek Blestrud, an atmospheric scientist who works closely with Axtman, said the team's job is to watch for critical conditions and get that information to decision-makers quickly.
"Our team is looking at thunderstorms, we are looking at wind speeds, we are looking at individual weather stations, and then when we see something critical happening, we relay that to the people that are making decisions, whether we should keep the power on or turn it off," Blestrud said.
Teams of up to 80 people monitor the Gem State for upcoming events, preparing for emergency shutoffs and plotting responses to severe weather. Wildfires are a major focus this time of year.
"If the fire is close to the lines, we'll start to look at encroachment on our lines. We will run fire simulations of where that fire's going to spread to. We will look at weather situations to see if there's an impact to our distribution system or transmission systems," Blestrud said.
The monitoring effort is year-round. More than 200 weather sites collect data across the state, and sensors are tuned to shut off automatically if severe weather impacts power lines — all part of Idaho Power's effort to adapt to Idaho's ever-changing forecast.
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