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UPDATE: Power was restored in the Fort Nelson area around 2 a.m. Saturday, May 20.
FORT NELSON, B.C. – Wildfire smoke has caused the generating plant powering the Fort Nelson area to go offline again, according to BC Hydro.
Power is out for approximately 3,387 customers from Fort Nelson, Fort Nelson First Nation, and Prophet River First Nation.
This comes after 3,800 customers in the area were without power for almost 24 hours, starting Thursday until power was restored Friday morning. Thursday’s outage was due to the generating station going offline due to the smoke and ash clogging the unit’s filter system, which has happened again.
As of 6:40 p.m. Friday, BC Hydro says a truck driver is on his way to Fort Nelson with replacement filters needed to get the plant up and running again.
The filter is expected to arrive around 11 p.m., and power should be restored again between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Saturday.
Depending on the air quality conditions, BC Hydro says it will probably have to change out more filters in the future, resulting in a three-hour power outage to complete the work.
The extra filters have been ordered and are supposed to arrive in the next week.
BC Hydro says residents will be notified of the outage before it occurs.
The outages in Fort Nelson came after a wildfire in Alberta burned a transmission line that supplies power to the area on May 3rd. As a result, BC Hydro started supplying electricity through the local generating station.
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