Officials of Tucson Electric Power Co. are closely monitoring the Wallow fire in eastern Arizona for possible damage to power lines leading from the Springerville Generating Station and the San Juan Generating Station in western New Mexico.
While the Springverville plant is not in immediate danger, at around midday the fire was about eight miles from the high-voltage transmission lines, TEP spokesman Joe Salkowski said.
If the fire gets within about a half-mile of the lines, thick smoke could cause the lines to arc, triggering an automatic shutoff, Salkowski said.
If power from Springerville is disrupted, TEP is prepared to rely on local generation from the H. Wilson Sundt Generating Station on East Irvington Road in to maintain normal service, he said, adding the Tucson plant already has been fired up in preparation.
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“It will, however, leave us more vulnerable to other, unforeseen problems,” Salkowksi said.
If the Springerville and San Juan lines are down and a third line fails, TEP could be subject to blackouts, he said.
TEP operates the four-unit, coal-fired Springerville plant, which has a total generating capacity of 1,560 megawatts. TEP gets power from Units 1 and 2; Tri-State Generation and Transmission, a consortium of utililties serving parts of Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming gets power from Unit 3; and the Salt River Project gets power from Unit 4.
TEP is allotted half of the power from two of the four generating units of the San Juan power plant, near Farmington, N.M.