SPOKANE, Wash – Avista’s CEO told investors Monday the wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of structures in Spokane did not start at any of the power company’s facilities.
Avista President and CEO Heather Rosentrater talked about the fires on the company’s Q2 earnings call.
“Our facilities were not involved in starting any of these fires in the Spokane area,” Rosentrater said. “We have restored service to customers whose outages were solely related to the public safety power shutoff. However, we still have electric and natural gas outages in parts of our service territory because of damaged infrastructure, evacuation restrictions, and ongoing safety concerns associated with the fires.”
At a news conference Monday morning, officials said the cause of the three major Spokane fires is under investigation.
Rosentrater said as of Monday morning, about 7,300 electric customers are without service and 5,300 natural gas customers.
She said the fires destroyed multiple transmission lines; one of them was reenergized Monday morning.
An investor on the call asked about the securitization of wildfire-related costs, which would allow the company to collect costs for the wildfire recovery, including the possibility of passing on those costs to customers.
Avista CFO Kevin Christie said that option would be more likely for a more impactful event than what is happening now.
“I don’t want it to seem like it’s not impactful to all of us that have been involved in the fires or having the fires around us, but from a sheer monetary perspective on the infrastructure, I wouldn’t see us being anywhere remotely close to that need,” Christie said.
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