Helping You Stay Safe During Wildfire Season
Montana-Dakota Utilities is focused on delivering reliable electric service while working to reduce wildfire risk across our service area. We monitor conditions, maintain our system and may take certain additional precautions during high-risk periods.
What You Can Do
Wildfire preparedness starts at home. Taking a few simple steps can help protect your property and keep your community safer.
Be Ready for Changing Conditions
- Stay informed on weather, outages and emergency updates
- Check our Outage and Storm Information page for the latest updates
Create Defensible Space
- Remove dry vegetation, leaves and debris around your home
- Maintain landscaping to reduce fire spread
Keep Your Contact Information Updated
- Help us reach you with outage alerts and safety notifications
What We’re Doing
We consider wildfire risk reduction in the operation and maintenance of our electric system.
Maintaining and Inspecting Our System
- Line patrols: Monitor electric lines for potential safety risks, as appropriate
- Equipment inspections: Regular or targeted checks of substations and protective devices
- Vegetation management: Managing growth near power lines where warranted to reduce risk
Strengthening the System
- System upgrades: Replacing and improving infrastructure
- Wildlife protection: Installing equipment that aims to reduce animal-related outages and wildfire-related risks
- Targeted hardening: Additional protections may be implemented in select higher-risk areas
How We Respond to Elevated Risk
During periods of increased wildfire danger, we may take certain additional precautions to protect public safety.
- Monitoring conditions: Weather, fire activity, and system performance
- Adjusting work: Postponing certain activities, when appropriate, to reduce wildfire-related risk
- Operational decisions: Depending on conditions, we may adjust operations to support public and system safety
Additional Resources
FAQ
Wildfires can pose a risk to electric infrastructure and public safety. During high-risk conditions, we may adjust operations intended to reduce wildfire-related risk and help protect our customers, employees, and communities.
You can help lower wildfire risk by:
- Clearing dry vegetation, leaves, and debris
- Maintaining landscaping around your home
- Creating defensible space to slow the spread of fire
Learn more about preparing your home through trusted resources like NFPA.
We share updates through:
- Outage and Storm Information on our website
- Customer notifications, including phone, email, or alerts (if your contact information is up to date and you’ve opted in to receive email and text alerts)
Make sure your contact information is current in your online account.
During periods of extreme wildfire risk, we may take additional safety precautions, which can include:
- Delaying restoration until conditions are safe for crews
- Using safety settings that prevent power lines from automatically restarting
These measures are intended to support the safety of both the public and our crews.
We use a range of measures that may help to reduce wildfire risk, including:
- Inspecting and maintaining electric lines and equipment
- Managing vegetation near power lines
- Upgrading and strengthening our electric system
- Monitoring weather and fire conditions
- Adjusting operations during high-risk periods
We aim to communicate with customers when practicable. However, in some situations, immediate action may be required to protect safety, which may limit advance notice.
Keeping your contact information up to date can help you receive timely updates.
You can find helpful information at: