NV Energy may shut off power in Mount Charleston area Wednesday

NV Energy is considering turning off electric service in the Mount Charleston area Wednesday night for as long as 40 hours to avoid a potential wildfire.

UPDATE: NV Energy pushes possible Mount Charleston outage to Thursday

“Safety is our priority,” the company said in a statement on its website. “To protect our customers and community from the risk of extreme weather, we are implementing a Public Safety Outage Management (PSOM) program in extreme fire-risk areas during Nevada wildfire season, which starts around June.”

NV Energy said a shut-off “is possible on Wednesday, May 19 at 6 p.m. in the Kyle Canyon (area) … This outage is expected to last 40 hours.”

The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch from Wednesday evening through Thursday for Southern Nevada. Gusts in the Las Vegas area could reach 40 mph.

NV Energy said the shut-off “helps prevent power lines, things that are blown into power lines, and other equipment from causing a wildfire.”

“We acknowledge that this is a difficult decision, and PSOM is a key measure of defense,” the company said. “No single factor drives a PSOM event. NV Energy will work with a weather analytics expert to closely monitor a number of environmental factors and work with local emergency management teams and other stakeholders to evaluate risk in order to determine whether to shut off power for safety.”

Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@reviewjournal.com. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.