Elizabeth Wilson
Record-Bee staff
Lower Lake ? It was a bad day for traffic collisions, downed power lines, and power outages in Lake County on Friday. Residents reported power outages that shut off their electricity in Lower Lake until about 5 a.m. or later in some cases, due to downed PG&E power lines caused by an unlucky bird that flew into electrical wires located near Ployez Winery at a private driveway off of Highway 29 near Spruce Grove Road. The power lines fell to the ground, sparking an approximately two-acre grassfire.
The fire was quickly contained, and power reinstated by PG&E, but not for long ? the power surreptitiously went off again at 6:29 a.m., leaving residents wondering. However, this time the power was off due to yet another incident of downed power lines. A delivery truck hit a power pole, ending up on its side on Highway 29 just north of its intersection with Highway 53 in Lower Lake, according to a CHP traffic incident log on the Web. (For more information see related story).
According to PG&E, the power outage near Ployez Winery left an undetermined amount of citizens without power until about 9:40 a.m., while 2,584 residents were without power due to the vehicular incident. Power was back on for most residents by 2:03 p.m.
Ployez Winery owner Shirley Ployez, who co-owns the winery and tasting room with her husband, said the fire alarm in their tasting room went off at 1:00 a.m. “It woke my husband up, we went into the tasting room because the buzzer went off, looked out the window and did see the fire starting, about 50 yards away from the tasting room on our neighbors property,” said Ployez.
She added that the police were already out front and fire engines and personnel on their way when they put in a call to the fire department.
“They contained it and were gone by about 3 a.m. It was quite a bit of property that was burned, but everybody was fine, it was just a grassfire,” said Ployez.
Lake County Fire Protection District firefighters were unable to return calls placed by the Record-Bee Friday due to a personnel training that kept them out of the office on Friday, but volunteer firefighter Bob Minenna who was on the scene during the early morning incident said this of the fire, “they had a dozer (bulldozer) out there, CDF was there, water tenders (fire engines), and a lot of people were out there fighting the fire?sometimes it”s kinda hard to get everybody out there to one fire, but it”s easier at night because more people can respond,” said Minenna.
“They pretty much determined that it was a bird that flew into the power lines and caused the fire,” said Minenna.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
