Power Down of Last Resort

On July 22, roughly 7.5% of NorthWestern Energy’s Montana customers received a message from the utility company about a potential power shutoff. The warning came both digitally and via mail to 30,000 energy consumers located in or adjacent to heavily forested areas of the state.

“Our wildfire specialists have identified your property to be within a high‑risk area,” the email read. “Due to living in a high‑risk wildfire area, we want to help you prepare for service interruptions and public safety power shutoffs.”

To many energy consumers, public safety power shutoffs were a hitherto unheard of...