Xcel Energy is preparing to shut off electricity to tens of thousands of customers along Colorado’s Front Range around midday Wednesday, Dec. 17, as dry fuels and potentially hurricane‑force wind gusts combine to create extreme wildfire risk.
The state’s largest utility says it is “likely” to implement a Public Safety Power Shutoff, or PSPS, in high‑risk areas stretching from Boulder County north to Larimer and Weld counties and into parts of the foothills, in an effort to prevent power lines from sparking fast‑moving fires.
After weeks of unseasonably warm, snow‑free weather, much of the urban corridor from Denver to Fort Collins is critically dry. Meteorologists say a powerful storm system sweeping across the West will drive downslope winds of 60 to 80 mph along the foothills on Wednesday, with localized gusts potentially higher, while relative humidity plunges and vegetation remains parched.
The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning and High Wind Warning for Larimer County on Wednesday, citing sustained winds of 20 to 40 mph and gusts up to 80 mph along the foothills. Forecasters warn that any spark could quickly grow into a dangerous wildfire as a result.
Record‑breaking warmth has primed the landscape. Denver tied a century‑old temperature record on Monday, hitting 68 degrees — the warmest Dec. 15 since 1921 — marking the city’s seventh straight day at or above 60 degrees, according to Colorado Public Radio reporting on National Weather Service data. A National Weather Service meteorologist in Boulder described fuels on the plains and lower foothills as “just so dry,” with little late‑season green vegetation left to slow a fire.
Xcel’s most recent updates indicate that roughly 50,000 to 52,000 customers could lose power in a targeted PSPS event starting late Wednesday morning. The utility says the likely outage window will begin around 10 a.m. and last until wind speeds diminish, which forecasters currently expect will be around early Wednesday evening.
Initially, Xcel signaled that a shutoff could affect customers in nine Front Range counties — Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld — beginning around noon Wednesday. A company news release on Dec. 15 described a likely PSPS starting at 12 p.m. Dec. 17 across those counties. By Tuesday evening, however, the company said it had narrowed the footprint to higher‑risk circuits, primarily in Boulder, Clear Creek, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties, while also moving the anticipated start time up by two hours.
Public Safety Power Shutoffs are a relatively new tool for utilities in the Interior West, modeled in part on similar programs used by California utilities after catastrophic wildfires linked to power lines. In a PSPS, a company proactively de‑energizes specific high‑risk lines ahead of forecast extreme fire weather — typically where strong winds, low humidity, dry fuels and rough terrain combine to make firefighting difficult.
Xcel officials say the company first implemented a PSPS in Colorado in April 2024 and has since refined its modeling tools and grid infrastructure to target smaller areas. In its Dec. 17 planning update, the utility emphasized that risk assessments using advanced modeling and recent grid improvements allowed it to reduce the size of the affected area for this week’s event. The company describes PSPS as a last resort, used only when multiple fire‑risk indicators are elevated at the same time.
Local governments are warning residents that once lines are turned off, power may not return quickly. Boulder County’s Office of Disaster Management cautioned that outages linked to a PSPS could last from 24 to 72 hours or longer, because crews must inspect every line and repair damage before re‑energizing the system. Similar guidance from Larimer County explains that a PSPS is used during “extreme or critical wildfire risk conditions” and that restoration efforts begin only after the most dangerous weather has passed.
Emergency managers and local officials are urging residents in the potential shutoff zone to prepare as if they will be without electricity for at least a full day, and possibly several. Boulder’s disaster management office has told residents to expect power to go off “mid‑day” Wednesday and to plan for multi‑day outages if inspections uncover damage on key circuits.
Preparedness steps recommended by county and state agencies include charging phones and backup batteries; stocking at least 72 hours’ worth of water, nonperishable food and medications; and making a backup plan for any electrically powered medical devices. Boulder County is also asking residents to have an evacuation plan, keep vehicles fueled or charged, and know how to manually open garage doors in case power fails while they are home, guidance detailed in the county’s public safety power shutoff advisories.
The decision to cut electricity is not without controversy. Large‑scale outages pose serious challenges for residents who rely on powered medical devices, businesses that depend on refrigeration and communications, and low‑income households that may lack backup resources. At the same time, Xcel faces mounting scrutiny and financial liability after investigators linked its equipment to major wildfires elsewhere in the region.
In Texas, for example, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy is being sued by the state’s attorney general over the Smokehouse Creek Fire — the largest wildfire in Texas history — which burned more than 1,500 square miles, killed three people and caused over $1 billion in damage after being sparked by downed power lines in 2024. In a separate filing, Texas officials allege that Xcel failed to adequately maintain poles and lines, seeking not only damages but also court‑ordered corrective measures.
Against that backdrop, utilities and regulators across the West have increasingly turned to pre‑emptive shutoffs as a way to manage escalating fire risk in a warming climate. Federal climate assessments have documented that the frequency and size of large wildfires in the western United States have increased in recent decades, driven in part by hotter, drier conditions and extended fire seasons. Colorado’s Front Range, with its expanding wildland‑urban interface, has been singled out by fire scientists as particularly vulnerable to wind‑driven grass and timber fires that can threaten communities with little warning.
With Red Flag and High Wind Warnings already posted for multiple counties, emergency managers say the next 12 to 24 hours are critical for households to get ready. In addition to stocking supplies, residents are encouraged to:
Check Xcel’s outage and PSPS maps to see whether their address is in a potential shutoff area, via the utility’s online outage resources and PSPS information pages.
Update contact information with the utility so they can receive real‑time alerts about shutoffs and restoration.
Sign up for county‑level emergency alerts through systems like Boulder County’s BoCo Alert platform to receive evacuation warnings or shelter information if a fire does start.
Whether Wednesday’s shutoffs ultimately occur — and how widespread they are — will depend on how the forecast evolves overnight. Xcel says it will continue to refine the list of affected circuits based on updated wind and fire‑danger modeling and that it aims to “limit customer impact” while prioritizing public safety.
But the preparations themselves signal a shift for Colorado’s populous Front Range: Even in mid‑December, a stretch of record warmth and persistent dryness, followed by a single day of extreme wind, is now enough to put hundreds of thousands of people on notice that the lights — and heat — could go out by design. For communities still scarred by recent urban‑interface fires, from the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder County to more recent burns across the West, the trade‑off between an inconvenient outage and the risk of another wind‑driven blaze is an increasingly central feature of life in a warming, fire‑prone region.
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