CLALLAM COUNTY – The 7.5-hour power outage near Forks Wednesday was caused when someone who was harvesting timber illegally dropped a tall Douglas fir over the BPA power lines.
Because the tree and the power lines are on Olympic National Forest Service land along service road No. 30, federal officers responded to the scene. They found that the culprit hadn’t just dropped the tree over the power lines, he also dropped it on his truck and appeared to have fled the scene.
Forest Service spokeswoman Susan Garner tells us what happened next.
“And while the law enforcement folks were investigating it, the person came up and said that he had been the one who had done it. So, I mean, eventually they would have been able to track the the person by name anyway. And charges are still pending. We’re not releasing any names right now.”
Garner says the Forest Service does issue permits to harvest dead timber on federal land, but the tree that fell on the lines was a live tree. She says she doesn’t know if the person had a permit or not.
(Clallam PUD photos)