Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsCrews work on downed power line poles along Highway 93 north of Golden as high winds blow along the Front Range, Dec. 17, 2025.Updated at 6:56 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. More than 115,000 Xcel customers were without power as the sun set Wednesday night due to high winds and extreme fire conditions. Many parts of the Front Range saw heavy winds, with gusts as strong as 85 miles per hour, that knocked down power lines and trees. The state’s largest power company issued a preemptive public safety power shutoff at 10 a.m. this morning before the winds arrived, affecting nearly 50,000 residents in Boulder, Clear Creek, Jefferson, Larimer and Weld counties. Others were affected by outages outside of the predetermined zone. Power was meant to return at 6 p.m. for customers affected by the planned outage. However, Xcel has told CPR News they must double-check more than 600 miles of power lines before restoring electricity.The company did not give a timeline for how long that might take. This was only the second public safety power shutoff by Xcel; the first was due to high winds in April 2024.Law enforcement advises motorists to be careful tonight, treat intersections with traffic signals out as 4-way stops and watch for debris that may be hard to see on…
Published: December 17, 2025 4:15 pm
Source: Colorado Public Radio — Read original