Kirkwood, CA - Forty-eight hours after a fire at the local utility power plant left Kirkwood Mountain Resort without electricity the resort has restored 100% of its operations and will be open with full mountain skiing on Monday January 4.

"It's been a challenging two days, but thanks to a tremendous effort by both the Mountain Utilities and resort staff we were able to bring power back to the entire community, including the resort, commercial core and 600 residential units," said Tim Cohee, resort Senior Vice President. "We were able to provide skiing on Sunday and brought most of our lifts on line by the early afternoon."

A diesel engine exhaust system failure caused the Mountain Utilities plant to catch fire at approximately 2pm on New Year's Day, completing destroying the six engines, switch gear and other plant equipment over a four hour period. The community service provider was able to bring in three portable diesel generators by Friday evening, and now has over double the capacity necessary to run the entire community.

For more information visit www.kirkwood.com or call 877.KIRKWOOD.

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Kirkwood residents and visitors were left in the dark Friday after a blaze rips through a power house at the ski resort, knocking out all electricity in the area for at least nine hours.

Hundreds of homes in the Kirkwood area without power and about 150 people evacuated from an employee housing unit. All because of a fire that started burning around two Friday afternoon. That employee housing unit is just feet away from the power house.

No one was hurt.

Deebie Symmes was vacationing at the Kirkwood Mountain Resort when the fire broke out. “We saw the smoke, everybody started pointing at the power plant. You could see a huge plume of yellowish smoke.”

Officials say it seems an engine failure is to blame for this inferno. Just when fire crews thought they had gotten hold of the fire, it flared up again.

Robert Levy of Alpine County Sheriff's Office describes the fire. “The blaze is tending to ebb and flow as tanks and pipe lines in the building breach as a result of the fire.”

Unlike other ski resorts, Kirkwood generates its own power. So as the power house burned down, thousands were left without heat or electricity.

“Probably 5,000 people lost power most were just here for day and have since left and gone home,” says Levy.

But for those who haven’t gone home, temperature lows for early Saturday morning are forecasted in the low twenties.

“It’s not much of a vacation without power I know they're worried about getting homes heated so pipes don’t have trouble overnight,” says Symmes.

11-year-old David hood will be in town overnight, and he says he got stuck on the chair lift as a result of the power going out Friday afternoon. “I was on the chair lift with this guy I didn't know he was like 80. The chairlift just stopped and chair started swinging back and forth.”

Skiers were stuck for a half hour or more. Hood says ski patrol had to help some people get down.

“I thought we were going to be stuck up there forever.”

Kirkwood Mountain Resort says it's getting back-up generators delivered later Friday night. Those generators will be able to power the resort and surrounding area until they can rebuild their power plant later this year.

Tim Cohee, Vice President of Kirkwood Mountain Resort, says the slopes will re-open as early as Saturday morning. “It looks dramatic and it is dramatic, but as far as our power situation it’s not nearly as big a deal as it could’ve been if we weren't back-up system capable.”

The resort says it hopes to get residents power by midnight. They’re hoping they can get all the lifts up and running before they open at 9 on Saturday, but if you're planning to head out there it would be a good idea to call them first.

Crews on the scene say this is the third time in the last six years the power plant has caught fire. At this time, they say they are going to let it burn to the ground.

877-KIRKWOOD (547-5966)

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INITIAL INFORMATION:
A power plant is burning at Kirkwood Mountain Resort, knocking out power to the resort and some 5,000 people.

The fire began around 2:00 p.m. Friday afternoon. Fire crews on the scene say it was likely sparked by an engine failure.

No one was hurt, but lifts stopped operating at the resort and some 150 employees living in nearby apartments were evacuated. Kirkwood was forced to close two hours early.

Officials say it could take them until midnight to get powered restored to the community. They are bringing in back-up generators and hope to have Kirkwood operating again before it opens Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m.