Nevada fire marshal: Smart meters not fire causes

RENO — Nevada’s fire marshal says his review of nearly a dozen fires at homes with NV Energy’s smart meters found the meters themselves are not starting the fires.

Fire Marshal Peter Mulvihill is recommending that local fire chiefs continue to monitor the situation, but he concluded in a report this week the smart meters pose no “statewide fire problem” at this time.

Mulvihill told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he was largely satisfied by NV Energy’s response to the 11 fires in Northern Nevada — nine in the Reno-Sparks area and two in Gardnerville. He noted that city investigators could not conclusively state that meters started any of the blazes.

Mulvihill reviewed the information at the request of Reno and Sparks fire chiefs who identified the nine fires they said may be connected to the smart meters NV Energy has installed on 1.1 million Nevada homes and businesses since 2011 to wirelessly transmit information on power use every 15 minutes.

Most of the fires caused very little damage, but one killed a woman in July.

City investigators ruled the cause of that fatal fire as undetermined, but noted the smart meter was a potential cause. An investigator hired by NV Energy said that fire could not have been started by the meter because it continued to transmit information well after the blaze began burning.

Any fire starting at the meter would render it incapable of transmitting, NV Energy’s investigator said.

The Public Utilities Commission voted last week to open a preliminary investigation into the safety of the meters and ordered NV Energy to turn over records on the program.

NV Energy has pointed to a variety of outside factors that may have contributed to the fires, including water damage, a slamming door and aging sockets on the panel. The utility said the electrical panel that houses the smart meter is the homeowner’s responsibility.

In coming to his determination, Mulvihill said no other fire agencies reported problems with meter fires.

Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said his department has responded to “four or five” meter fires in recent months. The damage was so slight that it didn’t meet the threshold for an investigation, and the fires were never reported to the state fire marshal, he said.

“They’ve not been a problem here,” Szymanski told the newspaper.