Fires in Siberia due to the accidents on power lines: is the wind to blame for everything?

As one of the reasons, the authorities of the Krasnoyarsk Territory called fire due to accidents on power lines, short circuits and fires at transformer stations. It turns out that Rosseti is an arsonist of Russia?

Irina Mishina

On May 11, investigators detained three employees of Krasnoyarskenergo, a branch of PJSC Rosseti Siberia, in a criminal case about fires. They killed 8 people. All of them were in the center of fires. Investigators also announced the initiation of the first criminal case after the fires in Uyar. Three employees of the Rosseti Siberia company - Krasnoyarskenergo will be in the dock. They are accused of negligence that caused death, causing death by negligence and performing work or providing services that do not meet the requirements of the life and health of consumers. The site foreman from the Kazachinsky district is under house arrest. Investigators believe that the cause of fires in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in addition to falling grass, were short circuits of electrical wiring and power lines.

How did it happen that Rosseti was among the suspects? It's not just scorched earth. There are also burned houses and dead people. Could it really be that the quality of wires, the safety of transformer stations could not be checked in advance? After all, it turns out that Rosseti are among the arsonists, through whose fault human tragedies broke out.

But considerable funds have been allocated to check the quality of power lines. If you believe the reports of the General Director of PJSC Rosseti Andrey Ryumin, the measures to prepare the electric networks of the Rosseti group for reliable operation "were 100% completed." And for this, considerable budgetary funds were allocated. In comparison with the previous year, the amount of financing for the repair program of Rosseti increased by 1.6 billion rubles - up to 71.5 billion rubles! Andrey Ryumin, General Director of PJSC Rosseti, spoke about this at the All-Russian meeting on the preparation of electric power industry entities for the 2021-2022 autumn and winter period. This cheerful report was witnessed by the Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Nikolai Shulginov and the Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation Irek Fayzullin.

Now the general director of Rosseti does not say anything about the quality of this very preparation of power lines. But the perpetrators have already been found in the Ministry of Energy. These are irresponsible summer residents and heads of municipalities: “During a technical investigation, it is necessary to take into account the implementation (non-performance) of preventive work on the territory of municipalities and SNT in order to prepare for the fire season. For example, the preparation of fuel and energy complex facilities (power plants, substations) includes cleaning of dead wood, checking fire extinguishing systems, personnel training, routine inspection, etc.,” the ministry reported. Well, of course, around the power lines it was necessary to set up round-the-clock security and create sterile conditions. Not otherwise.

The Ministry of Energy found another culprit. This is the wind. “With a wind speed of more than 20 meters per second, the 0.4, 6-10 kV power grid cannot operate normally, that is, without damaging wires, supports and insulators,” the ministry explained.

Well, of course the wind, who else? Rosseti emphasized that on May 6 and 7, the situation with natural fires in the Omsk, Kemerovo and Irkutsk regions, as well as the Krasnoyarsk Territory, deteriorated sharply precisely because of the strong wind, the gusts of which exceeded 20 m/s. This, according to officials, led to an increase in the number of fires and the operation of the grid complex in excess conditions. “In this regard, large-scale outages of power supply to consumers were recorded, associated both with damage to power lines as a result of fires,” the Ministry of Energy told NI.

One way or another, since mid-April, 350 fires on the power supply network have been recorded in Siberia alone. And was the 71.5 billion rubles allocated to Rosseti really not enough to foresee all the risks? But our officials, apparently, have 4 main culprits of all disasters: summer, autumn, winter and spring. And the wind to boot.