Lightning strike suspected in Stephens County wind turbine fire this morning

One of the large La Casa Wind Farm/Nextera wind turbines recently installed in the southeastern portion of Stephens County caught fire early this morning, Saturday, Feb. 14, as a thunderstorm moved through the area. The Breckenridge Fire Department said the likely cause of the fire was a lightning strike.

The fire, about 18 miles southeast of Breckenridge and about 5 miles due north of Ranger, was reported to the Breckenridge Fire Department at about 7:30 a.m. The BPD responded to the fire but said there isn’t much they can do about a fire at the top of a turbine, which is about 290 to 375 feet high, according to information from Nextera. However, the firefighters contained the fire on the ground when one or part of one of the rotor blades fell near the base of turbine.

The turbine is located several yards east of FM 717, less than a quarter of a mile north of CR 126. The turbine that caught on fire appears to be turbine number 39 on a wind farm map on the Stephens County website (click here to see the map). There are 54 wind turbines marked on the map.

By about 10 a.m., much of the nacelle (the housing containing the turbine’s key machinery) and one of the blades were burned. At 10:15, the short piece of the blade still attached to the hub flared up again, sending flamed out of the broken blade.

By about noon, the BFD had left the scene with plans to continue checking on the situation. See a short video from the BFD below.

“They’ve had problems all across the country with those wind turbines catching on fire,” said Steve Dempsey, who lives about two miles from the turbine that caught on fire this morning and has been an outspoken critic of the wind farm. “I mean … they’re lighting rods stuck up in the sky… They get tore up by tornadoes and lightning … all kinds of things.”

The Breckenridge Texan has reached out to Nextera Energy for more information about the fire but has not heard back from them at this time.

Smoke from the burning wind turbine could be seen from several miles away. As the fire continued to burn, several people drove down the farm road to take a look. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

At last Monday’s Stephens County Commissioners meeting, the commissioners considered acknowledging an as-built map and letter of compliance from La Casa Wind, LLC, whose parent company is Nextera Energy. However, after several questions from some of the commissioners and Dempsey regarding some of the markings on the map, as well as the situation with the Aircraft Detection Lighting System, the commissioners voted to table the item and didn’t approve the receipt of the map and letter.

The ADLS was part of the final agreement between Stephens County and Nextera in order for Nextera to receive a tax abatement from the county. Under the agreement, the company must install a system that will allow the red warning lights atop the wind turbines to be activated only when an aircraft is in the area. The system has reportedly been installed, but Dempsey said at the Feb. 9 meeting that the lights are often on for long stretches of time at night with no aircraft in the area.

David Fambro, the commissioner for Precinct 1, where the wind farm is located, said that, as far as he understands, there is a period of time during which the ADLS is being trained and fine-tuned to identify aircraft and to not turn on during false alerts.

“But I don’t think it’s operating well,” Fambro said. “I know it’s not operating the way we had imagined. I don’t know if it’s operating to their expectation at this point in time, but certainly not ours.”

Dempsey agreed with Fambro’s assessment. “It’s still not working the way that it should,” he said. “The lights will blink all night long, and sometimes  some of them will blink and some of them will be off. They’re still working on the system, I think. But, you know, they don’t have it figured out yet.”