DENVER — Flaming Bird Carcasses is going to be a great band name.
For the third time this summer, birds on electrical lines have burst into flames, fallen to the ground and started a wildfire. Yet thousands of birds on electrical lines do not burst into flames, fall to the ground and start wildfires.
“Our study in 2022 found 44 instances of birds being electrocuted on power poles and then those birds then fell to the ground and started wildfires,” Taylor Barnes, Biologist and GIS specialist, said.
Barnes works for EDM International, an electric utility consulting company, and is a bit of an expert on crispy birds.
“I’m a biologist," Barnes said. "I study wildlife, and my interest primarily is in avian studies. Primarily, what we focus on is avian safety as it relates to power poles.”
Birds getting electrocuted, bursting into flames and falling into dry grass started wildfires on July 13 in Byers in eastern Arapahoe County, July 31 near The Fort restaurant in Morrison and Aug. 27 at Roxborough Park.
“Sometimes they burst into flames. Sometimes they just fall dead,” Barnes said. “Not every bird that is electrocuted with fall to the ground and start a fire.”
Photos provided by the Strasburg Fire Protection District showed the electrical equipment suspected of being where the bird in the July 13 Arapahoe County fire got electrocuted. That bird’s flaming carcass started a wildfire that burned someone’s home and a dozen outbuildings.
Barnes did not investigate that fire, but based on the photos, provided a likely explanation.
“Sometimes what can happen is insects can get inside that cap. That attracts birds. Birds like to eat insects, in particular woodpeckers and crows, so something like that could have sat on the jumper wire and pecked into that arrester cap trying to get to the insects, making contact with the energized components and then causing it to catch fire,” Barnes said.
Birds standing on a wire, not pecking at anything, is not a risk unless it touches another wire at the same time or touches the ground.
“A bird standing on a single-phase wire is not going to cause a fire,” Barnes said.
The Arapahoe County fire and the Roxborough Fire are in CORE Electric territory.
A spokesperson for the co-op said that the company tries to protect against bird electrocution.
“We've got these, kind of, protections and coatings to keep them from pecking through that, but there's also elements of it that can't always be 100% covered, or if they are, these little, tiny birds can sometimes get through that,” Amber King, CORE Electric spokeswoman, said. “It's really not necessarily a bird flying into the line. It's that they land there and they're really getting in there and finding those energized elements.”