By Rebecca Powell | Fort Collins Coloradoan
Wind speeds in Larimer County exceeded 90 miles per hour over the weekend, causing at least 20,000 people to experience power outages in Larimer and Weld counties and coinciding with two wildfires.
Xcel Energy pre-emptively cut power to some of its power lines on Saturday afternoon, citing high fire danger. That affected 55,000 customers, including some in northwest Fort Collins, Laporte, and west of Fort Collins and Loveland, according to maps provided by the utility.
But not all of the outages were intentional.
On Saturday night, Xcel’s power outage map showed 9,500 customers in the Larimer and Weld areas were without power. By Sunday afternoon, the map showed 6,500 were still affected.