Update: Power restored and Muller Lane open after outage coincides with small brush fire

A small brush fire and a big power outage coincided right next to the Minden-Gardnerville Sanitation District pond off Muller Lane.

Nvenergy.com reported 1,531 customers were without power starting at 1:48 p.m. 

Minutes later there was a report of a small brush fire along the access road to the Muller substation. There was no indication at the scene of any issues with the power lines.

East Fork firefighters responded, with Douglas County deputies closing Muller. Forward progress was stopped by 2:08 p.m.

Muller Lane reopened and the electricity for most NVEnergy customers was restored right around 3 p.m.

More than half the affected customers are in the 89460 ZIP Code, which includes all of the Foothills in the southwestern corner of Carson Valley. There are also 610 customers without power in Genoa and the rest are sprinkled across Gardnerville and Minden.

One Genoa resident on Kinsey Way reported a carbon monoxide detector went off when the power went out.

A spokeswoman for NV Energy said that the cause of the outage was likely birds. That might be connected to the fire if an electrocuted bird fell into the brush.

Birds were also blamed for a 20-minute June 13 outage that affected around 10,000 NV Energy customers in Douglas County.