Between July 28 and August 8, at least nine rural electric cooperatives across Colorado, Montana, and Idaho sent their members effectively the same advisory.
It runs to about two hundred words. It recommends securing exterior propane, keeping two weeks of drinking water on hand, and, in a phrase that several members found memorable, avoiding "confrontation with wildlife near energized equipment."
It does not say what prompted it.
Same words, different letterheads
We obtained six of the nine advisories. Four are word-for-word identical. The remaining two differ only in the opening sentence and the contact information at the bottom.
That pattern normally indicates a template distributed by a statewide association or a federal partner. Three statewide associations told us they did not originate it. Two did not respond.
One co-op board member in western Montana, who asked not to be named because board members are not authorized to speak for the cooperative, said the language arrived with an instruction attached.
"We were asked to send it and not to characterize it. I've been on this board eleven years and I've never gotten that instruction before."
A cooperative board member in western Montana
Asked whether the advisory was connected to the substation fires, a spokesperson for one of the larger co-ops said the cooperative issues seasonal preparedness guidance "as conditions warrant" and declined to elaborate on conditions.
Two weeks is not a standard interval in cooperative preparedness messaging. The usual figure is seventy-two hours.