A Texas district court has put Xcel Energy’s Texas unit on a tight timeline, ordering the company to swap out wooden utility poles it identifies as dangerously deteriorated in wildfire-prone stretches of the Panhandle after Attorney General Ken Paxton sought an injunction. The order stems from litigation tied to the 2024 Smokehouse Creek fire, which investigators later linked to a decayed pole that set off a chain of blazes across the region.
What the injunction requires
Under the temporary injunction negotiated with the state, Xcel must replace poles that show severe structural deterioration in high-fire-risk areas within 14 days, and it must replace any newly identified high-priority poles within 24 hours of inspection. The order also requires at least 35,000 pole inspections per year under a state quality-assurance plan, and it obliges the company to notify regulators in writing once replacements are finished, according to a news release from the Texas Attorney General's office.
How the fire started and the scale
Investigators with the Texas A&M Forest Service concluded the Smokehouse Creek fire began when a decayed utility pole cracked and dropped energized lines into dry grass. The blaze burned more than a million acres and killed at least three people, reporting by The Associated Press. Xcel has said its equipment appeared to have been involved, and The Texas Tribune reports the court order applies to Xcel's Texas unit, which serves more than 200,000 customers.
Xcel says it already moved to harden its infrastructure
The company told reporters it has replaced roughly 19,000 poles since 2021 and invested about $111 million in wooden-pole safety and reliability work, and that it has been piloting wildfire-mitigation tools such as AI cameras and selective undergrounding of distribution lines. Xcel also said some remaining high-priority poles are not in the highest-risk zones and are being replaced on an expedited schedule while it disputes claims of negligence, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Legal fallout and what the state seeks
Paxton sued Xcel in December, seeking monetary damages and civil penalties, saying the state aims to recover economic and environmental losses and to prevent the utility from passing settlement and repair costs on to ratepayers. The Smokehouse Creek blaze caused more than $1 billion in damage to ranching and local economies, and state filings accuse the company of ignoring warnings about decaying infrastructure, according to reporting by The Associated Press.
Voices from the Panhandle
Locals who lived through the Smokehouse Creek fire have welcomed the court action. Panhandle businessman Salem Abraham, who has publicly pushed to replace Xcel as the regional provider, called Paxton's injunction "great news" and said the company needs stronger oversight, The Texas Tribune reported.
What to watch next
The injunction is temporary while the larger lawsuit plays out, and regulators will be watching whether Xcel meets the tight replacement timetable and inspection targets, according to the Attorney General's office. Ranchers, local officials and consumer advocates say they will look for written notices from the company that replacements are complete and for evidence that the most at-risk poles are being removed on the court's schedule, according to The Dallas Morning News.
