There was a squirrel surge (no pun intended) in the city in 2025.

According to City Manager Jaysen Christensen, squirrels were tied for the No. 1 cause of unscheduled outages in 2025 in the city, with events rising from four in 2024 to 17.

All told, squirrels accounted for 29% of unscheduled outages, tying equipment damage for the top reason.

Equipment damage events as a reason for unscheduled outages fell sharply from 41 (51.9% of events) in 2024.

The information came during Christensen’s state of the city report.

Christensen told the Standard-Examiner the squirrels, which he said were probably fox squirrels, were an “invasive” and “much more aggressive” kind of squirrel.

“They’re bigger, and they’re meaner,” he said. “And apparently they’ve obviously been up in our power lines and causing a lot of short circuits. They’ll climb up there and get zapped, but that causes outages, unfortunately.”

The squirrels can bring other challenges other than causing outages.

“We had one that actually caught on fire and ran around and I think caught something else on fire,” he said. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

Christensen said he doesn’t quite know what’s causing the squirrels to proliferate in Kaysville all of a sudden. He also said he didn’t know if 2025 was an outlier.

“If it reoccurs year after year, that definitely would be a sign,” he said. “I don’t know if we need to look into measures to keep squirrels off our lines.”

During the meeting, Christensen said the squirrels would also throw things at people working on the lines.

“A lot of them have been cooked, so maybe we’re helping to fix the problem, too,” he said.

According to an article posted on the Utah State University Extension website on Nov. 11, 2025, by Dennis Hinkamp, fox squirrels have moved into Utah, pushing out native red squirrels.

Fox squirrels, native to the eastern United States, are “the largest tree squirrels in North America” and were first seen in Utah in 2011, the article stated.

“At 17 to 28 inches long, fox squirrels are substantially larger than the 11 to 14-inch native red squirrels,” the article stated. “Red squirrels are grayish-red with white bellies. Fox squirrels have bushy red tails and red bellies. Also, unlike rock squirrels, which live in burrows among cliffs and boulders, fox squirrels nest and spend most of their time in trees.”

The article notes that because fox squirrels are adaptable, they conflict with people.

“Fox squirrels can cause significant damage to yards and orchards by eating fruit, stripping tree bark, digging up lawns, and chewing irrigation lines and cable wires,” the article read.

Contact Standard-Examiner editor Ryan Comer at rcomer@standard.net.