Effective feature set-based high impedance fault (HIF) detection is provided. Systems, methods and devices described herein present a systematic design of power feature extraction for HIF detection and classification. For example, power features associated with HIF events are extracted according to when a fault happens, how long it lasts, and the magnitude of the fault. Complementary power expert information is also integrated into feature pools. In another aspect, a ranking procedure is deployed in a feature pool for balancing information gain and complexity in order to avoid over-fitting of features. In aspects described herein, a logic-based HIF detector implements HIF feature extraction. To determine when an HIF occurs, the HIF detector calculates different quantities, such as active power and reactive power, based on a voltage and current time series, and uses the derivative of these quantities to tell when there is a potential change due to HIF.