Communities across Northern and Central California are facing power shut-offs this week, with utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) issuing public safety shut-off warnings or watches as weather conditions heighten the risk of wildfires. As of Thursday morning, the warnings cover dozens of California counties through Saturday. PG&E said that some 88,000 customers could be affected across the state.
"We’re tracking a statewide fire weather event that is expected to enter our territory tonight and continue into Saturday morning," Senior PG&E meteorologist Richard Bagley said in a video shared by the company on Wednesday. "These are unusual conditions. It’s a weather widespread event featuring winds and the typical Northern Sierra, North Bay, East Bay locations, but also extending into the far southern end of the territory—Kern County, San Luis Obispo as well.
"The combination of high winds, low fuel moisture and low humidity will lead to a escalated fire danger through this period. This is the reason for the planned [Public Safety Power Shutoff] event this week." Nearly 4,000 customers in Fresno County could be affected by the shut-offs. There could be more than 1,700 in Madera County, over 900 in Mariposa County and nearly 300 in Tulare County, KFSN reported Wednesday.
Newsweek contacted PG&E for comment via email on Thursday and is awaiting a response. The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued red flag warnings—which indicate weather conditions support fire danger—covering parts of Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Kern, Lake, Los Angeles, Madera, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Tehama, Tulare, Tuolumne, Ventura and Yuba counties. PG&E’s Public Safety Power Shutoff updates page says that parts of the more than two-dozen counties could be affected by the outages on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, due to high winds and dry conditions: Alameda, Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Lake, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Luis Obispo, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Tulare, Tuolumne, Yolo, Yuba.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and James Debens
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