LOS ANGELES • Californians are facing the largest mass blackout so far this year as the state's biggest utility, PG&E, prepares power shut-offs to prevent live wires from falling into dry brush and igniting wildfires, with ferocious winds expected to sweep across the region.
PG&E was planning to cut power to 386,000 homes and businesses - affecting an estimated 1.2 million people - across Northern California starting at 10am yesterday, company officials said.
That was down from an initial projection of about 466,000 customers given last Friday.
The outages are poised to hit 38 counties that include the San Francisco Bay area, the Sierra Nevada foothills, the Central Valley and the Central Coast. A final decision on the blackout was to be made yesterday morning.
"This event looks particularly dangerous due to a combination of factors that we continue to track," said Mr Scott Strenfel, PG&E's head of meteorology and fire science.
Bone dry air was set to accompany the strong winds that were predicted to pick up throughout the day yesterday, he said.
Edison International's Southern California Edison utility said 56,500 customers could lose power - affecting about 170,000 people.
The power cuts could begin this morning for residents in mountainous areas around Los Angeles where dry Santa Ana winds will blow, a spokesman said by phone.
The potential blackouts would be the latest blow for a state that has been battered by extreme weather and has already seen a record 1.66 million ha scorched this year.
PG&E has preemptively cut power four times this year to prevent falling wires from igniting blazes in a region that is tinder dry from heat and drought. The new round of outages would be the biggest by far, stretching across much of PG&E's service territory.
Winds starting this past weekend were forecast to reach 113kmh in the northern part of the state, with gusts expected to last until tomorrow morning.
Humidity could be as low as 6 per cent in Redding and just 5 per cent in Grass Valley, according to the National Weather Service.
It comes as the state is already riddled with dry brush and grasses due to the hottest average temperatures over the past six months, according to records that go back 126 years, said Mr Strenfel of PG&E.
The blackouts may hit densely populated parts of the San Francisco metropolitan area, including portions of Oakland, Berkeley and Marin County - cutting power to many residents as they are working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The city of Berkeley advised residents living in the hills to evacuate due to the fire risk.
San Francisco, at relatively low risk of fires, is the only county in the Bay Area region not expected to be affected.
PG&E and Southern California Edison are not the only utilities warning of outages. Pacific Power, owned by Mr Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, last Friday said it could switch off power for about 5,800 customers in Northern California and Southern Oregon yesterday due to the gusts.
Much of the United States' west coast is at risk from wildfires as dry weather and stiff winds combine to turn hillsides, forests and scrub land into tinderboxes.
In Colorado, two of the largest fires in state history have forced the closure of Rocky Mountain National Park and triggered the evacuation of nearby towns.
More than eight million people across California will be in high-risk zones, including the cities of Sacramento, Stockton and San Bernardino, according to the US Storm Prediction Centre in its long-range forecast.
The looming outages come on the heels of a blistering heatwave that gripped California earlier this month, driving temperatures to record daily highs.
PG&E began resorting to preventative shut-offs after its equipment caused some of California's worst blazes, forcing the company into bankruptcy last year. It emerged from Chapter 11 in July, after having paid US$25.5 billion (S$34.6 billion) to resolve fire claims.
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