50,000 ordered to evacuate due to wildfire in northern California
The blaze destroyed 49 structures and is now threatening thousands of homes, the California Fire Department said.
LOS ANGELES: Evacuation orders were issued Saturday morning for 50,000 residents for the entire towns of Healdsburg and Windsor in northern California, as the growing Kincade Fire is expected to move toward there.
According to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), the wild fire ignited Wednesday night exploded very fast, scorching over 25,455 acre (103 square km) by Saturday morning with only 10 percent containment.
The blaze destroyed 49 structures and is now threatening thousands of homes, the Cal Fire said, there is no report of fatalities.
Cal Fire said residents in the evacuation zone need to be out of their homes by 4 pm local time since the fire could reach the towns Saturday night.
California Governor
Gavin
Newsom Friday declared a state of emergency for Sonoma county, where the Kincade Fire is burning.
About 2,000 residents of Geyserville and the surrounding area threatened by the fire were evacuated on Thursday and more than 2,000 firefighters were assigned to battle the blaze with help of 10 helicopters and numerous air tankers.
Over 2 million residents face blackout in California
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), a main electricity power supplier in California, has announced that it will conduct a new round of Public Safety Power Shutoff from Saturday afternoon.
“Widespread dry, hot and windy weather is expected to begin impacting the service area (Saturday) between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. and through midday Monday,”
PG&E announced.
According to the company’s power outage plan, 940,000 homes and businesses in 36 counties of the Golden States will be affected, representing more than 2 million people, nearly one-fifth of PG&E’s entire customer base.
It will be the largest of the precautionary outages that PG&E has undertaken as the utility struggles to maintain safety. However, those efforts were criticized harshly by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the company must take responsibility for the wildfires that the local residents have been suffering for years and the power cuts.
The California utility company is under increasing scrutiny by regulatory authorities since sparks from aging or over taxed utility equipment have been blamed for some of California’s most disastrous wildfires recently.
To date, six of most devastating blazes in California’s history were triggered by electrical equipment malfunction, including the brutal Camp fire in 2018 that wiped out the mountain town of Paradise, killing 86 residents.
While the cause of the burning Kincade fire in Sonoma county, first reported Wednesday night, has not been determined, the PG&E reported a problem with a transmission tower near the spot where the fire was ignited.
The National Weather Service issues Red Flag Warnings & Fire Weather Watches Saturday to the Northern California. A Red Flag Warning means warm temperatures, very low humidities, and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger.