Power cut to thousands in state to prevent wildfires

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Thousands of people in wine country woke up without power Thursday amid a fall heat wave that brought another round of extreme wildfire danger to large portions of already battered Northern California.

Pacific Gas and Electric cut power starting Wednesday evening to more than 45,000 customers — about 100,000 people — mainly in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the San Francisco Bay Area. Another 22,000 people were expected to lose power later Thursday.

Many in wine country were feeling drained by what seems like a never-ending wildfire season in the region.

Kathleen Collins has had to evacuate her home in the mountains of Napa County four times in the past five years due to fires. This summer, she lived in a motel for two weeks after leaving her home when a massive cluster of fires reached her tiny community of Pope Valley.

“It’s all very stressful. People are not happy but there’s not much they can do about it,” said Collins, assistant manager at Silverado Ace Hardware store in Calistoga, a Napa County town of 5,000 people who were allowed to return home just last week after the Glass fire forced them out last month. The blaze that ravaged areas of Napa and Sonoma counties was contained Wednesday after destroying more than 1,500 homes and other buildings.

People have been buying generators, electrical cords, flashlights, batteries, gas cans and other supplies to help them deal with the latest outage, expected to last through Friday evening, Collins said.

More than 8,500 wildfires have burned more than 6,400 square miles in California since the start of the year. Most have occurred since mid-August. Thirty-one people have died, and more than 9,200 buildings have been destroyed.

In Southern California, a brush fire Thursday near Redlands triggered a small evacuation as it grew to about 100 acres. It was about 30% contained.

Collins said she received a message alerting her that her home would lose power Wednesday night and she dreaded having to throw away all her food as in past outages. Fortunately, she hadn’t lost electricity as of Thursday.