Fire danger eases in Southern Calif.

The year’s most dangerous fire weather conditions in Southern California are easing after a volatile period of extremely strong winds and low humidity.

The high winds toppled trees and caused some power outages, but large fires did not materialize despite the serious threat.

Several small blazes erupted but were put out before they could turn into major fires.

“The firefighters were really on top of things,” said Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service In Los Angeles.

“There have been maybe a couple of tiny fires,” added Adam Roser, a meteorologist with the Weather Service in San Diego. “But we didn’t get many report of large wildfires from this event. We kind of escaped it.”

Lund said there was a lot of damage to trees from the high winds. The majority of the power outages, however, which affected more than 70,000 customers Thursday, were preemptive, to prevent power equipment from setting off new blazes. The lack of fires exhibited the benefits of the preparations given the magnitude of the wind event.

The howling winds topped 70 mph in more than 20 locations in Southern California’s high terrain Thursday, including a gust of 89 mph in Browns Canyon, less than 30 miles north of Los Angeles.

At the same time, humidity percentages dipped into the single digits. At one point Thursday, the National Weather Service in Los Angeles reported that 218 locations were observing wind gusts over 35 mph and relative humidity values between 3 and 10 percent, creating “very strong and dangerous fire conditions.”

Red flag warnings, for serious fire weather conditions, were issued for much of the area from Ventura to San Diego between Wednesday and Friday.

The fires that flared up were extinguished quickly.

“Fantastic work by our well-prepared partners @Angeles_NF. Putting out small fires before they can grow into large ones is key during these high winds and very dry conditions,” the Weather Service in Los Angeles tweeted.