PG& E on fire weather watch
Power shutoffs possible in North Bay, Oakland hills
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Monday said that about 50,000 homes and businesses across its service territory, nearly half of them in the Bay Area, could see their power shut off for a day or two starting Wednesday evening.
High winds are expected, and the utility is seeking to prevent its equipment from sparking more wildfires.
Napa County has the most homes and businesses impacted — 9,230 — with more than 2,200 of them in the city of Calistoga, and over 6,700 in unincorporated areas. Nearly 3,800 homes and businesses in Oakland could be impacted;
PG& E said that one highrisk area was the Oakland hills east of Piedmont. Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties are also likely to see some residents impacted.
Strong winds with gusts of up to 50 mph are expected starting Wednesday night. Forecasters at the National Weather Service have issued a fire weather watch for the North Bay mountains, East Bay hills and the Santa Cruz Mountains from 5 a. m. on Wednesday through 11 a. m. Friday.
PG& E said on its website that it is anticipating potential Diablo winds, the dry northeast winds that typically arrive in autumn and have fueled some of the state’s most intense wildfires. The strongest winds are expected Wednesday through Thursday morning, the weather service said.
In addition to the seven Bay Area counties, affected counties are: Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Lake, Monterey, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Tehama and Yuba.
Besides the Oakland hills, the parts of the Bay Area most likely to see outages, according to PG& E, are the North Bay mountains near Mount St. Helena; limited pockets in the East Bay near Mount Diablo; and higher areas east of Milpitas around the Calaveras Reservoir.
PG& E first used power shutoffs as a fireprevention tool in 2018 and drastically increased its use of them last year, particularly in October 2019, when millions of people went without electricity for an extended period. The company was widely criticized at the time for being too broad with the power cuts and executing them poorly.
In the year since, PG& E has taken various steps to reduce the impact of fireprevention shutoffs, including by adding generators at certain substations and installing devices that allow the company to isolate more narrow portions of its grid. PG& E’s goal is to have each shutoff affect onethird fewer customers than it would have under the same circumstances last year.
Beyond the Bay Area, the outage probability this week is relatively high in the Northern Sierra Nevada foothills; middle and higher elevations in the Sierra generally north of Yosemite; and parts of the Santa Cruz and Big Sur mountains, according to PG& E.
The shutoffs are not certain to happen, but the likelihood has increased since Sunday, when PG& E rated the chance of outages as “elevated.” Now the chance of outages has been raised to “watch,” meaning they are more likely to happen. “Warning” is the final stage, if and when shutoffs seem imminent.
Tamar Sarkissian, a PG& E spokeswoman, said the company has activated its Emergency Operations Center.
In addition to strong winds, humidity below 20% and rising temperatures will increase fire risk, said Craig Clements, director of the Fire Weather
Research Laboratory at San Jose State University.
For example, Calistoga, which endured evacuations from the Glass Fire, is expected to see a high of 93 degrees on Wednesday, according to the weather service.
“This warming event is going to be problematic,” Clements said.
The lack of substantial rain over the weekend also means there is an abundance of dry vegetation and trees that could exacerbate existing wildfires or lead to new ones, Clements said.
“Much of the Bay Area didn’t get any precipitation. It’s still very, very dry,” he said.
However, conditions will be milder than some previous events, such as a year ago when PG& E had widespread shutoffs and winds reached 80 mph, according to Clements.
Gov. Gavin Newsom cautioned Monday that while the state has made progress containing larger fires, it has yet to reach the peak of wildfire season — typically in late October
— and he also is preparing for potential trouble this week from the winds and the heat.
“It was this time, in October and November in ’ 17 and ’ 19, that we had some of these very damaging and deadly wildfires,” Newsom said. “Please maintain your vigilance. Please take very seriously those evacuation warnings.”
PG& E’s latest potential shutoffs come amid new state scrutiny.
California officials are investigating whether PG& E equipment sparked the Zogg Fire in Shasta County that began on Sept. 27. Cal Fire took some of the company’s equipment, and PG& E said it is cooperating with the agency. The cause of the fire has not been determined.
The Zogg Fire is 99% contained after burning 56,338 acres, destroying 204 structures and killing four people, according to Cal Fire.
On Monday, U. S. District Judge William Alsup ordered PG& E to provide him more information about the company’s role in the Zogg Fire by Oct. 26. Alsup oversees PG& E’s criminal probation arising from the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion. He wants to know more about the kind of equipment Cal Fire took in its Zogg Fire investigation and the extent of PG& E’s tree trimming in the area.
PG& E power lines have started several major fires in recent years, including the historically deadly 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County and the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County last October. The company recently emerged from bankruptcy protection that came because of its responsibility for various fires.