Thousands of Pacific Gas and Electricity customers in the Bay Area started the day without power Friday after the utility turned off electricity in areas most threatened by high winds and fire danger.
The so-called public safety power shutoffs began Thursday evening in Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and Stanislaus counties, according to PG&E’s outage map. Additional outages began Friday morning in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties.
As of 10 a.m. Friday, 8,184 PG&E customers in the Bay Area were without power due to the shutoffs, most of them in Napa County (3,126) and Solano County (2,001).
North of the Bay Area, the power was also taken offline in Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Shasta, Tehama and Yolo counties in areas where power lines pass through wildland areas prone to wildfires.
PG&E says power shutoffs will also be required Friday in Butte, Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Monterey, Plumas, San Benito, Santa Barbara and Stanislaus counties.
Additional outages Friday morning in the city of Santa Cruz and an area west of Highway 152 north of Watsonville, affecting thousands of customers, were not related to the public safety shutdowns, according to the outage map.
On Friday afternoon, a vegetation fire broke out in the Oakland Hills forcing evacuations and led the utility to turn off power to approximately 1,089 customers in the area as part of a forced blackout to ensure the safety of first responders as they battle this fire.
The National Weather Service said a wind advisory was in effect for the inland East Bay and eastern Santa Clara Hills until 11 p.m. Friday and for the inland North Bay mountains until 8 a.m. Saturday. Offshore winds were expected in the range of 40-50 km/h, with gusts of 80-100 km/h.
In addition, the wind and low humidity prompted the weather service to issue a red flag warning for most of the Bay Area and the Central Coast due to the critically dry conditions.
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