A Northern California wildfire exploded in size early Thursday as dangerously windy weather prompted the state's largest utility to impose electrical blackouts in an effort to prevent fire catastrophes.
Authorities ordered all 900 residents of the community of Geyserville to evacuate after the fire in the Sonoma County wine region north of San Francisco grew to more than 15 square miles (39 square kilometers). An Associated Press photographer saw three homes destroyed in the Jimtown area.
There were no reports of injuries and no immediate information about what caused the fire, but wildfire risk was extremely high as humidity levels plunged and winds gusted up to 70 mph (113 kph).
The Pacific Gas & Electric Co utility on Wednesday began rolling blackouts stretching from the Sierra foothills in the northeast to portions of the San Francisco Bay Area in a bid to keep the electrical grid from causing fires due to wind that can send power lines toppling, starting fires.
The blackouts impacted a half-million people or nearly 180,000 customers in 15 counties, and PG&E warned that a second round of outages could occur over the weekend when winds were forecast to return.
Hot and dry Santa Ana winds were expected to hit Southern California Thursday and the Southern California Edison utility warned that it might black out about 308,000 customers perhaps 750,000 people depending on the forecast.
The San Diego Gas & Electric utility warned of power shutoffs to about 24,000 customers.
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The utilities have said the precautionary blackouts are designed to keep winds that could gust to 60 mph (97 kph) or more from knocking branches into power lines or toppling them, sparking wildfires.
Electrical equipment was blamed for setting several fires in recent years that killed scores of people and burned thousands of homes.
"We understand the hardship caused by these shutoffs," PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said. "But we also understand the heartbreak and devastation caused by catastrophic wildfires."
"Right now, we have no wind. Zero. I don't even see a single leaf blowing. Did they really have to cut the power right now?" he said, shortly after the lights went out and he revved up the generators. "When the wind picks up to 40 mph maybe that's a good time to close the power."
"There is no justification for this sort of violence," Johnson said. "Wherever you see crews they are there to help you."