California Wildfire Risk Could Leave Tens of Thousands Without Electricity for Thanksgiving

 Jan Wesner Childs

Published: November 25, 2020

A Southern California Edison crew installs a new overhead switch for circuit reliability in Ventura, California, in this file photo from May 13, 2020. The utility is warning more than 76,000 customers to prepare for preventive power outages over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Tens of thousands of people in Southern California could be without electricity over the Thanksgiving holiday due to a high risk of wildfires amid Santa Ana winds.

Utility provider Southern California Edison is warning more than 76,000 customers that they could be subjected to preventive power outages on Thursday and Friday. Such shutoffs are designed to reduce the risk of power lines or other infrastructure sparking wildfires.

More than half of those that could be affected are in San Bernardino County. The rest are in Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside and Ventura counties.

Those areas are in a region forecast to be under critical fire risk for Thursday and Friday, according to the National Weather Service. There is concern that Santa Ana winds could fuel any new or existing fires, weather.com senior meteorologist Chris Dolce said.

The gusty, dry Santa Ana winds, named for a canyon in Southern California, are accelerated as they blow through canyons and mountain passes.

Dolce said the peak of the winds is expected to be late Thursday through Friday, with winds possibly continuing into Saturday.

(MORE: Thanksgiving Brings Highest U.S. Air Travel Numbers Since Mid-March)

Jeff Monford, a public information officer for SoCal Edison, told the Desert Sun that public safety power shutoffs are considered when needed for wind-prone areas.

"We understand these PSPS actions are disruptive to our customers and communities, especially during the Thanksgiving holiday, and we are making every effort to reduce the number and length of our shutoff," Monford said.

The Santa Ana winds are kicking up at a time when California is waiting for the rainy season to start.

"We are still high in our fire season, and we haven’t had nearly enough rainfall to shut it down," Ryan Kittell, a National Weather Service forecaster in Oxnard, told the Los Angeles Times. "We like to see 5 inches of rain in our area before we start having that conversation, and we aren’t really anywhere near that. Pretty much everywhere is under an inch."

California has endured a historic series of fires this year, with nearly 9,300 wildfires that burned more than 4.1 million acres and damaged or destroyed 10,488 homes and other buildings, according to Cal Fire. Thirty-one people have been killed.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.