Why did California fires suddenly roar? Weekend winds topped freeway speeds
Pacific Gas and Electric announced Monday afternoon that it is ending its latest “public safety power shutoff” and will have electricity restored to most of the 65,000 affected customers in 16 counties by midnight. As of Monday afternoon, almost all customers had already had their power restored.
In making the announcement, the utility company said wind speeds topped 70 miles per hour on Sunday in mountain areas in the Bay Area, at Mt. St. Helena in Sonoma, and in Butte County at Jarbo Gap.
The utility company shut off power in those and other areas this weekend to avoid fire-causing damage to the electrical grid system.
Fires flared nevertheless in both areas and grew rapidly out of control, fanned by the seasonal winds. The Glass Fire ignited in the hills east of Napa Valley, near Lake Berryessa and the community of Angwin early Sunday morning, eventually connecting with other spot fires and sweeping west to the eastern neighborhoods of the city of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County.
The month-old North Complex Fire in Butte County flared up in high winds as well on Sunday, causing evacuation warnings in the Butte mountain towns of Paradise and Magalia and mandatory evacuations of rural residents nearer to Highway 70 and the Feather River Canyon.
PG&E has been instituting pre-planned PSPS events in its Northern California territory since its equipment failed in high winds two years ago, igniting the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people in the Paradise area of Butte County, as well as other major fires in the Bay Area.
PG&E launched the latest shutdown in foothill and north bay counties overnight between Saturday and Sunday. Among the 16 counties affected were El Dorado, Placer, Yuba, Amador, Nevada and Butte. Crews were out Monday afternoon inspecting transmission and distribution lines for damage or hazards that may have been caused by the winds.
The National Weather Service forecasts continued high winds in some areas until about 9 p.m. Monday.
In addition to the initial PSPS outages, PG&E officials said they shut power to 37,000 customers in areas of the Butte, Napa, Sonoma and Shasta fires. Most of those customers continued to be out of power Monday afternoon.
This story was originally published September 28, 2020 at 1:21 PM with the headline "Why did California fires suddenly roar? Weekend winds topped freeway speeds."