Update 12:30 a.m.:
Punishing Santa Ana winds that pushed fires into Los Angeles-area neighborhoods, burning six homes, were expected to last through Friday and could prompt more power shutoffs to hundreds of thousands of people.
The wind-whipped blazes broke out Thursday in the Santa Clarita area and the largest remained uncontained. As many as 50,000 people were under evacuation orders.
In Northern California, a fire near the wine country town of Geyserville burned 49 buildings.
The threat of hot, dry, winds driving flames far and wide was met with fleets of aircraft and hundreds of firefighters on the ground, who tried to protect homes where backyards were surrounded by trees and brush.
In some places, they failed.
As hot embers flew, subdivision homes and rural ranch properties were damaged or destroyed in the Canyon Country area of Santa Clarita and in nearby Castaic.
"We know of at least six but that number may rise," Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said.
Alejandro Corrales tearfully watched her home burn on a ridge in Canyon Country, taking with it her mother's ashes, other belongings and possibly a pen full of pet sheep.
"You start thinking about all the things you can't get back," she told KCBS-TV.
Her daughter managed to take some small pets.
"Everything in the house is gone," Corrales said. "The panels on one of the pens where we have some rescued sheep was too hot for my daughter to open and so she couldn't let them out ... so I'm probably sure that we lost them, too."
Her three children were safe.
"I'm just a little overwhelmed and I'm literally seeing sticks and fire of what used to be our home," she said.
Some residents tried to fight the blaze with garden hoses.
In the rural areas, where at least two ranch houses burned, people rushed to rescue dozens of horses, donkeys, goats, a pig and even an emu.
No injuries were reported but fire officials say a firefighting helicopter was struck by a bird and its windshield damage, forcing it out of the fight until Friday.
Update 9:30 p.m.:
Fast-growing fires throughout California forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes Thursday as dry winds and high heat fed flames and fears in the state still jittery from devastating wildfires in the past two years.
The dramatic fires and evacuations — near Los Angeles and in the wine country of Northern California — came against a backdrop of power shutoffs that utility companies said were necessary to stop high winds from toppling trees or blowing debris into power lines and starting fires.
The state's largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., warned that more widespread blackouts this weekend were expected to shut power across much of the San Francisco Bay Area. It would be the third major outage this month.
Officials said they did not yet know how many homes had burned in the state, and that no immediate injuries were reported. It is not clear how any of the blazes began.
In Sonoma County, authorities ordered 2,000 people to evacuate the Kincade Fire burned 49 buildings and exploded to 25 square miles, whipped up by the strong winds that had prompted PG&E to impose blackouts across the region. It was 5% contained.
The outages affected half a million people or nearly 180,000 customers in 17 counties, most of whom lost power Wednesday afternoon and had it restored by Thursday evening, PG&E official Keith Stephens said.
While the cause of fire wasn't yet determined PG&E reported a problem with a transmission tower near the spot where the fire ignited. The company filed a report with the state utilities commission saying it found a "broken jumper" on a transmission tower around 9:20 p.m. Wednesday; it was in the same area where the fire started minutes later.
PG&E CEO Bill Johnson said it was too soon to know if the faulty equipment started the fire outside Geyserville. He said the tower was 43 years old, which is not uncommon in the industry, and had been inspected four times in the past two years and appeared to have been in "excellent condition."
Officials ordered an evacuation of Geyserville, home to about 900 people and a popular stop for wine country tourists, along with nearby residents. The blaze threatened some of the area's famed wineries and the River Rock Casino as flames raged on the outskirts of town.
A series of deadly blazes tore through the same area in Northern California wine country two years ago, killing 44 people.
Update 7 p.m.:
Officials with Cal Fire held a press conference about the ongoing fight to extinguish the Kincade Fire in Sonoma County.
In their latest update, Cal Fire said the Kincade Fire has scorched approximately 16,000 acres of land is at 5% containment with 49 structures destroyed. No injuries or deaths have been reported.
Although the cause of the fire has not yet been determined, PG&E told state regulators that it learned of a transmission level outage on Wednesday night in the Geysers, the world's largest geothermal field. The wildfire was reported minutes later in the same area.
CEO Bill Johnson said Thursday that conducting wire on a PG&E transmission tower malfunctioned but that authorities haven't determined what started the fire.
Johnson said the tower is 43 years old, which isn't uncommon in the industry, and had been inspected four times in the last two years. He said the tower appears to have been in "excellent condition."
PG&E cut power to distribution lines in the area, but not transmission lines because the wind speed didn't call for it.
6:30 Update:
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) says it's too soon to know whether faulty equipment started the wind-whipped Kincade Fire in Northern California wine country.
The utility told state regulators that it learned of a transmission level outage on Wednesday night in The Geysers, the world's largest geothermal field in Sonoma County. The wildfire was reported minutes later in the same area.
CEO Bill Johnson said Thursday that conducting wire on a PG&E transmission tower malfunctioned but that authorities haven't determined what started the fire.
Johnson said the tower is 43 years old, which isn't uncommon in the industry, and had been inspected four times in the last two years. He said the tower appears to have been in "excellent condition."
PG&E cut power to distribution lines in the area, but not transmission lines because the wind speed didn't call for it.
5:30 Update:
GEYSERVILLE, Calif. -- A spokesperson with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) says it had a problem with a transmission tower near where the Kincade Fire ignited in Northern California wine country, prompting a large evacuation.
PG&E filed a report with the state utilities commission Thursday saying it became aware of a transmission level outage in the Geysers in Sonoma County around 9:20 p.m. Wednesday.
The wildfire was reported minutes later in the same area, although it is not clear whether the malfunction sparked the blaze.
The state's largest utility preemptively shut off power in Northern California on Thursday in a bid to prevent toppled electrical lines from igniting wildfires in dry, hot gusty winds.
Power was shut off to distribution lines but not to transmission lines.
Original:
Officials ordered 2,000 people to evacuate their homes and businesses in Northern California wine country Thursday after a wildfire exploded in size, fueled by powerful winds that prompted utilities throughout the state to impose electrical blackouts to prevent fires.
The entire community of Geyserville and nearby residents were told to leave after the fire in the Sonoma County wine region north of San Francisco grew to more than 15 square miles (39 square kilometers).
Among those fleeing the flames was 81-year-old Harry Bosworth, who awoke before sunrise to find a firetruck and firefighters in his driveway. As he and his wife drove off, flames surrounded their driveway and their barn caught fire.
"I could see the fire coming, so we got the heck out of there," Bosworth said.
The fire started Wednesday night near the Geysers, the world's largest geothermal field where nearly two dozen power plants draw steam from more than 350 mountain wells to create electricity, said Mike Parkes, incident commander with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The cause of the blaze was not yet known, he said, but it was fueled overnight by 60 mph (95 kph) winds.
The rugged terrain was hard to access, he said, and by Thursday afternoon, the blaze raged on the outskirts of Geyserville.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries. Authorities did not yet know how many buildings were destroyed.
Some people were refusing to leave despite the dangers, Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said.
"Please heed our evacuation order," he said in a televised news conference. "We really need to be able to fight the fire, rather than worrying about rescuing you."
The fire raged amid rolling blackouts that utilities in California have said are designed to keep winds that could top 70 mph (113 kph) from knocking branches into power lines or toppling them, sparking wildfires. Electrical equipment was blamed for setting several blazes in recent years that killed scores of people and burned thousands of homes.
RELATED:
The state's largest electric utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, filed for bankruptcy protection in January as it faced billions of dollars of damages from such wildfires. The investor-owned energy company has set aside billions of dollars for insurance companies and wildfire victims while facing a public backlash over its handling of the incidents.
PG&E announced Wednesday that it would begin rolling power outages, lasting for 48 hours, in parts of Northern California in anticipation of dangerous fire conditions, including unseasonably hot weather and low humidity combined with the strong winds. PG&E spokesman Paul Doherty said parts of Geyserville lost power as scheduled Wednesday.
Other utilities also cut power Wednesday and Thursday to some residents in Southern California, where at least two fires had erupted. Those blazes have remained small.
Many Geyserville residents, including Bosworth, lived through fires that tore through the same area two years ago, killing 44 people.
Mary Ceglarski-Sherwin and her husband, Matt Ceglarski-Sherwin, lost their Santa Rosa rental home during one of those fires and fled the flames again Thursday after Mary's asthma awakened her around 2:30 a.m. Their power was still on when they grabbed their small dogs, some clothes and emergency kits they acquired during the last fire.
"I told him, 'We gotta go, we gotta go; I can feel it changing,'" Mary Ceglarski-Sherwin told the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat. "By the time we got out there, we could feel the heat and see the smoke.'"
The fire also threatened some of the area's famed wineries. The Francis Ford Coppola Winery posted on Facebook that its property was without power but "not currently in danger." The Robert Young Estate Winery said in an 8 a.m. post that "there is fire on our property" affecting brush and pasture areas but not structures or people.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that the state had secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help fight the fire. He did not say how money the state would get.
Newsom, a Democrat, is among those who have criticized PG&E and other utilities for the rolling blackouts and their handling of wildfire dangers.
PG&E's power outages stretched from the Sierra foothills in the northeast to portions of the San Francisco Bay Area, affecting a half-million people — or nearly 180,000 customers.
In Southern California, hot and dry Santa Ana winds prompted Southern California Edison to cut power to more than 15,000 customers. The utility was considering additional power cuts to more than 286,000 customers.
The San Diego Gas & Electric utility said it cut power to about 328 customers.
The latest outages come two weeks after PG&E shut down power for several days to about 2 million people.
"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."
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