SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — Cal Fire San Diego has prepared and increased fire crews due to the windy weather.
“That's a huge problem for us, so we're staffed up, and we're ready to go. We're at peak staffing right now just as we were in the middle of summer. We're also bolstering that staffing with additional engines, patrols, hand crews, dozers. We brought on extra aircraft. We're staffing our fix wing earlier for longer hours during the day,” said Capt. Thomas shoots of Cal Fire San Diego.
And not just impacting us locally, but the Red Flag conditions take effect throughout Southern California causing emergency crews to use to the same resources in the event of a fast moving fire.
"It doesn't need to be a massive fire to really devastate people's homes and people's properties and threaten their lives,” Shoots said.
Due to the warning for forecasted strong Santa Ana winds, SDG&E alerted over 88,700 customers that they could be at risk of prolonged public safety power shutoffs as early as Wednesday night through Monday.
RELATED: SDG&E: More than 88,000 San Diegans at risk of losing power this week
"The time to prepare is now with these wind speeds. There is a risk for flying debris into power lines, so a public safety power shut off will be possible, so please prepare,” said Brian D'Agostino, SDG&E Director of Fire Science and Climate Adaptation.
SDG&E reports no outages have taken place, only notifications. They have models showing the strong winds impacting the East County including Ramona Julian, Descanso and Campo.
"High wind watches have also been issued for this event, and that Is for the potential of wind gusts of 60 miles per hour,” D'Agostino said.
As for the impact to schools virtual learning, Sweetwater Union High School District said it will be flexible in finding alternative methods of measuring student attendance and participation and instruction may be limited in the event of no electricity.
"Losing power is a big deal for folks. Things get bad really quickly when you can't see where you are going, and if you park in your garage and now your garage doesn't open,” Shoots said.