California faces historic power outage due to fire danger

OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ and JANIE HAR Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two years to the day after some of the deadliest wildfires tore through Northern California wine country, a utility announced Tuesday it will shut off power to more than 800,000 customers in the largest preventive outage in state history — to try to prevent wildfires caused by faulty power lines. With windy, dry weather in the forecast and warnings of extreme fire danger, Pacific Gas & Electric utility said it will start turning off power to 34 counties in northern and central California after midnight Wednesday. The Southern California Edison utility website said more than 106,000 of its customers in parts of eight counties could face power cuts. It may take "several days to fully restore power after the w