An has prompted Southern California Edison to shut off power to thousands of customers across the region. The map below shows which areas are currently without electricity and the areas that are under warning for further outages.
Two fires ignited amid a Santa Ana wind event that was generating 70- to 80-mph wind gusts in Ventura and Los Angeles counties on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of utility customers across the region lost power as of Wednesday afternoon “due to heightened wildfire risk,” . Shutoffs, which had affected Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, Orange and Santa Barbara counties early Wednesday were extended into parts of Kern and Tulare counties.
Edison’s “ are an effort to mitigate risks, often in areas where its equipment is considered at high risk of sparking a wildfire. Thousands more shutoffs were being considered for safety through at least Thursday, Edison reported.
The and fires, driven by the region’s most extreme wind event in years, already have caused injuries, officials said. Several homes have burned in Camarillo Heights and many others are threatened. Evacuation orders were in place Wednesday as authorities rushed to save people from the fast-moving flames.
Additional development by Sandhya Kambhampati. Noah Goldberg, Grace Toohey, Clara Harter, Jireh Deng and Sandra McDonald contributed to this report.
