The region can expect winds gusting between 50 to 70 miles (80 to 112 kilometers) per hour along with crackling dry air that will persist through late Sunday – increasing the chance that trees and power lines will get knocked down – resulting in the “likely rapid growth of any new fire that starts,” the National Weather Service said in a warning.
“Strong winds and low relative humidity — that is the perfect combination for enhancing the wildfire danger,” Andrew Orrison, a forecaster with the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, told BNN Bloomberg by telephone. “Once we get through the end of this weekend the fire danger will come down a little bit.”
After experiencing some relatively calm conditions at the start of last week, strong winds began to pick up again in southern California on Thursday night, posing a bit of a challenge to firefighters battling the Saddleridge Fire in the northern San Fernando Valley. The fire is now 75 percent contained after burning 8,799 acres.
On Thursday night, a wind-driven fire burned hundreds of acres near Gaviota in Santa Barbara County, forcing the closure of Highway 101 and evacuations. Called the Real Fire, it was 50 percent contained as of Saturday after burning a bit over 420 acres.
“The winds are going to transition day by day, so (Friday) and (Saturday) we are expecting a north wind for those valley spots,” said NBC4 forecaster Shanna Mendiola. “Then we get to Sunday, and that’s when that wind turns northeast to southwest, which is an offshore wind to heat temperatures up.” Temperatures will be above-normal Monday, reaching into the low 90s and adding to the fire danger.
Power shutoffs possible
Southern California Edison is saying the utility may have to shut off the power to about 33,000 customers in high-risk areas. The shutoffs will be far less than the nearly 170,000 customers in Southern California faced who faced outages last week.
Over 33,000 customers in the region could be affected in this latest round of potential shutoffs. Additionally, in Los Angeles County, as many as 2,885 customers could be impacted, along with 2,719 and 5,363 customers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, respectively, according to local ABC7 news.
As of October 13, California wildfires had consumed 162,693 acres, which lags the five-year average of 372,066 acres, according to Cal Fire. Nationally, about 4.5 million acres have burned, below the 10-year average of 6.2 million acres, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
