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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Vivian Ho in Oakland and Sam Levin in Los Angeles

California fires: unprecedented extreme red flag warning issued for Los Angeles area – as it happened

Evening summary

  • Investigators believe they know what caused the Getty fire: video shows a eucalyptus branch falling on a power line operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
  • As a reminder, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power DOES NOT shut off power during heavy wind events like Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.
  • Officials downgraded a mandatory evacuation order issued to a small portion affected by the Kincade fire to just an evacuation warning.
  • The National Weather Service issued a new warning today: the Extreme Red Flag Warning, for a high-wind event taking place in much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through Thursday evening.

Getty fire sparked by tree branch falling on power lines

Earlier today, the Los Angeles Times reported that investigators were looking at utility lines near where the Getty fire began as the possible cause of the blaze.

Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that video shows a eucalyptus tree branch breaking and falling on a power line operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, sparking the flames.

As a reminder, the Department of Water and Power does not shut off power during high wind events because of its “location in a highly urbanized area with far fewer wildfire prone areas”.

Updated

Quick update from the Getty Museum in the midst of the Getty fire:

Speaking of utility companies causing wildfires, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Southern California Edison believes its equipment will likely be found at fault for causing the Woolsey fire in 2018:

“While SCE did not find evidence of downed electrical wires on the ground in the suspected area of origin, it observed a pole support wire in proximity to an electrical wire that was energized prior to the outage,” the utility wrote in its quarterly earnings report. “Whether the November 8, 2018, outage was related to contact being made between the support wire and the electrical wire has not been determined. SCE believes that its equipment could be found to have been associated with the ignition of the Woolsey Fire.”

The Woolsey fire killed three people and burned up nearly 97,000 acres.

A small portion of the area that was issued a mandatory evacuation order because of the Kincade fire has been downgraded to an evacuation warning. Good news, but doesn’t mean we’re in the clear yet.

The Getty fire forced the evacuation of NBA star LeBron James and his family when it broke out early Monday, and he clearly has not forgotten who is keeping his home safe:

Ah, time for my favorite Californian past time: dunking on clueless East Coast media trying to report on the best coast.

Here is Time magazine with a video of firefighters facing “massive flames in San Francisco.” Except this is not San Francisco. We don’t actually know where this is. But as someone who lives in San Francisco and is currently working across the bay in Oakland, I can safely (literally and figuratively) tell you that this fiery hellscape of burning trees is NOT San Francisco.

If you look at the left-hand corner of the video, you’ll see where the mistake originated: video courtesy of San Francisco Firefighters 798’s Twitter feed. According to this engine’s account, they are battling the Kincade fire in the Sonoma county wine region of northern California.

In disasters like this, it’s not unusual for counties and state agencies to call in mutual aid from surrounding areas. That’s what the San Francisco firefighters are doing - providing mutual aid to their neighbors in the north - NOT battling a wildland fire in their own city.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that investigators are examining utility lines near where the Getty fire began as the possible cause of the blaze.

As of now, it’s unclear which utility operates the power line. If you’ll recall, Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, has a history of sparking wildfires. However, so does Southern California Edison, which covers a lot of territory in southern California.

This year, both utilities began shutting off power during wind events to prevent wildfires, but not the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

“Due to our location in a highly urbanized area with far fewer wildfire prone areas, we do not face the same threat of wildfire as many of the rural counties located in other service areas served by the larger investor-owned utilities,” the utility wrote in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. “This is because our service area within the City of LA is highly urbanized with extensive fire suppression infrastructure in place and a Class 1 rated LA Fire Department. This is quite different than many of the remote or more rural areas served by investor-owned utilities such as PG&E and SCE.”

Up north, firefighters battling the Kincade fire discovered what appeared to be a broken jumper by a PG&E transmission tower that had lost power. PG&E had shut off power to the area as part of planned shutoff, the transmission lines remained energized. While the cause of the Kincade fire is still under investigation, the utility has submitted a report to state regulators.

PG&E also submitted a report regarding two fires that broke out in northeast of San Francisco on Sunday afternoon. Firefighters believed that contact betwen a power line and a communication line may have been the cause of the blaze that forced evacuations and burned down a tennis club, CNBC is reporting. At a second fire nearby, fire personnel were investigating the site of a fallen pole and transformer as a potential ignition source.

It appears we’re heading into new vocabulary territory in California, folks.

We’ve been in Red Flag Warning weather throughout the state on and off these past few weeks, which means conditions are high for fire - low humidity, high temperatures, swift winds.

The National Weather Service has now issued an Extreme Red Flag Warning for much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, starting late Tuesday and into Thursday evening.

From the National Weather Service:

A strong Santa Ana wind event is expected tonight through Thursday, and could be one of the strongest of recent memory. Damaging wind gusts between 50 and 70 mph are expected over most of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, with isolated gusts to around 80 mph likely. Although the air is cold, humidities will lower to the single digits nearly everywhere by Wednesday or Thursday, and down to 1 or 2 percent in the driest windiest locations. Overnight recoveries Wednesday night will be near zero. This all adds up to an extreme fire weather threat. Use extreme caution with any potential ignition sources, and residents in high fire risk areas should be ready and set to evacuate if emergency officials say so.

So, if you’re just tuning into our hellish Californian reality, a whole lot of people are very peeved at Pacific Gas & Electric. The country’s largest utility is behind the massive power shutoffs happening across the state - in part because PG&E has a history of sparking deadly wildfires.

There are many reasons why people are mad at PG&E. Corporate greed! Death and destruction! Massive blackouts that disproportionately affect the medically vulnerable and low-income! There are also people who support these power shutoffs and are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent more deadly wildfires. But in these power shutoffs, one of PG&E’s most egregious failures has been the utility’s ability to communicate.

I’ve talked to people caught completely by surprise when the power went out because they kept getting conflicting messages from the utility and from authorities. The utility would send out alerts to prepare for possible shutoffs, and then the power would go off without official word. Some people would check the power shutoff map and see that they were in the affected zone - but then when the time came, they wouldn’t lose power. Then the next time they got an alert to prepare for a possible shutoff, they wouldn’t, to their detriment.

And then PG&E’s website and power outage maps kept crashing during the first two major power shutoffs.

Keep in mind it takes a lot of time and energy to prepare for a possible shutoff. You have to make sure you have the resources to get you through the blackout period. You have to take care of your perishable items for when your refridgerator and freezer goes down. You have to remember to charge your electronics ahead of time, get your car out of the garage, make sure you have enough water if your water pump runs on electricity. Some have to plan a different way to get to work. And if you’re medically fragile, you have even more work to do.

So all these starts and stops for possible shutoffs are more than just minor inconveniences. In this day and age, electricity is no longer a luxury - it’s part of our daily lives. Going without it - and planning when and how to go without it - is tough. Bad communication from the utility responsible for it makes it all the worse.

Hey all, Vivian Ho taking over for Sam Levin.

It appears that power still has not been regained at Salinas Valley State Prison, according to the Sacramento Bee. And since power has been out since Saturday, conditions has become rough for inmates.

My colleague in Oakland, Vivian Ho, will be taking over our live coverage. For now, here’s the latest on the power shutdowns, via the AP:

California’s largest utility says 1 million people remain without power after a weekend shutoff to try to prevent wildfires left nearly 2.7 million people without electricity.

Some of those still in the dark are unlikely to get their power restored as PG&E initiates another round of blackouts Tuesday in northern California because of dry, strong winds.

PG&E spokeswoman Monica Tell said the utility started cutting power to customers at 5 am Tuesday in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

More from the Guardian’s Mario Koran in San Rafael:

Traffic in San Rafael has slowed to a stop-and-go crawl since the power outage. Some downtown street lights were back on but others had been replaced with temporary stop signs.

Colonial Liquor, across from the downtown transit center and one of the few businesses with lights on, had just opened its doors after two days without power, said the man behind the counter, who declined to give his name.

“I’m going to have to work for sixth months straight to make up what I lost,” he said.

The situation wasn’t quite as dire for Bill Horton, who works for the This Week in Tech podcast, but it was still disruptive. Horton relies on the local Smart train to get to his office in Petaluma, but the power outage grounded the transit system. This morning, he stood by the bus terminal and saw that the bus he needed would be delayed. “It will be another hour,” he said.

Horton’s nearby home has been without power since Saturday, he said. “Oh it’s been great,” he joked. “Last night I ate spaghetti-ohs out of a can. I guess you could look at it as a kind of adventure. But it’s a good reminder of how bad we need to get our shit together before we hit a true emergency, like an earthquake.”

“I’ll be okay,” he continued. “But so many of the people you see here riding public transit, they live paycheck to paycheck. They fight over those hours. They can’t afford to lose several days wages.”

Wedding photo amid wildfire goes viral

A photo of a bride and groom wearing protective masks at their destination wedding in wine country has gone viral after the massive Kincade fire forced guests to evacuate.

The image of newlyweds Katie and Curtis Ferland shows them standing outside at their Chateau St Jean winery wedding in Sonoma county, not far from the massive wildfire that has burned more than 75,000 acres and destroyed 123 structures.

The couple from Chicago had been planning the wedding for a year, and their 80 guests had mostly traveled from out of state for the ceremony, the photographer Karna Roa told the Guardian.

The fires forced some guests to evacuate from their Airbnb rentals, and the air quality got so bad that many of the wedding events had to be moved indoors. But the wedding ultimately went forward, and the couple held the actual ceremony outside despite the hazards.

While taking a few photos in the vineyard, the couple thought they might as well capture some images with the protective masks, which people across the region have been wearing due to the toxic air.

“I looked at them and I thought, is this the new normal for wine country in October?” said Roa, who lives in Castro Valley, south of Sonoma county and regularly shoots wine country weddings. The moment the couple put the masks on, it reminded Roa of the famous American Gothic 1930 painting, she said.

This is Roa’s fourth wedding in the last three years that has been evacuated or disrupted by wildfires. The 43-year-old’s parents, who live in nearby Sebastopol, were evacuated as the Kincade fire spread and are now staying at her Castro Valley home, which has no power due to the Pacific Gas & Electric shutoffs.

Roa said the wedding was ultimately a success but that it was a surreal experience to go through it while the fires were raging in the region: “The joy won out, it was a happy wedding ... But all of us were caught in that dichotomy of joy and sorrow. As a photographer, it’s easy for me to get lost in the moment and feel the joy of the couple.”

She said she hoped the viral image would help people outside of California understand the suffering in the region: “It’s helping to bring light to the crisis and destruction going on here.”

“There are people who are still having major life events, and it’s happening right in the middle of a firestorm,” she added.

Updated

New round of PG&E shutoffs begins

Pacific Gas & Electric has started shutting off power to parts of Marin county north of San Francisco, even before expected restorations of power from a previous shut-off had been completed, the AP reports.

Virtually all customers of the wealthier suburb on the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge lost power 26 October as part of planned blackouts by PG&E to prevent the fires. The county has about 260,000 people, and some have been without power since Saturday afternoon.

PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said the new round of shut-offs started around 8am Tuesday, earlier than estimated because of weather and “impacts on our transmission system” from a fire in wine country.

The PG&E power shut-offs Tuesday are the third in a week and the fourth in one month.

My colleague Mario Koran is now in San Rafael, a city just north of San Francisco affected by the power shutdowns:

Downtown San Rafael is blinking to life after several days without power, but the progress is slow – a few traffic lights and a handful of stores are the only ones with power.

The trains aren’t running, either because they run on electricity or because the power is out on the railroad crossings, stalling the commute for workers. Eddie, who would only give his first name, has been out of work for four days since PG&E cut the lights at the restaurant where he works. He said he was worried about the loss of wages.

“If you don’t work in San Francisco or certain parts of Marin [county], you’re out of luck,” he said. He hasn’t been able to go to the grocery store because the lights have been out at, and the nearest market is too far for public transit.

In LA, homeowners evacuating from the Getty fire did not alert their housekeepers and domestic workers about the hazards, leading some of them to show up to work as the fire spread. Thanks to LA Times reporter Brittny Mejia, there’s been growing attention in the last 24 hours about the impacts that the fires can have on more vulnerable residents.

While reporting in evacuation zones, Mejia encountered housekeepers and gardeners trying to go work whose bosses said they forgot to alert them:

Some local lawmakers are now talking about the subject:

In my recent reporting on how LA is coping with the fires and bad air quality, the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California, a not-for-profit that assists immigrant workers, said domestic workers and day laborers are suffering from a number of health problems and other issues that arrives when fires hit their employers’ homes:

For day laborers and domestic workers, many of whom are undocumented and don’t have health insurance, the fires can mean lost work, untreated illness, or hazardous jobs, said Maegan Ortiz, director of a not-for-profit that has assisted immigrant workers affected by the fires. Some workers tend to houses in wealthy neighborhoods after their employers have evacuated, she said: “We hear about these persistent coughs that won’t go away, tightness in the chest, not feeling like you can breathe deeply.”

More here:

How the Getty Center protects its art

My colleague Katharine Gammon has written about the Getty Center’s plan to protect its art from fires. The blaze is far enough away that officials said it was not currently at risk. But if the fire got closer, the center was ready. Katharine reports:

The Getty Center, which comprises a museum, research institutes and a foundation, is home to a vast collection of paintings and photography. But in wildfire-prone California, a museum has to have a plan – and officials say they’ve been preparing for this moment and are now putting that plan to the test.

The Center is designed to be impervious to fire and smoke, with materials such as travertine stone, an extremely fire resistant type of limestone, as well as cement and steel. The rooftops are crushed stone, so embers have no chance to ignite.

The museum’s landscaping is designed to be fire retardant, and maintenance workers do extensive brush clearance all around the property in order to eliminate fuel for the fire. Underneath the trees and grasses is a network of pipes, connected to a million-gallon water tank. Sprinklers can activate as soon as fire touches the ground. “We can use it for our own fire prevention,” spokesperson Lisa Lapin said.

Read the full story here, which includes details of the center’s earthquake plan:

Fires have caused bad air quality across California

The fires have created bad air quality in northern and southern California, though in some areas there have been improvements today.

Around Santa Rosa and in Sonoma county by the Kincade fire, officials say the air remains at unhealthy levels, which means people should try and stay inside when possible. In many parts of the Bay Area, including San Francisco and Oakland, the air quality is now at “moderate” and “good” levels.

In Los Angeles, a smoke advisory was in effect through this morning, though the air seems to be improving now.

Some tips:

Kincade fire update: 90,000 structures threatened, strong winds ahead

Authorities are finishing a press conference in Santa Rosa in Sonoma county. Here are some highlights:

  • The fire is at 75,000 acres: “It grew a little bit overnight.”
  • Currently, 90,000 structures remained threatened, and 124 structures have been destroyed.
  • The National Weather Service says it is expecting a “challenging afternoon and evening” ahead with strong, dry offshore winds: “We’re in this critical 24-hour window.” After 24 hours, NWS expecting a more favorable forecast for the subsequent five to seven days, but no rain is projected.
  • Given the strong winds, many evacuees will likely be unable to return home today, authorities said: “Today’s probably not a going to be a good day to talk about repopulation ... We understand people want to get back to their neighborhoods.”
  • Authorities urged people to continue to be vigilant about fire hazards, with one law enforcement official noting that he had to stop someone who had thrown a cigarette butt on the highway.

Here’s my colleague Susie Cagle’s recent dispatch from Sonoma county:

Updated

Latest blackout to affect 1.5 million people

Good morning and welcome to our continued live coverage of the wildfires and blackouts impacting millions across California. I’m writing from Los Angeles, where a major fire near the Getty museum has burned more than 650 acres. Here’s where things stand as of Monday morning, and what we’re watching today:

  • In northern California, violent winds of up to 100mph caused the Kincade fire, currently the largest in the state, to double in size over the weekend.
  • As of this morning, the Kincade fire has burned more than 75,000 acres and is only 15% contained.
  • The Kincade fire has destroyed more than 123 structures and has forced an unprecedented evacuation of more than 185,000 in Sonoma county and the surrounding area
  • Pacific Gas & Electric Corporation (PG&E) said its latest blackout will start early today and affect about 1.5 million people. The announcement came even before the last blackout had ended, which shut off power to more than 2.5m people.
  • Strong winds are expected to complicate firefighting efforts today: “The worst of this is coming later today and tonight,” Marc Chenard, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, said early today.
  • Until at least Wednesday in the wine country area, winds are expected to hit up to 65mph in the mountain areas and 35mph in the valleys and coast.
  • In the Getty fire in LA, eight residences have been destroyed.
  • Southern California Edison had cut off power to about 800 people as of Monday night and warned that it was considering disconnecting about 400,000 more as winds return midweek.

Our latest news story here:

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