FRESNO, Calif. (KMJ/KFSN) — The weekend weather forecast has prompted alerts from PG&E to thousands of its customers on Wednesday night.
With high winds on the way for much of the Valley this weekend, PG&E is closely monitoring the conditions and says it’s prepared to turn off power across 15 counties, including parts of Fresno and Merced.
“A shutoff might be necessary as a result of the hot weather, dry conditions, and particularly the wind speeds that we’re seeing in some rural areas,” said Jeff Smith with PG&E.
The power shutoffs could begin as soon as Thursday.
“We haven’t called for the power shutoff yet, but we wanted to make sure for customers that potentially could be impacted that they had some advance warning,” said Smith.
The advisory comes just as a windy weekend cooldown begins-
Parts of the Valley are expected to drop into the 80s.
Low humidity and strong winds could present fire danger in the Sierra…
“When you’ve got those high wind speeds, the potential for a spark or some type of fire ignition increases,” Smith explained.
The wildfire concerns follow new maps from CAL FIRE.
That– for the first time– expand hazard zones into the suburbs along the San Joaquin River.
The wildfire risk for thousands in the Bluffs, Tesoro Viejo, and Bonadelle Ranchos is now considered moderate.
The dry conditions there and those transmission lines are what have PG&E on alert.
“We proactively are deenergizing the lines in certain high fire threat risk areas that have a lot of dry vegetation,” Smith said.
The new fire maps aren’t expected to impact insurance.
One industry expert told us Wednesday, insurers don’t use the CAL FIRE maps,
And instead, rely on internal risk assessments.
PG&E meteorologists have their criteria.
“They make their decisions based on the alignment of all the different models as opposed to just using one model,” Smith said.
PG&E’s advisory would’ve previously put thousands more Valley customers on notice,
But the power company is now taking a new approach.
“We used to, by necessity, take out larger groups of customers, but now we’re able to be really precise and only take out customers that are directly in an area that has that high fire potential,” Smith said.
With conditions changing, PG&E has not yet decided if it will turn off power.
The company says updates will come on its website.
