This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

A mobile home community in southern California fell victim to a rapidly spreading wildfire on Thursday, as millions of people in the state were left without power amid a high fire threat.

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The fire in the Calimesa area of Riverside county near Los Angeles was one of several blazes statewide fed by hot, dry winds, officials said.

The fire quickly destroyed about two dozen homes, as crews with air support scrambled to contain it. A county fire department statement reported “numerous medical emergencies” at Villa Calimesa mobile home park, but there were few further details.

Authorities say the blaze was sparked when a trash truck dumped a load of burning garbage along a road. The area was not listed among the latest communities where utility companies has cut power in an effort to prevent wildfires caused by windblown wires.

Utility companies in northern and southern California had shut off power to nearly 2m people starting Wednesday, amid fears that high winds in the forecast could bring down power lines and spark deadly wildfires.

Unprecedented shutoffs in northern California

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) started turning out the lights over a large section of northern and central California on Wednesday, in outages that were unprecedented in scope

The deliberate outages by PG&E in northern California forced schools and businesses to close and otherwise disrupted life for many people, bringing criticism on the company from the governor and customers alike.

Power was out for many customers in the San Francisco Bay area as well as wine country north of San Francisco, which was hit hard by wildfires in 2017 and the region north of Sacramento devastated by the November 2018 Camp fire. That included parts of the agricultural Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills – where the Camp fire, blamed on PG&E transmission lines, killed 85 and virtually incinerated the town of Paradise. The city of San Francisco was not in the shutoff zone.

As conditions calmed by Thursday evening, PG&E said power was restored to about 228,000 customers in parts of the San Francisco Bay area, the Sierra foothills and Humboldt county. Some 510,000 people in northern California remained in the dark.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Valero gas station sits vacant after power was shut down as part of a statewide blackout in Santa Rosa, California, on Thursday. Photograph: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

PG&E warned that some customers might have to do without power for days after the winds subside because “every inch” of the system must be inspected by helicopters and thousands of workers and declared safe before the grid is reactivated.

Police ordered evacuations early on Thursday as a fast-moving wildfire spread in the hills of a San Francisco Bay area community.

Firefighters in the Moraga-Orinda area responded to the scene near the St Mary’s College campus. The school did not immediately appear threatened but 100 homes were initially evacuated, before the order was lifted for about 50 of the homes some hours later.

The California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire) said the flames had consumed about 60 acres in little more than two hours.

Later in the day, fire crews in area battled another blaze, with television images showing a helicopter dumping water on flames near power lines and electricity towers on the San Bruno mountain. By Thursday evening, that fire was 60% contained.

Thousands lose power in southern California

In southern California, the Southern California Edison utility shut off power for about 12,000 people as strong Santa Ana winds swept parts of the region.

The affected areas include communities north of Los Angeles, east along the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains and to the north-west in Ventura county.

The company is considering further power cuts to nearly 174,000 customers.

The National Weather Service reported wind gusts topping 50mph (80km/h) in some areas.

Growing anger at PG&E

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, told reporters on Thursday PG&E’s decision to cut power should not be blamed on climate change. Instead, he said he believed the blackouts were the result of mismanagement, “greed and neglect” by the nation’s largest investor-owned utility.

“What has occurred in the last 48 hours is unacceptable,” Newsom said, listing problems such as school closures and people who “can’t even access water or medical supplies.”

Newsom criticized PG&E for neglecting its power-supplying equipment when it should have modernized it in response to a changing climate that has made California more susceptible to wildfires.

PG&E has a 70,000-square-mile service area, and serves more than a third of the state. The utility declared bankruptcy in January, in part because of potential liabilities from its role in some of the 2017 fires and the Camp fire.

PG&E began practicing preventive shutoffs this year during red flag fire weather conditions – high winds and low humidity – after investigators found it at fault in two of the deadliest wildfires in California’s history, both within the past two years.

Some of the wildfires started because of trees falling on power lines – trees that should have been cleared by PG&E because of their proximity to the lines. In the 2018 Camp fire, the utility’s outdated infrastructure was implicated.

Amid warm temperatures and strong winds, major shutoffs are expected to become a staple in a state gripped by the climate crisis.