Sonoma County faces possible red flag warning, PG&E power shut-off; would be 6th power outage in 2019

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Offshore winds forecast to hit the North Bay, Sierra Foothills and North Valley won't be as strong as the historic, late-October winds that whipped the Kincade fire into the largest blaze in Sonoma County history, but they may be enough to trigger the sixth PG&E-instituted power shut-off designed to prevent just those types of fires.

The National Weather Service in Monterey has issued a fire weather watch, and meteorologist Steve Anderson said Sunday he expects that to transition into a red flag warning Tuesday night through Thursday morning, meaning high winds and temperatures, low humidity and a subsequent increase in an area's fire risk.

The midweek weather forecast calls for northeast winds from 20-30 mph, with gusts to 45 mph. Humidity will largely remain below 20-25%, with some localized areas reaching the single digits, creating high fire danger for the North Bay mountains, East Bay hills and Diablo Range, according to a National Weather Service news release.

Anderson said it's impossible to compare this week's forecast to those in October.

“It doesn't even get close,” he said. “It's a low-level wind event, but certainly, conditions are still dry out there.”

But it put Pacific Gas & Electric on alert, with the utility giant declaring an “elevated” risk of a power shut-off.

The company predicts up to 250,000 customers could be impacted. Among the potential customers impacted are residential homes, businesses and apartment buildings, meaning it's likely far more than 250,000 people will be impacted.

A map and advisory posted on PG&E's website said that there is “considerable uncertainty regarding the strength, timing and humidity levels” of an incoming weather system expected to land Wednesday. Still, the possibility of dry winds prompted PG&E to upgrade the potential for a precautionary power shut-off for a region including Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake and Napa counties to the lowest threshold level at which power shut-offs are possible.

PG&E has previously cut power to its customers in an effort to prevent wildfires five times this year, and four of those have come since Sept. 25. That's up from just one power shut-off in 2018, during which the utility wasn't yet embroiled in its bruising bankruptcy battle that arose in the wake of the deadly and destructive 2017 North Bay fires. A court battle will still determine whether the company started the Tubbs fire, which killed 22 people and destroyed more than 4,600 homes in Sonoma County.

The cause of the Kincade fire remains under investigation, but it's possible PG&E's equipment is responsible for the blaze. The utility filed a report with regulators that one of its transmission towers may have been responsible for sparking that fire.