California Braces for Fires, Outages in Season's Worst Winds (2)

摘要

California is bracing for the most powerful gusts of the 2020 fire season, raising the threat of widespread blackouts and more blazes in a region that’s already seen a record 4.1 million acres scorched this year. A storm coming off the Pacific into Oregon and Washington will push winds over the Sierra Nevada mountains, where gusts could reach up to 70 miles (112 kilometers) per hour in canyons and atop ridges on Sunday and Monday, according to the National Weather Service. It raises the prospect that PG&E Corp., the state’s biggest utility, could shut power starting Sunday to prevent live wires from sparking blazes. The outages could affect a far larger area -- and more people -- than any of the company’s previous preemptive shutoffs this year, impacting the San Francisco Bay Area, a wide swath of the Sierra Nevada foothills, the Central Valley and the Central Coast, according to its website.