Three major wildfires – the Tick, Kincade, and Getty – are currently burning in California. The Tick Fire near Santa Clarita was 82 percent contained yesterday according to firefighters, but both the Kincade Fire in Northern California’s Sonoma County and the Getty Fire in Los Angeles are still causing mandatory evacuations. How big are these fires?
The 4,600-acre Tick Fire started Thursday, destroying 29 structures and damaging 46 others. The Kincade Fire, started last Wednesday, burned over 75,000 acres, and is 15 percent contained. So far, 124 structures have been damaged and 23 destroyed in that fire. The 650-acre Getty Fire – just 5 percent contained – started Monday, and has destroyed eight homes and damaged six. What’s PG&E got to do with it?
Pacific Gas & Electric, a major California power utility, has scheduled shutoffs to reduce the risk of sparks along power lines that could start more fires during high winds and dry conditions. The planned outages are expected to affect nearly 600,000 customers – or an estimated 1.8 million people. In Los Angeles, Southern California Edison – another power utility – is also shutting off power to customers, but has only imposed blackouts on 116 customers so far and is considering about 200,000 more. So… what are people saying? |
