California power outages rise to 400,000 as wildfires spread By Reuters

(Reuters) – The number of California homes and businesses without power rose to more than 400,000 on Wednesday, as dozens of wildfires burned out of control around Los Angeles.

At least six fires have broken out since Tuesday in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, so far killing two people and burning more than 20,000 acres (8,094 hectares) of homes, schools and businesses, as winds time to burn the fire, according to state fire officials.

Almost all of the state’s outages were in southern California, especially Los Angeles, according to PowerOutage.us.

Southern California Edison, a subsidiary of US Edison International (NYSE: ) that operates in California, shut off power to more than 169,000 homes and businesses, or more than 3% of its 5 million customers, across the six districts. The company had issued notices to 8.5% of its customers that they were being considered for further closures.

The so-called shutdown of electrical protection occurs, in part, to reduce the risk of airborne objects sparking additional fires when they strike power lines, a spokesman said. company Jeff Monford, who asked the public not to leave any dropped calls.

It was not known when power would be restored as the company would have to wait for the period of concern to pass to find workers to repair power lines and other distribution equipment in the affected areas, Monford said.

Shares of the utility fell as much as 13.8% to $66.70, hitting their lowest level since April and on track for their biggest one-day decline since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic .

The Palisades wildfire has so far burned about 12,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades region between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu.

Other wildfires have broken out in neighboring areas, including a 10,500-acre fire near downtown Pasadena. Parts of Malibu and Santa Monica are also under evacuation orders.

Tens of thousands of people have been affected by mandatory evacuation orders.