(Reuters) – The number of homes and businesses without power in California rose to more than 400,000 on Wednesday as more wildfires raged out of control in Los Angeles.
The fires that broke out on Tuesday killed at least five people, destroyed hundreds of homes and stretched firefighting resources and water supplies to the limit, while more than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate.
Almost all of the state’s outages were in Southern California, primarily in Los Angeles and Southern California Edison’s (SCE) primary outage management system is offline, according to PowerOutage.us.
SCE, the California-based subsidiary of U.S. utility Edison International (NYSE: ), said in a statement that “as of 4:00 p.m. PST on January 8, approximately 413,639 SCE customers were without power… and 453,872 users are under Public Safety Viewing Power Shutdown Program (PSPS) measures.”
“Given the uncertain conditions for power restoration, customers may experience several days of outages. SCE will restore service as soon as it is safe to do so.”
The so-called safety power outages occur, in part, to reduce the risk of airborne objects starting additional fires when they hit power lines, said company spokesman Jeff Monford, who urged the public to stay away from downed power lines.
It is not known when power will be restored because the utility will have to wait for a period of concern to get crews to repair power lines and other distribution facilities in the affected areas, Monford said.
Shares of the utility fell as much as 13.8% to $66.70, hitting their lowest levels since April and on track for the biggest one-day percentage decline since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Palisades Fire has so far burned more than 15,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal cities of Santa Monica and Malibu.
Other wildfires have flared up in neighboring areas, including a 10,600-acre fire near the city of Pasadena and a new fire in the Hollywood Hills Wednesday night, forcing more evacuations. Parts of Malibu and Santa Monica are also under evacuation orders.
