PG&E

The utility said Friday that it plans to initiate Public Safety Power Shutoff outages in 38 counties, including most of the Bay Area, should dry weather conditions prevail enough to spark the threat of wildfires.

A red flag warning has been issued for the entire San Francisco Bay Area while the strongest winds of the year are forecast.

In anticipation of record winds, the East Bay Regional Park District said it's trying to avoid any wildfire dangers that could result in people being harmed or a massive loss of property.

The calm is expected to be brief.

A change in weather conditions allowed PG&E to reduce the scope of its latest PSPS event from 15 counties down to nine. 

While having no power is an inconvenience, Ryan Eising of Milpitas said it's worth it if shutting off PG&E lines prevent fires.

Customers in parts of 19 counties and in two tribal communities were notified of a potential public safety power shutoff starting as early as Wednesday evening, Pacific Gas & Electric said.

The advisory is from 11 p.m. Monday through 8 a.m. Wednesday because of dry conditions and gusty, offshore winds.

The October 2019 outages brought chaos from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Sierra Nevada, as more than 2 million people lost power.

Pacific Gas and Electric said Friday evening that power has been restored to all customers who receive service who were impacted by the most recent Public Safety Power Shutoff.

PG&E says it plans to restore power by Friday night to thousands of customers who lost it during a public safety power shutoff.

Power remains out for thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric customers across the Bay Area, but the utility said it is ahead of schedule in getting power restored to parts of the South and East Bay.

The shutfoffs are a response to dangerous fire weather – and red flag conditions.

PG&E is moving forward with a Public Safety Power Shutoff on Wednesday evening that will impact more than 25,000 Bay Area customers.

 PG&E's preemptive shutoffs have been a recurring event during California's increasingly prolonged and dangerous fire season and are a safety precaution to help prevent damage to the electrical system, which have in the past, sparked wildfires.