Hundreds of thousands are without power in California as the powerful Santa Ana winds continue to cause the spread of multiple wildfires.
There are over 249,159 people without power in California, according to the USA TODAY power outage tracker. Most of the outages are in northern Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s outage map shows.
In addition to the outages, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency as more than 30,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and evacuate the area.
More evacuations and outages could be coming as the wildfires remain hard to contain and continue to spread at a rapid pace.
“Winds will not die down much until noon on Wednesday around Los Angeles,” said meteorologist Ryan Maue on X. “The worst is yet to come in the next few hours with 80-105 mph gusts. This is a hurricane of fire.”
California wildfires: Eaton Fire prompts more evacuations in California: See map
Firefighters work to extinguish flames as the Eaton Fire burns in Pasadena, California, U.S. January 7, 2025.
Map of California power outages
How did the California wildfires originate?
The culprits behind the wildfires — Palisades, Eaton and Hurst — are seemingly low humidity and dry vegetation caused by scarce rain and powerful winds.
Before the fire began, the National Weather Service (NWS) on Monday warned the affected areas in Los Angeles County of extreme fire conditions and the possibility of wind gusts reaching 100 mph.
“This is a particularly dangerous situation − in other words, this is about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,” the NWS office in Los Angeles warned Monday. “Stay aware of your surroundings. Be ready to evacuate, especially if in a high fire risk area. Be careful with fire sources.”
When will power be back on in California?
Under the current conditions in California, customers with outages “should expect crews to respond between 24-48 hours from the time outages are reported,” the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power said.
“Restoration of outages may take longer,” according to the city government office.
Some repair crews have already begun working to restore power near North Hollywood, Universal City and the city of Los Angeles, the Department of Water & Power’s map shows.
Jonathan Limehouse covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at JLimehouse@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Power outages in LA area reach over 200,000 due to wildfires: See map
