![]() ![]() The latest public safety power shutdown by PG&E, the state's largest investor-owned utility, could disrupt electric service to some 39,000 customers scattered across 16 northern California counties, the company said. But PG&E has said the blaze may have started when a tree fell onto one of the utility's power cables. The cause of the Dixie fire remains under investigation. The forecast also prompted Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) (PCG.N) to issue a public notice warning it was likely to cut power to thousands of homes and businesses beginning on Tuesday evening to reduce the wildfire risks posed by possible wind damage to its transmission lines. "These winds are really going to test those lines tonight." "It's going to challenge a lot of our lines that we've constructed throughout the fire," he said. (Open in an external browser to see an interactive graphic on wildfires.)Īs of Monday, an army of more than 6,500 firefighting personnel had managed to carve containment lines - clearing away unburned vegetation - around 31% of the Dixie fire's perimeter to curtail the flames' spread.īut their progress would likely be tested as fire crews faced a new bout of dry, heavy winds forecast to sweep the region starting late Monday afternoon and persisting through Wednesday afternoon, Cal Fire spokesman David Janssen told Reuters by telephone. It is also the biggest by far among scores of conflagrations raging across the Western United States in a highly incendiary summer wildfire season experts say is symptomatic of climate change. The Dixie ranks as the second-largest California wildfire on record - surpassed only by the million-acre-plus August Complex Fire of 2020. Roughly 15,000 additional structures were listed as threatened on Monday, and nearly 28,700 people were estimated to be under evacuation orders, said Jim Evans, a spokesman for the Dixie fire incident command. All but one of several people listed as missing after Greenville was largely destroyed have since turned up safe, though one man still unaccounted for may have moved from the area prior to the fire, according to the Plumas County Sheriff's Office. Some 1,200 homes and other structures have gone up in flames, including most of the historic downtown area of Greenville, a gold rush mining hamlet engulfed by the blaze more than a week ago. The so-called Dixie fire has blackened nearly 570,000 acres (230,670 hectares) of drought-parched timber and brush in the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of San Francisco since erupting on July 14, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Updated information can be found at: 16 (Reuters) - Strike teams battling a mammoth wildfire displacing thousands of northern California residents braced for a resurgence of high winds on Monday, as the state's largest utility warned widespread precautionary power shutoffs were likely this week. The public is advised to be alert on local roadways as additional heavy equipment and firefighters move around the fire area to patrol and conduct suppression repair.Firefighters continue to patrol for new fire activity as a result of these conditions. Fuels in the fire area are very dry and remain very susceptible to fire, and new starts can occur very easily from small ignition sources such as sparks.The fire area has entered into a generally stable weather pattern with warm temperatures, low humidity, and terrain driven winds.Firefighters continue hazarad tree removal along roadways that lead to developed Forest Service Recreation areas.The Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Team is continuing its post-fire assessment on the Dixie Fire. Firefighters efforts are transitioning from suppression activities to suppression repair across the fire. Small pockets of vegetation are burning within the control perimeter.The public is reminded that a new closure order was enacted yesterday that reduced the closure area and opened more Forest Service lands to public access.To maximize resources and efficiency, the Dixie Fire is being managed in two cooperative zones: West Zone and East Zone.The Lassen National Forest Dixie Fire Closure Order is in effect until April 30th, 2022 to provide safety for our firefighters and the public. The incident is being managed under Unified Command with California Interagency Management Team 14 and CAL FIRE. It has now burned 963, 276 acres with 94 percent containment. The Dixie Fire started on Tuesday, July 13.
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