SoCal Edison Plans Power Shutoffs To Some Areas During Extreme Fire Danger
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- The Northern California town of Paradise became a raging inferno and literally burned to the ground.
Eighty-five people were killed in the fire now blamed on high winds and downed power lines.
The Thomas Fire started the same way.
CBS2/KCAL9 reporter Greg Mills says Southern California Edison has a plan to keep anything like those devastating fires from happening again.
"Our intent is to try to minimize the likelihood of that happening," says Don Daigler with So Cal Edison.
Where there is extreme fire danger and on days when conditions warrant, the power giant plans on cutting power.
Mills spoke to some residents who question the move.
"I don't think they should do that," says Damon Moore of Altadena.
"This impacts a lot of people," says Noah Moss, also of Altadena, "So, they'd better be pretty sure before they are cutting my power off."
During red flag conditions, if power is cut, there is no chance of a downed power line sparking a blaze.
Edison says it will contact customers starting as early as two days prior to the shutdown to give them time to prepare.
So Cal Edison says they tested the system on a very small scale last year.
"We impacted less than 150 customers," Daigler says, "and the outages for those customers was less than 24 hours."
People in the most vulnerable areas (the mountains and the foothills) are advised and encouraged to have a fire plan -- there are power lines all over and lots of fuel (trees and bushes) to feed a wildfire.
