PG&E begins Public Safety Power Shutoffs ahead of fire weather

The weather this weekend could create a perfect storm for wildfires.

"Gusty winds and the low relative humidity. It's those two things, the wind and humidity, that add to any sort of fire danger, whether it's low or higher on any given day," said Action News Meteorologist Christine Gregory.

As Central Californians look forward to a cool down this weekend, fire and PG&E crews are keeping a close eye on spark risks.

It's prompting Public Safety Power Shutoffs.

Thousands of customers across 15 counties, including parts of Fresno and Merced, could lose power through the weekend.

The utility says that's notably fewer people facing shutoffs than in the past.

"We used to, by necessity, take out larger groups of customers, but now we're able to be really precise and only take out customers that are directly in an area that has that high fire potential," said Smith.

As of Thursday afternoon, people were already experiencing shutoffs, mostly in the Bay Area, but there were about 50 customers in Merced County without power.

The fire risk is something meteorologists are tracking as well.

"When we're looking at fire danger, we look for specifically less than 15 percent relative humidity -- it just means there's not a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere, just bone dry single digit humidity levels which we typically get this time of year," said Gregory.

PG&E says the outages could last through Sunday.

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