With the announcement of a Red Flag Warning and forecast of a significant Diablo wind event, we now get the inevitable follow-up announcement from PG&E about pre-emptive power shutoffs.

Residents of Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties should be used to the drill by now, and PG&E plans to release exact addresses impacted by upcoming public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), which could begin as soon as Thursday night. The utility says it will give two days notice for these shutoffs, so by Wednesday morning, PG&E customers should be able to check this webpage and enter their address to check if they are included.

Given that PG&E's power lines have to been to blame for sparking multiple major wildfires around Northern California in the last decade, these power shutoffs are meant to mitigate the risks of live wires being the cause of future wildfires amid high-wind events.

The Red Flag Warning, which takes effect Thursday at 11 pm and extends through Saturday night, was issued Tuesday with forecasts of increasingly dry conditions — humidity levels as low as 10% — and Diablo winds blowing offshore, 25 to 45 miles per hour, with isolated gusts of 65 miles per hour at ridge lines.

Luckily, a weak cold front is moving in Wednesday which could bring some sprinkles and dampen some of the very dry vegetation in the North Bay ahead of these winds, but no significant rain is forecast.

In total, 30 California counties are facing potential power outages in the coming days, with Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties likely to see these Thursday and/or Friday.

There have not been any widespread PSPS events in the Bay Area since 2022, and in the 2023 fire season, only a couple of small, targeted shutoffs in August and September impacted a few areas of Napa, Sonoma, Contra Costa, and Alameda counties, with only a couple thousand households affected.

The last such PSPS event to impact the Bay Area was on July 20, when a couple hundred customers in eastern Contra Costa and Alameda counties were affected.

Photo: Fre Sonneveld