PG&E Taking Extreme Measures To Manage Wildfire Risk

California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) cut off power to parts of 22 counties in northern California Wednesday. Roughly 500,000 customers have been affected by the outage, and numerous schools have cancelled classes.

PG&E says the shutdowns are to avoid sparking a wildfire.

On Wednesday, the vice president of PG&E’s Community Wildfire Safety Program said: "We took this step to ensure safety as a last resort, and we are committed to reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire events."

The wind is expected to subside Friday. Then, PG&E crews will examine their system for damage and begin to restore power for customers left in the dark.