PG&E power shutoffs leave over 11,000 without power in Bay Area amid elevated fire risk

Power outages in the Bay Area topped 11,000 customers on Thursday as parts of the region were seeing critical fire weather conditions and an elevated fire risk possibly into the weekend.Pacific Gas and Electric said its public safety power shutoffs were forecasted to last until Saturday afternoon because of the weather conditions. The National Weather Service said offshore winds in the higher elevations of the North Bay and East Bay interior mountains would lead to possible extreme fire behavior, with any fires that develop likely spreading rapidly, The weather service issued a red flag warning for Thursday evening through Friday morning for the North Bay interior mountains, where conditions were expected to be very dry and windy with poor overnight humidity recovery, the weather service said. A fire weather watch also remained in effect through Friday afternoon.Farther north, a red flag warning was also in effect for parts of Lake County until 2 p.m. Thursday, as well as for parts