The season\u2019s first Santa Ana wind event will begin Wednesday and ramp up Thursday, bringing significant fire risk to parched Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n
Between Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon, large swaths of Southern California will see sustained winds of 20 to 40 miles per hour and gusts from 40 to 60 miles per hour, according to Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Oxnard.<\/p>\n
In the windiest mountain locations, gusts could reach up to 70 miles per hour, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this environment where it\u2019s going to be windy but also dry and warm\u201d \u2014 with humidity between 5% and 15% in much of the region and high temperatures of 85 to 95 degrees \u2014 fire risk will be a major concern, he said. \u201cAdding to that, the plants are very dry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Southern California got some rain Sunday and Monday, most of it fell in areas south of Los Angeles County, Kittell said, leaving Los Angeles and Ventura counties very dry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a high risk for any new fires to grow really fast,\u201d he said. The weather service issued red flag warnings for most of Los Angeles and Ventura counties that will be in effect Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
Areas west of the 405 Freeway are at a greater risk for wildfire than those east of the 405, which benefited from rain from post-Tropical Storm Rachel, said Daniel Swain, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources climate scientist. Some places received 2 to 5 inches of rain, while others in Southern California got essentially zero rain.<\/p>\n
\u201cWest of that point, almost no rain fell at all, and in early October we had a record-breaking heat wave,\u201d Swain said. \u201cEast of the 405 in Southern California, the fire risk is lower because it recently rained.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fire fire risk isn\u2019t nearly as bad as in January 2025, just prior to the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed much of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, Swain said. Still, there are concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not January 2025. The winds are not going to be anywhere near as strong. They will not be as widespread. The vegetation is not as dry. So every single factor is less extreme than in January 2025,\u201d Swain said. \u201cThe risk is not going to be as high, and it will be more localized because some places have seen recent rain.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in places that have remained dry, there will be risks.<\/p>\n
In those \u201cpockets,\u201d Swain said, \u201cthis will be potentially a fairly high-end event. So on the western side of the L.A. Metro [area], into Ventura, Santa Barbara counties, the risk is still potentially pretty high. … It just hasn\u2019t really rained there much yet this season, and there was recent record heat, and the wind will be pretty strong. So there may be public safety power shutoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Southern California Edison warned Malibu residents that it might shut down power on four major circuits beginning Thursday at midnight, the city of Malibu said in a written statement.<\/p>\n
The weather service also issued some wind advisories and high wind warnings in the mountains to highlight that \u201cthe wind itself could cause issues like downed power lines, power outages, road hazards and general nuisance,\u201d Kittell said.<\/p>\n
In addition to the wind, the hottest conditions will be along the coast, where temperatures will be in the 90s. \u201cThere\u2019s a high risk for heat illness Thursday through Saturday,\u201d said Kittell, as many residents do not have air conditioning in coastal areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The season\u2019s first Santa Ana wind event will begin Wednesday and ramp up Thursday, bringing significant fire risk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[599,54228,192536,2424,2882,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,2663,60,62,32778,278,1009,192535,2429,1226],"class_list":["post-495138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-area","tag-daniel-swain","tag-fire-fire-risk","tag-friday","tag-hour","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mile","tag-national-weather-service","tag-rain","tag-ryan-kittell","tag-season","tag-southern-california","tag-sustained-wind","tag-thursday","tag-ventura-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}