Dangerous dry winds whipped up California’s record-breaking wildfires Tuesday as hundreds were evacuated from blazes by helicopter and tens of thousands more were plunged into darkness by power outages.
The arrival of strong gusts after the Labor Day weekend’s unprecedented temperatures saw most of California placed under weather warnings, with 14,000 firefighters battling 25 major wildfires across the country’s most populous state.
More than 170,000 customers were left without electricity as utility company PG&E enacted a “last resort” shutoff across large swathes of the state due to the extreme wildfire threat. Wider blackouts were scheduled later Tuesday.
