The rapidly spreading brush fires that have devastated multiple communities around Los Angeles are not expected to affect California’s broader transmission grid, CAISO said Jan. 8.

“There’s been no impact to the power grid from the Southern California wildfire activity,” a CAISO spokesperson told RTO Insider in an email. “The bulk electric system is stable and we’re not seeing any forecasted supply interruptions, so no particular concerns. We are monitoring the potential effects and are in close coordination with state agencies and local power providers.”

At the time of publication of this article, four significant fires were burning in the L.A. metro area, including the Palisades (nearly 12,000 acres), the Eaton (more than 10,500 acres), the Hurst (more than 500 acres) and the Woodley (50 acres).

The fires, the first three of which ignited Jan. 7, have been fanned by unusually strong Santa Ana winds that at times gusted to nearly 100 miles per hour in some areas. The extreme winds prevented local fire departments and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) from deploying aircraft to fight the blazes, which spread quickly from house to house in a densely populated area that has seen just a fraction of its normal rainfall since the start of the water year in October.

The Hurst Fire is burning in L.A.’s Sylmar area, location of the Sylmar Converter Station, which constitutes the southern terminus of the Pacific DC Intertie, a high-voltage transmission line capable of transmitting up to 3,100 MW of electricity between Southern California and Bonneville Power Administration’s territory in Oregon. The substation is owned jointly by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and Southern California Edison (SCE).

“There is no imminent threat to the Sylmar Converter Station or any other transmission line. The Pacific DC Intertie was impacted last night but has been up and running,” LADWP spokesperson Michelle Figueroa said in an email.

“From a grid operations standpoint, it hasn’t presented any system-wide disruptions,” CAISO’s Anne Gonzales said.

Utility Responses

Both LADWP and SCE initiated public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) before and during the fires. By the afternoon of Jan. 8, nearly 183,000 of SCE’s 5 million electricity customers were subject to shutoffs, and almost 420,000 were under PSPS alerts.

LADWP reported that, as of 1 p.m., more than 155,000 of its 1.5 million customers were without power due to storm damage, while about 105,000 had been restored since the start of the storm.

“Currently, customers experiencing a power outage should expect that it could take up to 48 hours before our crews are able to respond. High winds and fire conditions continue to present hazards for our crews and can affect response times and restoration efforts,” the utility said in a statement.

The fires so far have caused two deaths, destroyed more than 1,000 structures and forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes, with many reports of people having to abandon cars and flee on foot after becoming stuck in gridlocked traffic. At publication time, all four blazes were still 0% contained, with the cause of each still under investigation, according to Cal Fire.