Dive Summary:
- A fire on the fringe of Yosemite National Park is threatening electrical infrastructure essential to the city of San Francisco, California, causing the city and county of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and California Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency, according to NBC Bay Area.
- In a statement proclaiming the state of emergency on Friday, Governor Brown said the fires "have caused damage to electrical infrastructure," forced the San Francisco PUC to "shut down transmission lines" and "now threaten damage to property, equipment, and resources of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission."
- Brown warned of possible interruptions to electricity service in San Francisco.
Update:
- Two of the three hydropower generating stations supplying power to all of San Francisco's public facilities have been damaged and shut down. San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) spokeswoman Suzanne Gautier said the city is drawing on emergency reserve power supplies and buying electricity on the open market to ensure reliability, according to Reuters.
Yosemite fire from 28,000'@JimCantore @APilotsEye pic.twitter.com/OdLlWVAOTp
— DaKingAirDriver (@daKingAirDriver) August 27, 2013