Strong Santa Ana Winds Prompt Fire Danger

Secure loose items and holiday decorations outdoors!

We are expecting a "chilly" Santa Ana wind event Friday through Saturday, with the strongest winds occurring over the mountains, canyons and passes. In these areas, damaging wind gusts of 60 to 80mph are possible. Coastal and valley locations will see gusts between 40 and 50mph. Humidities will drop significantly, prompting Red Flag Warnings for high fire danger.

A red flag warning denoting fire-weather conditions will be in force from noon Friday until 6 p.m. Saturday in the Santa Monica Mountains, inland Orange County, the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, and eastern San Gabriel valleys, and the L.A County costal zone, which includes beach cities, metropolitan Los Angeles and the Hollywood Hills.

A fire weather watch -- one notch less severe than a red flag warning -- will be in force in the San Gabriel Mountains and the Angeles National Forest from Saturday morning through Saturday afternoon. The mountains and forest are being spared a red flag warning for now because the humidity level will be a little higher than where the red flag warning has been issued.

Also in effect in several areas were high wind warnings, which indicate sustained winds or gusts of 58 mph and are more serious than wind advisories, which denote 35-mph winds.

As of late Friday morning, about 1,400 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers in the Sylmar area were without power thanks to a fallen tree.

That outage was reported at about 10 a.m., according to the DWP's Vonda Paige.

Southern California Edison said 16 customers were affected by wind-related outages in Los Angeles County, and that 16 other customers were affected in Orange County around 12 p.m. The utility noted that its crews were ready to respond to any problems.