Strong Winds Spark Power Outages, Fire

Winds reaching 30 mph Wednesday knocked down power lines, triggering a fire and leaving about 7,000 people in Orange County without power for most of the afternoon.

The gusts apparently were strongest between noon and 1 p.m., when downed lines brought a flood of phone calls to fire stations.

In Buena Park, the winds knocked down a power pole, which broke in half as it fell, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Authority said.

Nearby in Anaheim, firefighters responding to a power outage arrived to find flames shooting from a garage in the 300 block of Katherine Drive. About two dozen firefighters worked for half an hour to extinguish the blaze, which is believed to have been started by a fallen power line.

By 4 p.m., about 7,000 Southern California Edison customers in Fullerton, Buena Park and Anaheim were without electricity. Edison spokesman Thomas Boyd said power was to be restored to most residents by 8 p.m.

“We’ve had really bad problems with the wind today, with widespread sporadic outages because of it,” Boyd said.

The winds will continue “on and off” until Friday, with high temperatures in the low to mid-60s and low temperatures in the low 40s and low 50s, said John Sherwin, meteorologist for WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times.

The wind was a result of two opposing pressure points, an eastern low-pressure area in Utah and the western high pressure over the Pacific Ocean, Sherwin said.

“The two pressure points are like opposite spinning wheels, and between you have the accelerated wind that in combination with the California topography causes the winds to go even faster,” he said.