The damaging and life-threatening winds have already arrived

Thousands of people in Southern California face power outages as strong winds blow in the Los Angeles area, where massive wildfires have been raging for a week.
Santa Ana winds, which began blowing across the mountains before sunrise, were expected to remain strong enough to carry sparks long distances and spark new fires across the region, where at least 24 people have already been killed.
“The damaging, life-threatening and widespread winds have already arrived,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Christine Crowley said at a news conference.

High level of fire risk

Much of Southern California was under a high fire risk level, with crews on high alert across a 300-mile stretch from San Diego to north of Los Angeles.
Inland areas north of Los Angeles, including the cities of Thousand Oaks, Northridge and Simi Valley, home to more than 300,000 people, were most at risk, forecasters said.

Electricity was cut off to nearly 90,000 homes to prevent their lines from igniting new fires.

85 thousand people evacuated

On Tuesday, authorities in the American city of Los Angeles issued warnings to nearly 85,000 people about the possibility of evacuation, at a time when fires caused the Hollywood awards season to temporarily stop.
About 85,000 people were warned that they could face evacuation orders, with strong winds over the next two days expected to create dangerous conditions as several major wildfires continue to burn in the Los Angeles area.
About 88,000 people remained under evacuation orders Tuesday morning due to the fires.
But about 84,800 others have been warned that evacuation orders may be issued.