SAN FRANCISCO, CA (MPG) -  Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) urges its customers to conserve energy during afternoons and evenings over the three-day Labor Day weekend. The state’s grid operator has issued a Flex Alert, based on a forecast of increased power demand due to expected high temperatures.

Customers are asked to reduce their energy use from 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. each day, Saturday through Monday, when air conditioners drive consumption. By doing so, customers can help make sure the state has enough supply to meet demand for electricity.

Some helpful tips for conserving power:

• Avoid using electrical appliances and devices from 3 p.m. until 9 p.m. Put off tasks such as vacuuming, laundry, dish washing and computer time until after 9 p.m.
• Adjust your thermostat to 78 degrees or higher or turn it off if you will be away from home. Use a fan instead of air conditioning when possible.
• Draw drapes and turn off unnecessary lighting.
• Limit the opening of refrigerators, which is a major user of electricity in most homes. The average refrigerator is opened 33 times a day.
• Keep refrigerator full (with bottles of water if nothing else) and unplug your second refrigerator, if you have one.
• Avoid using the oven. Instead, cook on the stove, use a microwave or grill outside.
• Set your pool pump to run overnight instead of during the day.

A Flex Alert is an urgent call by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to conserve electricity and shift demand to off-peak hours. Conservation can generate 1,000 megawatts or more in electricity savings statewide—equal to the output of two large power plants.

As of Thursday morning, CAISO has given no indication of a need for rotating outages like those experienced by Californians last month.

PG&E meteorologists are forecasting a strong high-pressure system over the western United States resulting in hot and dry conditions away from the coast. Daytime highs could top out 15 to 20 degrees above normal.

PG&E routinely practices its preparedness and response to weather events and other emergencies through company exercises and drills with local first responders. PG&E also encourages our customers to have a plan for the heat.

PG&E Tips to Stay Safe and Cool

• Plan ahead: Check the weather forecast to prepare for hot days.
• Keep an emergency contact list: Keep a list of emergency phone numbers.
• Have a buddy system: Check in on elderly or frail people.
• Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of water, even when you are not thirsty.
• Stay cool: Take a cool shower or bath and wear lightweight, loose, light-colored clothing.
• Stay safe: Stay out of direct sunlight and avoid alcoholic or caffeinated beverages.

PG&E Tips to Prepare for a Power Outage

• Keep important numbers (e.g., hospital, fire department, police, friends, relatives) near the phone.
• Keep battery-operated flashlights and radios and extra batteries on hand.
• Gather non-perishable food that doesn’t require cooking, as well as a manual can opener.
• Freeze water-filled plastic jugs to make blocks of ice. Place them in the fridge and freezer to help prevent food from spoiling.
• If you have a generator, make sure a licensed electrician properly installs it. Improperly installed generators pose a significant danger to our crews.

PG&E-Funded Cooling Centers

PG&E also funds the operation of existing county- or city-run cooling centers throughout the state. These centers fill a critical need for those who might need shelter from prolonged hot temperatures. To find a cooling center near you, please call your local city or county government, or call PG&E’s toll-free cooling center locator line at 1-877-474-3266 or visit pge.com/coolingcenters.

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 23,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to 16 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com and pge.com/news.

California Struggles to Find Help Fighting Its Wildfires

California’s wildfire resources are the envy of the world: It owns the most extensive fleet of firefighting aircraft, and the largest and best-equipped crews.  

Yet, already this year, CalFire can’t keep up with the fire siege hitting the state, whipped by a barrage of lighting strikes, an historic heat wave and plenty of brush and buildings poised to burn. Harried state officials readily admit there are not enough firefighters to fill every need.

The state faces an unprecedented crisis: The number and intensity of Northern California’s fires so early in the season means that Western states are still fighting fires and have little aid to spare to send to California.

“We are still burning. New Mexico is still burning. Colorado and Nevada are asking for resources. There’s just not a good word to put on this fire season. We are working in a new world,” said Tiffany Davila, public affairs officer with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management.

With more than 7,000 fires already started in California, and more than 1.6 million acres burned, the pace is well ahead of what is expected for this time of year. 

Climate change has redefined what fire experts held true. There is no longer such a thing as “normal” when it comes to defining fire season and fire behavior. The season now lasts two and a half months longer, starting earlier and lingering into late fall. California’s most deadly conflagration, the Camp Fire, ignited in November of 2018.

Historically, California’s most dangerous fires have come later in the year, in September and October. By then, the worst fires are over in neighboring states so they could be counted on to send help.

The fire service has a long tradition of mutual aid, often encompassing local and county fire crews lending a hand when needed. But the strain of managing multiple, large fires that have ignited in Northern California means casting a wide net for help. 

“We are using every possible resource, every conceivable asset,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.

The state secured a federal major disaster declaration, freeing up additional funds and some equipment. At least two C-130 air tankers have been dispatched, from the California Air National Guard and also from Wyoming’s guard.

California has sent out calls for aid to all 50 states, with crews and equipment from at least seven Western states currently working dozens of major fires. Personnel from Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and Washington are assisting California crews. Kansas is also sending crews.

Help also is expected from Canadian and Australian firefighters, who are California’s traditional wildfire allies. Those appeals are made through the state Office of Emergency Services, which did not respond to CalMatters’ requests for information.

Australia’s New South Wales Rural Fire Service, the world’s largest volunteer firefighting force, said Thursday that it will send 55 personnel to California, in part to reciprocate for mutual aid assistance CalFire sent last year.

In Arizona, which is second to California in acres burned this year, fire bosses have had two strike teams and crews in the Golden State for a month. During catastrophic fires in California’s wine country two years ago, as many as 300 Arizona firefighters were on the front lines. 

Now, with unprecedented late-season fires raging, Arizona fire authorities are in a bind.

“We just sent two crews to Colorado and had to call them to turn them around,” Davila said. “The problem we all are facing is the lack of resources — everyone is still busy. Usually by now we would be dialing down to the end of our season and would have crews to spare.”

It often falls to federal fire bosses at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, to balance the needs of everybody. With the national fire preparedness set at Level 5, the highest alert, multi-agency fire managers meet every morning at a sprawling complex in Boise. They produce a national situation report and use it to triage fire emergencies around the country and assign priorities for sending resources.

California usually tops the list.

“There are 6,400 federal firefighters, half are on fires in California,” said Stanton Florea, a spokesman for the Forest Service in Boise. “Fires in the U.S. typically start in the Southwest, shift to other parts of the country then end up in California. It’s unusual that these large fires are occurring this early. There is competition for resources.”

Staffing wildfires in California is never straightforward. Current fires are being managed by CalFire, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the federal Bureau of Land Management. Tribal crews operate out of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Determining where crews and equipment are best used is a logistical nightmare, a puzzle board of moving pieces. Even though large fires aren’t yet igniting in Southern California, the urge to shift crews north is tempered by the concern that such deployments leave southern regions vulnerable should fires break out. It can take days or longer to move fire equipment and crews.

“As (fire) containment goes up, we can move people around, but we are spread so thin,” said Lynette Round, a CalFire spokeswoman. In addition to its duties as wildland firefighters, the agency’s employees also go out on non-fire emergencies. “We responded to 15,000 emergencies in the last 10 days,” Round said.

CalFire has added to its ranks by bringing back retirees, calling employees back from vacations and bringing online 858 new fire personnel funded through the state budget process. Inmate crews, which the agency has come to rely on, are scarce because of virus-related early prison releases. 

To make matters worse, the pandemic has restricted the free movement of some firefighters. Davila said that some departments are reluctant to send crews to other jurisdictions for fear that either they would lose firefighters to the virus or restrictive quarantine procedures.

Another factor that bedevils fire authorities is the longstanding state and federal mandate for what they call “aggressive initial attack,” hitting new fires hard to keep them from spreading.  

A June memo from the U.S. Forest Service Chief stressed the policy and put it in the pandemic context, as a strategy to put fires out quickly to limit crews’ exposure to COVID-19 while in the field.

That has meant crews are busy on almost every fire, even those that might be observed and allowed to burn.

To Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the Oregon-based group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, it’s a misguided approach.

“It’s not humanly possible to put out all fires,” he said. “We need to focus on the fires that really matter, to save lives and homes, and shift resources to them. The future is to safely manage wildfires, to steer them. You don’t need hundreds of firefighters to do that.”

CARMICHAEL, CA (MPG) - Dr. Paul Peterson of Carmichael remembers sitting at a concert onboard a Princess Cruise ship in February – just two empty seats from a woman who coughed throughout the show. Three days after disembarking from the ship, Peterson, a local chiropractor who is blind, began noticing odd chills, a low-grade fever and achy muscles. Certain he had the flu, he laid low – then the cough started. Within two days, he received a chest x-ray that revealed pneumonia. Two days after that, he received the dreaded email from Princess Cruise Lines: Passengers onboard his ship had come down with the coronavirus.

Peterson, a community volunteer who serves on the board of directors for Society for the Blind in Sacramento, was the first person to be tested for COVID-19 in Sacramento: It was positive. He decided to recuperate at home, and a physician friend lent him an oxygen meter. On the twelfth day of the virus, his oxygen level was well below 100 at 84 despite using his CPAP machine, so he went to the emergency room. After several tests, he was admitted to the ICU.

“My wife asked if I was going to make it, and the doctors told her they didn’t know,” Peterson said. “It was quite the experience being wired to the wall and computers and not knowing if I was going to live or die.”

He was in ICU for two and a half days and in the hospital for five days. He spent the next two weeks recuperating at home. During that time, Sacramento County retested him to make sure the virus was gone: It was. As it turned out, Peterson was one of the few people in Sacramento who received pre- and post-tests for coronavirus – the practice was halted shortly after.

When Peterson’s physician friend learned that there was a new experimental test being done that involved using recovered COVID patients’ antibody-rich plasma to treat patients with severe cases of coronavirus, he called Peterson. The experiment required someone who had tested positive and had a subsequent negative test.

Peterson immediately agreed and became the first person in Sacramento to donate the antibody-rich plasma. He donated four units of plasma that day, enough for four COVID-19 patients.

Not long after, he learned that one of those units had saved a Sacramento man’s life. The man had been on a ventilator for 12 days and they did not think he would survive. Two days after receiving Peterson’s plasma, he was healing and able to talk to his family.

“It was a spectacularly wonderful feeling to know my plasma had saved someone’s life,” he said. “I wonder if perhaps my life was saved so that my plasma could save the lives of others. As soon as we have a strong antibody test, I hope even more people will donate. It’s easy to donate and doesn’t hurt a bit.”

Peterson donated his plasma again earlier this summer and learned that at least one unit of that donation has been used. He has a new outlook on life since his experience in ICU.

“My whole life, I’ve thought of myself as a farm boy from Iowa and never indulged too much in things such as expensive food,” Peterson said. “Since being in ICU, if I want something, I get it!”

He also plans to continue traveling once stay-at-home orders are lifted.

The beloved doctor offers this advice, “Keep your immune system tuned up through proper nutrition, rest, stress control and exercise, and you can fight off most things. The human body is self-regulating and self-healing and does a marvelous job of keeping us healthy.”

He adds, “If you come down with the coronavirus, please consider donating your plasma. This is a treatment we can offer now instead of just waiting who knows how long for a vaccine.”