 Approximately 850,000 customers, comprising millions of people across Northern and Central California, could be without power through the weekend, according to Pacific Gas & Electric. Strong winds in the forecast will pose a high risk of sparks, which would lead to rapidly spreading wildfires, the utility said in a statement Friday. News of the outage comes after two significant fires began close to residential areas in Northern and Southern California over the past three days. A wildfire burning out of control near Los Angeles expanded rapidly overnight and jumped a highway early Friday morning, prompting evacuation orders for roughly 40,000 people. On Wednesday night, a fire ignited in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, forced thousands to flee their homes and charred more than 20,000 acres by Friday morning. PG&E is facing extreme scrutiny after it reported Thursday that though it said it had cut […]