CALIFORNIA FIRE UPDATE - California cuts power use

The California Independent System Operator, manager of the state power grid, on Monday called a "transmission emergency" as Southern California wildfires caused several big power lines to shut temporarily.

A fire in Orange County south of Los Angeles caused two high-voltage transmission lines to trip offline around 2 p.m. PDT (2100 GMT), and the Cal ISO ordered SoCal Ed to cut 300 megawatts of electrical load, the ISO said.

About 86,000 SoCal Ed customers lost power for about a half an hour because of the outage of the two 230-kilovolt transmission lines -- the San Onofre (SONGS) Viejo line and the SONGS Serrano line, said a SoCal Ed spokesman.

San Diego Gas & Electric was asked to cut 200 MW of power use, and about 70,000 of its customers lost power for about half an hour, said an SDG&E spokeswoman.

In addition to the SONGS lines, the Pacific DC Intertie, which normally has a capacity of about 3,000 MW, was shut entirely for a short time on Monday afternoon because of a separate fire. Its power flow had been decreased earlier in the day to less than half its normal capacity.