Cellphone service was proving a challenge in Malibu, where the Franklin fire was burning Tuesday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the fire burned some cell towers in the area, affecting service. It is unclear the scope of the outage, but people in the area reported trouble making calls.
There are also several power outages in the area of the fire Tuesday morning — some that were cut off for firefighter safety and some part of widespread public safety power shutoffs, planned electricity cuts to limit potential fire sparks from utility equipment, according to David Eisenhauer, a Southern California Edison spokesperson.
He didn’t have details on outages around the fire. Across the region, more than 40,000 customers had their electricity cut for those planned shutoffs due to high winds, about a quarter in Los Angeles County. Another 200,000 were being considered for a shutoff.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many such outages were among those in Malibu.
Officials had been bracing for intense Santa Ana winds, saying Monday that more than 350,000 customers from Kern to San Diego counties could lose power amid the planned safety shutoffs.