Tim Arango and Thomas Fuller

Like the Kincade Fire, a blaze raging through the forests and vineyards of Northern California, the Tick Fire in Santa Clarita was driven by strong autumn winds.

Authorities ordered all public schools in the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys to be closed Friday, and the closing of a major freeway snarled rush-hour traffic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Sonoma counties because of the fires.

At a news briefing Friday morning, authorities said the Tick Fire had burned 4,300 acres and was 5% contained. They said they had determined that six structures had burned so far.

“However, we know that it’s going to rise today,” said Chief Daryl L. Osby of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Osby said that there were actually no active fires at the moment, but that the ground was smoldering and the winds were whipping — they were dealing with “significant and erratic winds.” The worry is that new fires could ignite at any moment.

“At any moment an ember could get out of our containment line,” he said.

Still, he said authorities would consider allowing residents to return to certain areas by Friday afternoon. Aircraft have been used to fight the Tick Fire, and 600 firefighters have been deployed, he said.

Osby said he was pleased to see so many residents heed the evacuation orders, saying many did so because of memories of last season’s deadly fires. But he said he was concerned that some chose to ignore the orders and were staying in their homes within the evacuation zones.

Dangerous winds were forecast to continue Friday in the Los Angeles area, challenging the hundreds of firefighters deployed to contain the Tick Fire, the National Weather Service said.

Winds in the mountains will have gusts between 50 mph to 60 mph, and relative humidity will remain in the single digits, said Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who covers the Los Angeles area.

“That’s going to cause extreme fire behavior with rapid rate of spread,” Kaplan said.

Although the winds were expected to subside Friday evening, they were forecast to return Sunday.

“The combination of very dry conditions with strong winds and dry fuels — it’s just not a good combination,” Kaplan said.

The threatening weather conditions arriving over the weekend prompted the state’s largest electrical utility, Pacific Gas &amp; Electric, to warn of another large-scale power outage that will affect areas north and east of San Francisco.

Peak fire season is far from over in California, although the wildfires this year have been less catastrophic as those of the past two years. Fewer than 300 structures have burned in wildfires so far this year compared with more than 23,000 last year. And around 163,000 acres have burned this year, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency, compared with 1.6 million acres in 2018.

16,000 acres of Sonoma County were engulfed by the Kincade Fire.

The Kincade Fire had destroyed 49 structures and burned 16,000 acres in Sonoma County as of Thursday night, according to Cal Fire. About 1,300 firefighters were battling the blaze, which was about 5% contained.

Newsom was set to travel to Sonoma County on Friday to visit communities affected by the Kincade Fire.

Evacuation orders covered 2,000 people, according to authorities in Sonoma County. Wind gusts blew the fire through forests, leaving firefighters with little opportunity to stop or slow down the walls of flames after the fire began Wednesday night. Sonoma County was ravaged in 2017, when the Sonoma Complex fires killed 24 and burned more than 170 square miles.

The power was on at an IHOP in Napa, and it became a refuge for some who lacked it at home. Barbara Tonsberg, 93, a former church organist and high school math teacher, was eating pancakes because there was not much to do with the electricity cut off at her home in nearby Angwin.

“Drying your hair doesn’t work too well without power,” Tonsberg said. “I’m tired of cold food, but there’s nothing you can do but deal with it.”

As she spoke, her son, Wayne, got a call on his cellphone. It was an automated message from PG&amp;E.; He was advised that the company could not predict when their power would return — and that it might go out again Saturday.

A utility is investigating whether an equipment malfunction contributed to the Kincade Fire.

Pacific Gas &amp; Electric said it was investigating whether its equipment had been involved in stoking the Kincade Fire. PG&amp;E; said it had become aware that a “transmission-level outage” occurred in the area around the time the fire began.

By early Friday, electricity had been restored to most of the utility’s 179,000 customers who were without power Thursday. Most of the remaining customers without power were in Kern County, where high winds continued to blow.

But the utility issued a fresh warning early Friday that meteorologists expected another round of high winds to affect Northern California, beginning Saturday. The company said the weather conditions and the time needed to restore any damaged equipment could leave a far larger number of customers without power for more than 48 hours. PG&amp;E; said it was trying to contact customers who might be affected by telephone, text and email.

Bill Johnson, PG&amp;E; Corp.’s chief executive officer, said this weekend’s weather could bring the strongest winds of the wildfire season so far.

Separately, Southern California Edison had reduced the number of customers it had blacked out to just over 21,000 but kept almost 400,000 customers under warning for possible power shut-off.

Smoke expected to cause delays at the San Francisco airport.

As smoke swept across the Bay Area on Friday, San Francisco International Airport prepared for flight delays.

“Reduced visibility could lead the FAA to implement a delay program,” said Doug Yakel, a spokesman for the airport.

Delays were not expected at the Oakland International Airport or the San Jose International Airport, according to representatives there.

Though air quality across the Bay Area fell into the moderate category Friday morning, it was expected to get worse as northwest winds pushed smoke across the region, according to Ralph Borrmann, a spokesman for Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which posts updates on its hourly tracker.

‘Not taking any chances’

Around midnight, police officers drove through Frank Cruz’s neighborhood near Santa Clarita, blaring sirens and announcing that all residents must leave, as high winds were fanning a quickly moving brush fire.

By Friday morning, Cruz, and his wife, Cindy, who is seven months pregnant, were waking up in their car, in the parking lot of a Denny’s. Cindy Cruz, who has lived in the area for more than a decade and had never been forced to evacuate for a fire, said she thought there were so many evacuations because of an abundance of caution.

After last year’s deadly fire season in California, she said, people “aren’t taking any chances.”

With the Paradise Fire in Northern California claiming more than 80 lives last year, and the Woolsey Fire tearing a destructive path through Malibu and its environs, this year everyone — power companies, fire and law enforcement agencies, residents — is extra cautious. Authorities seem to be quicker to order evacuations at the first sign of fire.

And residents, who in past years may have shrugged off evacuation orders, preferring to remain home and, if necessary, protect their houses, are heeding orders. They are readying their cars, packing them with valuables, just in case they get the order.

“I think people are listening more,” said Mary Lindsey, 64, who Friday morning was eating breakfast at a Red Cross center in a gymnasium at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita. “In the past there’d be evacuation orders and people would blow them off. After last year, they aren’t doing that.”

Lindsey’s husband, Charles, said the fire started in a canyon near their home and quickly burned through dry shrub land that had grown during the heavy rains earlier this year.

“With the winds blowing, it moved fast,” said Charles Lindsey, 68, his dog Ivy at his feet. “In the middle of the night, if you’re told to go, you go.”

Only one shelter was opened Thursday, and only about 400 people showed up there, according to Roxanne Schorbach, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. (A second shelter, at a local high school, opened Friday.) The evacuees slept Thursday night on cots in the college gymnasium, many with their pets, and Friday morning were eating pancakes and bagels and awaiting news.

The new normal?

The Kincade and Tick fires in California are the latest in the state to force evacuations and threaten homes. Earlier this month the Saddleridge and Saddlewood fires swept across Southern California prompting the question: Is this the new normal?

The total area burned in a single year by wildfires in the United States has exceeded 13,900 square miles — an area larger than the country of Belgium — only four times since the middle of last century. All four times have happened this decade, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA. As a result, government agencies are preparing themselves to deal with fires that are increasingly seen as inevitable.

Some times, it means setting fires on purpose — a practice known as prescribed burns — or trying to understand how wildfire smoke behaves to be better prepared to warn residents of the risks.

This article originally appeared in

Fires Force Thousands to Evacuate as Governor Declares State of Emergency

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — A fire that forced the evacuation of 50,000 people spread through canyons north of Los Angeles on Friday, jumping a freeway and threatening thousands of homes.

Cindy and Frank Cruz were not sure there was an immediate threat, but they and many others did not hesitate to flee.

“People aren’t taking any chances,” said Cindy Cruz, who is seven months pregnant and who spent the night in the couple’s car in the parking lot of a Denny’s. They were among 50,000 people ordered to leave their homes.

The trauma of catastrophic fires over the past two years has scarred California, which has seen more than 1,300 wildfires ignite over the past two weeks alone.

With the Paradise Fire in Northern California claiming more than 80 lives last year, and the Woolsey Fire tearing a destructive path through Malibu and its surroundings, this year everyone — power companies, fire and law enforcement agencies, residents — is extra cautious.

“It’s the reality of the conditions we are facing that we absolutely can’t underestimate the potential of how quickly these fires can get into communities,” said Ken Pimlott, a career firefighter who until last year was the head of California’s largest firefighting agency, Cal Fire. “Everybody wants to take these conditions very seriously.”

On Friday, fires in Santa Clarita stretched across 4,300 acres, had destroyed at least six homes and were 5% contained. In Northern California, firefighters continued to battle the Kincade blaze, which has burned more than 20,000 acres and persists even as residents prepared for another widespread blackout that the state’s largest utility hopes will prevent the start of more fires. The shut-off will affect 850,000 customers of Pacific Gas and Electric in anticipation of what the utility says will be some of the most dangerous conditions this year. Because each residential customer represents a household, the number of people affected could be far larger than the earlier blackouts.

There are always people who refuse to evacuate as wildfires bear down on their communities, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies say, but many residents appear to have resigned themselves to a new reality in California of a constant state of readiness for the next disaster.

In vulnerable areas, residents keep gasoline tanks filled; sniff the dry, autumn air for smoke; and look warily at the parched, wind-swept hills for any signs of ignition.

“I think people are listening more,” said Mary Lindsey, 64, who Friday morning was eating breakfast at a Red Cross center in a gymnasium at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita. She and her husband evacuated their home Thursday.

“In the past there’d be evacuation orders and people would blow them off. After last year, they aren’t doing that.”

When they got word of the fire Thursday, Lindsey said, her neighbors packed their belongings in their cars and waited for orders to leave.

The fire, which ignited in a canyon above Santa Clarita on Thursday, exploded to thousands of acres within hours.

Lindsey’s husband, Charles, said the fire, known as the Tick Fire, started near their home and moved quickly through scrubland.

Two shelters housed evacuees, according to Roxanne Schorbach, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. Roughly 400 people spent Thursday night on cots in a college gymnasium, many with their pets; Friday morning they ate pancakes and bagels while eagerly awaiting news.

By late morning there were no active fires in the Santa Clarita Hills, just the smoldering remnants of blazes that died down with the winds. But authorities were allowing only some of the tens of thousands who evacuated back into their homes, fearing that winds might rekindle the fires.

A drive through the evacuation zone in Santa Clarita showed block after block of well-appointed homes, an idyllic tableau of California suburbia, mostly untouched by fire, even as the surrounding hillsides were charred and bruised. A few residents who stayed behind rode around on bikes or shuffled by with gas cans for generators.

A husk of one white-painted house stood smoking surrounded by perfectly intact homes. The street was choked with TV news vans but otherwise eerily empty.

Two thousand people were also evacuated in Northern California as the Kincade Fire advanced, destroying around 50 structures.

Pimlott, the former Cal Fire chief, says authorities are right to be aggressive in their evacuation plans. Fires are moving faster than in the past, he said, often leaving people without enough time to react. The Camp Fire last year swept through the town of Paradise in the morning hours, killing many people who never made it out of their homes.

“Once a fire hits a community it’s too late,” he said.

PG&amp;E; says it will carry out its deliberate power shut-off starting Saturday evening, the third time in two weeks that the company will have turned off power to large areas of Northern California.

The blackouts, which earlier in the month left more than 2 million people in the dark, are designed to prevent the possibility that electrical lines will spark future fires during windstorms. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who toured parts of Sonoma on Friday and declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Sonoma counties, said the state would deploy $75 million to help local governments stay operational during the blackouts.

Yet despite an ethos of caution toward the fire threat, there were signs that the Kincade Fire may have been started by electrical equipment that PG&amp;E; decided not to shut down. The company turned off the power to 200,000 customers this week but did not cut power to a transmission line that the company said malfunctioned just before the fire started.

Bill Johnson, PG&amp;E; Corp.’s chief executive, said at a news conference Thursday night that based on the utility’s analysis, the wind forecast did not warrant cutting power to the transmission lines in the area of the Kincade Fire.

Among the many families that fled the fire were Adalberto and Irma Silva, who left their home in the wine-growing town of Geyserville on Thursday after police went door to door ordering evacuations.

“The whole town is empty,” said Adalberto Silva, who has worked in nearby vineyards since he left the Mexican state of Michoacán in 1981.

The couple has lived with their now-grown children in the quiet enclave near the Russian River for 11 years, an area that sees threats both from fires and floods.

“When it’s not water, it’s fire,” Irma Silva said.

Life in Fire-Scarred California Is Being Always Ready to Run

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — The blaring sirens came around midnight accompanied by the emphatic voices of police officers on loudspeakers ordering all residents to evacuate from their homes in the canyons north of Los Angeles.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Sonoma counties.

Still, he said authorities would consider repopulating certain areas by Friday afternoon. Aircraft have been used to fight the Tick Fire, and 600 firefighters have been deployed, he said.

Winds in the mountains will have gusts between 50 and 60 mph, and relative humidity will remain in the single digits, said Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who covers the Los Angeles area.

Although the winds are set to subside Friday evening, they were forecast to return Sunday.

‘With the winds blowing, it moved fast.’

Fire-related delays were not expected at the Oakland International Airport or the San Jose International Airport, according to representatives there.

Conditions this weekend could lead to the biggest blackouts yet.

Pacific Gas &amp; Electric warned that weather conditions Saturday and Sunday — including the strongest winds of the wildfire season so far — would probably prompt power shut-offs on the scale of the vast blackouts earlier this month. And it said this episode could last longer.

At a briefing Thursday evening, Bill Johnson, PG&amp;E;’s chief executive, did not provide an estimate of the number of people expected to be affected this weekend. He said updated weather forecasts Friday would make the outlook clearer.

But between the high-risk period and subsequent inspections, power could be cut off for longer than 48 hours, PG&amp;E; said. For planning purposes, the company suggested that customers prepared for outages that could last several days.

“None of us wants to be living without power,” Johnson said. “These power shut-offs are a necessary tool for public safety.”

Johnson is scheduled to hold another briefing at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

From Oct. 9-12, PG&amp;E; cut power to about 2 million people across much of its service area, catching many by surprise and prompting widespread criticism.

Newsom announced Friday that his administration was making $75 million available “to protect public safety, vulnerable populations and individuals and improve resiliency” in the face of preemptive blackouts. The governor’s office said the funds would help with securing generators, fuel storage or other backup energy sources for fire stations, community centers, health centers and other essential facilities, as well as emergency communications.

Newsom was set to travel to Sonoma County on Friday to visit communities affected by the fire.

Evacuation orders covered 2,000 people, according to authorities in Sonoma County. Wind gusts blew the fire through forests, leaving firefighters with little opportunity to stop or slow down the walls of flames after the fire began on Wednesday night.

Sonoma County was ravaged in 2017, when the Sonoma Complex fires killed 24 and burned more than 170 square miles.

A PG&amp;E; tower may be linked to the Kincade Fire. Why was its power on?

The Kincade Fire in Sonoma County, still burning Friday, broke out after Pacific Gas &amp; Electric began its preemptive power shut-offs in the area Wednesday. PG&amp;E; later said one of its transmission towers was being looked at as a possible cause of the fire.

But wasn’t preventing a fire the point of the blackout?

As it happens, when electricity was cut off to homes and businesses, it was still flowing through the long-distance lines that make up the power grid.

The distinction is much like the role of neighborhood streets in relation to a major highway. The major arteries — the transmission lines — are supported by substantial metal towers engineered to provide multiple points of support for the wires. The wooden poles strung with the wires that deliver the power to customers — the distribution lines — are less sturdy. And that makes them more susceptible to wind.

Johnson said at a news conference Thursday night that based on the utility’s analysis, the wind forecast did not warrant cutting power to the transmission lines in the area of the Kincade Fire, even though the distribution system had been shut down.

San Diego Gas &amp; Electric, which pioneered the strategy of cutting power as a wildfire safety measure, said it also typically cut power only to the distribution lines, unless extreme weather warranted stopping the electricity flow through transmission lines.

PG&amp;E; said in a regulatory filing Thursday that fire officials had informed a company employee about “what appeared to be a broken jumper” on a transmission tower near the origin of the Kincade Fire. It said it was continuing to investigate, along with state fire officials.

The tower under scrutiny was 43 years old and had recently been inspected, Johnson said.

By early Friday morning, most utility customers across California had their power restored.

California Fires Thousands Evacuated; Governor Declares State of Emergency

Like the Kincade Fire, a blaze raging through the forests and vineyards of Northern California, the Tick Fire in Santa Clarita was driven by strong autumn winds. The fire was about 5% contained.

Kathryn Barger, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said a limited number of people were allowed back into their homes late Thursday.

Winds in the mountains will have gusts between 50-60 mph and relative humidity will remain in the single digits, said Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service who covers the Los Angeles area.

But the utility issued a fresh warning early Friday that meteorologists expected another round of high winds to affect Northern California, beginning Saturday. The company said the weather conditions and the time needed to restore any damaged equipment could leave customers without power for more than 48 hours. PG&amp;E; said it was trying to contact customers who might be affected by telephone, text and email.

Thousands of Homes Threatened in California Fires

For the second time in two days, a powerful earthquake struck Southern California on Friday night, shaking a large area already on edge, from Las Vegas to Sacramento to Los Angeles to Mexico, rattling nerves and disrupting plans on a holiday weekend. There were no reports of fatalities and no significant damage to infrastructure, but as day broke on Saturday, rescue crews were still surveying damage in Ridgecrest, near the earthquake’s epicenter, and putting out fires.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake that rattled Southern California on Friday came one day after the strongest recorded quake there in 20 years — and seismologists warned that more episodes are expected.

To a large degree, navigating life in California means making peace with Mother Nature. Wildfires and mudslides are yearly events, made worse in recent years amid climate change. But Californians live in constant awareness, if not outright fear, of the possibility of a devastating earthquake — the “Big One,” as everyone says. And so as people across Southern California woke up Saturday morning grateful for being spared this time, there was the sense that Friday night’s temblor could have been just a foretaste of something bigger. Officials were urging residents to keep supplies handy — batteries, flashlights, a pair of sneakers — if they hadn’t already.

“Don’t be paralyzed by fear,” Josh Rubenstein, the spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, wrote on Twitter. “Arm yourself with knowledge and a plan. Talk about what you would do when a big one hits. I myself just did that with my daughter and my wife.”

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the latest earthquake’s epicenter was in the Mojave Desert, 11 miles from Ridgecrest — near where a 6.4-magnitude quake had hit about 36 hours earlier. Since Thursday’s earthquake, the area had been jolted by rolling aftershocks, including one of a 5.4 magnitude that had roused Californians on Friday morning.

“Hold on, it’s going again,” Jade Alexander, the manager of the Rodeway Inn &amp; Suites in Ridgecrest, about 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles, said in a phone interview after another aftershock Friday night. She said the aftershocks had been coming every five minutes.

Although the area where the earthquake struck is sparsely populated, the Navy has a weapons-testing facility, the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, just outside Ridgecrest.

“It’s constant,” said Alexander, whose hotel in Ridgecrest is less than a five-minute drive from the naval station. “My anxiety level is over the limit.”

Bookshelves, lockers and televisions were thrown to the floor, she said. “The floor is cracked.”

The quake, which struck about 8:20 p.m. local time, was felt across a much wider area than Thursday’s quake, with reports of power failures in Los Angeles and of some damage in San Bernardino County.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California declared a state of emergency for the Ridgecrest area and was asking for an emergency declaration from President Donald Trump so federal funds could be made available.

In a news conference late Saturday morning, Mark Ghilarducci, the director of California’s Office of Emergency Services, said power was back on for most of Ridgecrest but warned that hot weather and winds forecast for the coming days would heighten the risk of wildfires. Kern County Fire Chief David Witt said that it appeared that no buildings had collapsed.

Lucy Jones, a seismologist, said during a Friday night briefing by the U.S. Geological Survey that there would be more aftershocks. “It is clearly an energetic system,” Jones said.

Leena Panchal, a manager of Americas Best Value Inn &amp; Suites, another hotel in Ridgecrest, said people had rushed outside because they had felt unsafe being indoors.

“It was so bad,” she said of Friday’s earthquake and its aftershocks. “I am scared. I have two children and no one is taking care of us.”

Panchal was seated during the earthquake but said that the shaking had been so violent, it would have been impossible to stand up. Standing lamps were thrown to the ground.

At 8:21 p.m., the Los Angeles Fire Department issued an earthquake alert via Twitter.

“Prepare For Aftershocks,” the department said. “When Shaking Starts: DROP, COVER, HOLD ON!”

In Los Angeles, fire officials reported localized power failures and downed wires in several neighborhoods but said no major damage to infrastructure had been identified.

In San Bernardino County, fire officials said that there had been more damage from the Friday night earthquake than from the one the day before. The officials reported that homes had shifted, foundations had been cracked and retaining walls had collapsed.

Tom Heaton, an earthquake expert at the California Institute of Technology, said the earthquake Friday night appeared to have taken place northwest of Thursday’s earthquake. The rupture was about 10 to 15 miles long, and the duration of the earthquake was around 7 seconds. Friday’s earthquake was much larger than Thursday’s; the total energy released was about eight times greater.

For now, the earthquakes appear to be localized. But for California, one big question is whether these earthquakes occurring in the Mojave Desert will have any consequences for a potentially more catastrophic rupture of the San Andreas Fault, the giant crack in the Earth that runs along almost the entire length of the state near heavily populated areas.

Seismologists say there is a remote connection between the system of faults that caused this past week’s earthquakes and the San Andreas. The faults near Ridgecrest come close to a fault known as the Garlock, which ultimately intersects the San Andreas.

Heaton said it would be “pretty far-fetched” that an earthquake on the San Andreas would be triggered along this route.

But, he noted, seismologists are constantly surprised.

The current sequence of earthquakes could potentially last for years. In the 1970s, seismologists were surprised that an earthquake near Bishop, California, began a sequence of temblors around Mammoth Lakes that eventually spread over a diameter of more than 50 miles and included a half-dozen earthquakes of more than 6.0 magnitude. That sequence lasted around a decade.

When a significant earthquake is followed by a related and larger one — as has happened in California in recent days — seismologists refer to the first event as a foreshock. A foreshock and a main quake usually occur within days or weeks of each other, but occasionally in analyzing seismic activity in a region, scientists will identify foreshocks that occurred months or even years before a major quake.

Some notable earthquakes have been preceded by foreshocks, including the largest quake ever recorded, a 9.5-magnitude event that struck Chile in 1960. A 7.9-magnitude quake had occurred in the same area the day before. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan, which led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, was preceded by a foreshock as well.

The 6.4 Ridgecrest foreshock Thursday was followed by seven quakes of magnitude 4.5 or higher until the 7.1-magnitude one Friday. And the Friday quake so far has been followed by 15 quakes of 4.5 magnitude or higher.

The largest known earthquake in the area occurred in 1872 and was a magnitude 8, one of the largest in California.

Enrique Lugo, 27; his wife, Irma Ponce, 36; and their 16-year old son, Alex, were stocking up on groceries in their white truck outside a Stater Brothers grocery in Ridgecrest on Saturday. Ponce said she was grateful that her house sustained just minor damage to an outside brick wall, a broken water heater and ceiling fans that dropped to the floor.

Ponce was at home with her son cooking dinner when the quake hit. “We ran outside and so did the neighbors,” she said. The small family had slept in the living room bracing for another major quake Friday night. The couple said they had little sleep because the of the aftershocks. “They just didn’t stop,” Ponce said.

Lugo, a supervisor, at a chemical plant, said he was on top of a water tank when the largest quake hit.

“I just held on to the railing,” said Lugo, who was born in Ridgecrest. “In my 27 years, I have never experienced an earthquake this big here. We weren’t expecting a bigger one, nobody was.”

Friday night’s earthquake came during the Dodgers home game against the San Diego Padres in Los Angeles. The game was not interrupted. But in Las Vegas, where an NBA summer league game was taking place between the New York Knicks and the New Orleans Pelicans, the action was halted because of the quake.

Frank Jackson, the Pelicans’ point guard, was bringing the ball up the court when he felt the earthquake.

“That was crazy,” Jackson said. “I felt like someone was pushing my hip — I kind of leaned this way and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what is going on?’ And then I saw everything shaking.”

Tim Dorcey of Santa Monica noticed something was amiss when the wine bottles in his home began rattling Friday night. “That happened and I thought, ‘Oh, aftershock,’” Dorcey said by phone. “And then it stopped. Fifteen seconds later, it started going again. I hopped up and got away from my windows.”

Dorcey said the shaking had begun again and gone on for a minute. “It kept getting stronger and stronger,” he said.

Giovanna Gomez of Bakersfield said Friday’s earthquake had felt like Thursday’s quake.

“I was in my living room with my parents, and all of a sudden we started feeling the earth slowly moving,” Gomez said. “And then it started getting bigger, just rocking back and forth.” She said the family had promptly gone outside and reported no damage, but complained of dogs barking.

At the Dodgers game, fans in the upper decks felt the stadium sway, and viewers at home who did not feel the earthquake themselves were alerted to it by the shaking up and down of the camera. On the field, though, the game went on.

“How are they continuing to play baseball?” said Joe Davis, a Dodgers television announcer.

Southern California Trembles, as Do Its Residents

LOS ANGELES — In the bottom of the fourth inning, Dodger Stadium swayed. Rides at Disneyland were evacuated, and so were movie theaters in Los Angeles. Near Palm Springs, pools sloshed and chandeliers at a casino rocked. And in the Mojave Desert town of Ridgecrest, California, fires roared, power went out and grocery store shelves came crashing down.

Southern California trembles, as do its residents

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