(Reuters) – The number of California homes and businesses without power rose to more than 400,000 on Wednesday, as more wildfires raged around Los Angeles.

The fires that started on Tuesday have killed at least five people, destroyed hundreds of homes and stretched firefighting resources and water supplies to the limit, as more than 100,000 people were ordered to evacuate.

Almost all of the state’s outages are in southern California, especially in Los Angeles and Southern California Edison’s (SCE) main outage management system is offline, according to PowerOutage.us.

SCE, a subsidiary of US utility Edison International (NYSE: ) that operates in California, said in a statement that “as of 4 pm PST on January 8, approximately 413,639 SCE customers were without power… View the Power Shutoff (PSPS) program.

“Due to unsafe conditions for power restoration, customers may experience several days of outages.

The so-called power safety shutoffs occur, in part, to reduce the risk that airborne objects will spark more blazes when they hit power lines, said company spokesman Jeff Monford. , who pleaded with the public to stay away from any lines that fell.

It is not known when power will be restored as the company must wait for the period of concern to pass to get crews to repair power lines and other distribution facilities. affected area, said Monford.

Shares of the utility fell as much as 13.8% to $66.70, hitting their lowest level since April and on track for the biggest one-day percentage decline since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Palisades wildfire is currently burning more than 15,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal towns of Santa Monica and Malibu.

Other wildfires broke out in neighboring areas, including a 10,600-acre fire near the city of Pasadena and a new fire in the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday night, forcing new evacuations. Parts of Malibu and Santa Monica are also under evacuation orders.