Calif.-Oregon Intertie flow cut due fire -Cal ISO

NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - The California ISO reduced the flow of power on two of the three lines that comprise the California-Oregon Intertie due to a fire, the state power grid operator said.

The ISO said in a release that the Humboldt fire, which has been burning in the foothills east of Chico, California, on Thursday caused two-115 kilovolt transmission lines to trip out of service. Chico is about 90 miles north of Sacramento, the state capital.

Those two lines feed power into the city of Paradise and the surrounding area. The loss of those lines caused a power outage Thursday afternoon in that area. The outage represented about 20 MW of load.

The ISO said PG&E Corp's (PCG.N) Pacific Gas & Electric crews were working to repair damage to one of the two lines but could not say when power would be restored.

The California-Oregon Intertie is capable of moving up to 4,800 megawatts of power - enough for about 3.4 million homes in California - from the Pacific Northwest to California.

Officials at the ISO and PG&E were not immediately available for comment.

The California-Oregon Intertie, or Path 66, is made up of several 500 kV power lines built by the federal Western Area Power Administration, PG&E and PacifiCorp from the 1970s to 1990s. In addition to the power it can move to California, it can also move about 3,700 MW of power from the Southwest to the Pacific Northwest.

The California ISO operates the grid serving about 30 million people in California and administers the wholesale electricity market with a generating capacity of more than 47,000 megawatts.

PG&E, of San Francisco, owns and operates more than 6,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities and transmits and distributes electricity to 5.1 million customers and natural gas to 4.2 million customers in northern California. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by David Gregorio)