Jan 8 (Reuters) - Southern California Edison, a

subsidiary of U.S. utility Edison International ( EIX ) that

operates in California, has cut power to more than 110,000

customers to prevent damage to distribution lines from the

wildfire, the company said on Wednesday.

The wildfire has so far burned nearly 3,000 acres (1,200

hectares) in the Pacific Palisades area between the beach towns

of Santa Monica and Malibu and led to the evacuation of 30,000

people from their homes.

Two other wildfires have sprung up in the neighboring areas

- one near Pasadena and the other in Sylmar in the San Fernando

Valley northwest of Los Angeles. Parts of Malibu and Santa

Monica are also under evacuation orders.

In SoCal Edison's service area, there were nearly 69,000

customers affected by the wildfire, but the power had been

turned off for 114,892 customers, or 2.3% of their five million

customers, due to heightened wildfire risk, according to the

company's power outage page as of 9:20 a.m. ET.

The company is also considering shutting off power to over

427,583 additional customers, primarily in the Los Angeles and

Riverside counties.

While generation facilities were up and running, the biggest

risk to the power lines was debris turning into a hazard because

of the high wind speeds, said Jeff Monford, senior adviser of

corporate communications at Edison.

It was also tough to place when power would be restored as

the company would have to wait for the period of concern to pass

to get crews to fix power lines and other distribution

facilities in the affected areas, he said.

More than 179,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles County

were without power early on Wednesday, data from PowerOutage.us

showed.