SAN DIEGO, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Wildfires raging through Southern California have caused cell phone service outages and other problems by destroying antenna towers and causing power failures.

Many cell phone users encountered difficulties when the high volume of calls resulting from evacuees having to abandon their land line phones overloaded circuits and kept many calls from going through, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

T-Mobile spokesman Peter Dobrow said the company lost 30 cell towers, causing temporary service interruptions in Ontario and Riverside and leaving parts of San Diego without any service Tuesday night.

Dobrow said mobile transmission equipment was being used to compensate for the high volume of calls in areas not affected by the outages.

Verizon Wireless spokesman Ken Muche said 11 towers were knocked out of commission by the fires and power troubles. He said call volume spiked Monday to between 70 percent and 90 percent above normal levels.

"No communications network is bulletproof," said Susan Carothers, a spokeswoman for the state Public Utilities Commission. "Having multiple communications options ... does not guarantee service availability."