‘Over and over again.’ California Wine Country hit by another year of devastating wildfires
Riding 70 mile per hour wind gusts, a trio of fires tore through Northern California on Sunday night and early Monday, forcing 74,000 evacuations and burning homes and businesses in the Napa County hills and in Santa Rosa neighborhoods before winds eased off later Monday.
By afternoon, local emergency officials were still tallying the damage, while tens of thousands of standing homes remained without power and at least several dozen residents began returning to find their hillside homes incinerated.
State emergency officials said there were early reports of some deaths in Shasta County at the Zogg Fire, which hit in a rural but inhabited area a few miles southwest of Redding.
In Butte County, the month-old North Complex Fire blew to life again late Sunday, heading toward Magalia and Paradise, prompting evacuation warnings in two towns that were largely destroyed by the Camp Fire two years ago.
“Winds are blowing like crazy,” former Paradise Mayor Jody Jones said Monday. She had spent a sleepless night in her newly rebuilt home. But, she said, “everyone is telling us Paradise and Magalia are not in any danger at the present time. They are just waiting for the winds to die down later today.”
The worst destruction took place in an area that is becoming a familiar fire zone, the north Bay Area counties of Napa and Sonoma in the heart of California’s famous Wine Country.
There, the Glass Fire sparked in the pre-dawn hours Sunday in the hills near Angwin above Napa Valley, riding winds from the east into the valley near St. Helena and Calistoga, then linking up with two spot fires in the Mayacamas Mountains between Napa and Sonoma counties.
The fire reached the eastern edge of Santa Rosa before morning and burned an undetermined number of homes in two Santa Rosa neighborhoods, Skyhawk and Oakmont, as well as in the hills outside the city.
For Santa Rosa residents, it was deja vu. The huge Tubbs Fire there in 2017 killed 22 people and destroyed thousands of structures.
The Glass Fire settled down as winds eased during the day Monday, but remained largely uncontained, fire officials said. But the incident left Gov. Gavin Newsom to lament how the state’s North Bay has now known fire disaster “over and over and over again.”
The evacuations late Sunday and early Monday caused traffic jams on Hwy. 12, but state emergency services chief Mark Ghilarducci said the life-saving effort went fairly well. Sonoma County sheriff’s officials, however, reported that their deputies were forced to order some recalcitrant people to leave their homes.
The fires occurred despite notable warnings and precautions. PG&E conducted a “public safety power shutoff” to 65,000 customers on Sunday and Monday in 16 Northern California counties. The utility company said power would be turned back on for almost all of those customers by midnight Monday.
State emergency officials on Monday said they called for mandatory evacuations sooner than they had in the past, fearing that Sunday’s high winds would create a fast fire that would arrive in the middle of the night. Officials said they wanted to give firefighters a chance to get into position in neighborhoods without having to fight evacuation traffic.
“We pulled the trigger early to get people out,” Ghilarducci said. “They moved a lot of people. Given the time of the evacuation, it probably went about as good as it could.”
Wildfire damage in Napa Valley
In Napa County, numerous homes and some significant structures burned overnight Sunday, including the Chateau Boswell winery and the Glass Mountain Inn.
Among those who lost their homes in the hills above the Napa Valley was Antonio Velazquez. He walked past the ruins of his neighbors’ homes toward his house on Monday morning, a chain saw in hand and his German shepherd-mix, Sasha, by his side.
When they got to the homestead at Deer Park and Sunnyside roads, Velazquez turned to his dog. ”Sorry, Sasha, we don’t have a house anymore,” he said. “Oh well, we’re alive. But our house is burned. I cannot believe this.”
By afternoon Monday, Newsom reported the North Complex Fire, a lightning-caused fire which has been burning since August, was nearly 80% contained. That blaze already sprinted at a furious pace earlier this month, during an earlier wind event, killing 15 people in communities just north of Lake Oroville.
In total, 3.7 million acres of wildlands have now burned in 2020 in California, by far the most ever. Newsom has pointed out that the solution to a chronic problem must include addressing the causes of climate change, as well as better forest management and safer surroundings around houses and communities where urban areas border wildlands.
The governor said some 18,000 firefighters are currently working 27 significant fires. There have been 26 fatalities in California wildfires this year and more than 7,000 buildings destroyed.
Fire season, notably, is not over. In Southern California, seasonal Santa Ana winds are expected to kick up. The fire risk will continue to be high for a few months until the first substantial rains come.
This story was originally published September 28, 2020 at 4:03 PM.