Glass Fire updates: Blaze ripped through area crews saved in 2017 wine country fires
The ferocious Glass Fire, a cluster of related and merged wildfire incidents that sparked Sunday morning in California’s wine country, has destroyed dozens of homes and forced tens of thousands to evacuate.
Gusty winds intensified the fire’s rate of spread within hours of it igniting near the Sonoma-Napa county line, sending it barreling toward Santa Rosa at the start of this week.
Urgent evacuations began that evening, with police and sheriff’s deputies going door-to-door to warn those who missed or disregarded the emergency orders that danger was fast approaching. Flames reached some neighborhoods on the city’s eastern edge and outskirts.
The Glass Fire has leveled at least 80 homes, Cal Fire reported Tuesday morning: 52 in Napa County and 28 in Sonoma County have been confirmed destroyed, according to the state fire agency. Those totals are preliminary based on early information, and they are almost certain to increase as damage is further inspected and reported.
There have been reports and images posted online of storied, locally iconic wineries burning down or suffering serious damage in the two counties, which comprise the region nicknamed wine country.
The fire continues to burn, with 2% containment and largely uncontrolled Tuesday night, though weather conditions have improved considerably since Sunday and Monday. A red flag warning from the National Weather Service was allowed to expire at 9 p.m. Monday.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Cal Fire announced an update to an evacuation warning in Napa County that was now upgraded to a mandatory evacuation order, which included all areas west of Highways 29 and 128 (Foothill Boulevard) to the county line, between Diamond Mountain Road and Petrified Forest Road.
What is Glass Fire’s status?
More than 22,000 more structures remain threatened by the fire as of Tuesday evening, with new mandatory evacuation orders issued Tuesday morning for thousands of residents. Most evacuation orders and warnings that flooded in late Sunday through Monday also remain in place.
Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said in a news conference Tuesday evening that more than 10,000 homes in both counties remained threatened. He said most of the “active fire behavior” Tuesday was in the area of Angwin.
Around 10 a.m. Tuesday, Napa County authorities ordered the immediate evacuation of Angwin, a town about five miles east of Calistoga where over 3,000 people live, due to more flaring fire activity.
Roughly 75,000 residents of Napa and Sonoma counties had already ordered to leave as of Monday afternoon, including at least 35,000 within Santa Rosa city limits. Later that evening, a mandatory order was expanded to include all of Calistoga, a city of 5,000 people about 15 miles northeast of Santa Rosa.
On Tuesday afternoon, mandatory evacuations on the eastern flanks of Santa Rosa — including Summerfield, Spring Lake and Skyhawk — were downgraded to advisories, which a handful of residents saw their warnings lifted.
Still, thousands of residents remain under warnings or advisories — meaning pack up and be ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Napa and Sonoma authorities are posting up-to-date evacuation information on social media and via Nixle, and Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit is also sharing evacuation updates on Twitter and Facebook.
The Glass Fire was reported by Cal Fire at 46,600 acres Tuesday evening. Nearly 2,100 firefighting personnel were assigned to the wildfire.
No injuries or fatalities related have been reported. Santa Rosa Police Chief Rainer Navarro said during a Tuesday morning news conference that while there have been a “few” missing person reports since evacuations began, all individuals reported missing have been located.
‘These fires become very disastrous’
In a joint news conference, streamed live to Facebook late Tuesday morning, state and local fire and emergency officials said the Glass Fire is now being classified in two zones. The West Zone of the Glass Fire includes Sonoma County, and its East Zone is in Napa County.
Aircraft have assisted operations in the East Zone, but have been unavailable on the West Zone through at least midday Tuesday due to poor visibility from smoke.
The extremely gusty winds that fueled the fire’s intense growth Sunday and Monday have subsided, but Cal Fire’s incident reports note that “very minimal humidity recovery” and above-average temperatures in the area are continuing to create a challenge in containing the blaze, which remains 0% contained.
Nearly 1,500 firefighters were battling the Glass Fire as of Tuesday, Cal Fire said.
Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See said the Glass Fire is yet another example in California of a fire burning in the state’s wildland-urban “interface” areas, regions where dry vegetation largely surround moderate-sized cities.
“Here in California, with all these interface areas, these fires become very disastrous with the amount of structures and populations impacted,” See said.
He said the Glass Fire is burning between the burn scars of the devastating 2017 wine country fires, specifically the Tubbs, Dunn and Adobe fires.
“This land has no fire history that’s been recorded. It’s burning in all the area that was saved in 2017.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom late Monday declared a state emergency for Napa, Sonoma and Shasta counties due to the Glass Fire and Shasta’s deadly Zogg Fire. The Newsom administration also requested a major disaster declaration from the president in response to those fires, in order to access further support Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Looting concerns and ‘fire fatigue’
Unconfirmed reports of looting popped up in social media comments sections early in Sonoma County’s evacuation process.
Navarro, the Santa Rosa police chief, said in Tuesday’s news conference there have been no reported burglaries or confirmed looting incidents in the evacuation zones. Sheriff Mark Essick said Sonoma County has 50 deputies patrolling evacuation zones, and that the Sheriff’s Office is working closely with Santa Rosa police and the California Highway Patrol to keep evacuated areas safe.
Essick began his update Tuesday morning by mentioning that the community is dealing with “significant fire fatigue,” exacerbated by yet another devastating wildfire. He noted that the three-year anniversary of the devastating Tubbs Fire is just weeks away.
“This is the fourth major fire in our community since 2017,” Essick said. “Many people are feeling the effects. Many people are evacuating that have evacuated multiple times (before).”
In a Tuesday afternoon update, the sheriff said they did not have any missing persons reported and no fatalities. He said more than 33,000 people in the unincorporated towns remained evacuated.
He said they arrested five people for re-entering the evacuation zones, but there have been no looting arrests in the evacuation areas.
In the three years between the Tubbs and Glass fires were the Kincade Fire that burned nearly 80,000 acres and destroyed hundreds of structures last October near Geyserville, and the sprawling LNU Lightning Complex that sparked in August. The LNU Complex scorched over 363,000 acres and killed at least five people: three residents of Napa County and two of Sonoma County.
The cause of the Glass Fire is unknown, and remains under investigation.
This story was originally published September 29, 2020 at 1:58 PM.
