Gusty winds, another red flag warning loom as crews battle Glass Fire in Wine Country
Crews are fighting to get a handle on the Glass Fire, a 51,000-acre blaze in the Napa Valley region that sprinted earlier this week through Wine Country to the eastern edge of Santa Rosa, before winds kick up again starting Thursday.
Another red flag warning due to elevated wildfire weather conditions has been issued for the Glass Fire zone and other portions of the North and South Bay areas, in place 1 p.m. Thursday through Friday evening, according to the National Weather Service.
Sustained winds from the northwest are forecast to reach about 20 mph, and gusts at higher elevations could approach 30 mph. Previous red-flag conditions Sunday and Monday, including gusts well over 30 mph, fueled the Glass Fire’s furious spread at its outset.
“While not expecting the same critical fire conditions as what was observed earlier this week, critically dry and breezy conditions are expected in the area,” NWS Bay Area wrote on social media Wednesday morning. That earlier red flag warning was also much more widespread, encompassing virtually all of Northern California.
Cal Fire Section Chief Mark Brunton said gusty northeast wind drove the Glass Fire’s initial spread earlier this week. He said Thursday’s “wind event” comes with a potential for spreading the flames in a new direction and change where Cal Fire will focus its fire suppression.
More helicopters and planes were expected to arrive to drop fire retardant and help firefighters on the ground strengthen containment lines.
“Once we get better conditions, we’ll be able to fly more aircraft,” Brunton said during a Wednesday afternoon update.
Some of the smoke in the Glass Fire zone had cleared Wednesday, which meant more aircraft were sent out to assist firefighters on the ground mopping-up smoldering hot spots, said Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls during a Wednesday evening news conference.
Nicholls said more than 2,000 firefighting personnel were assigned to battle the wildfire, some of them working on pockets with heavier vegetation.
Cal Fire said Wednesday evening that over 26,000 structures remain threatened by the Glass Fire, a group of related wildfires that merged shortly after igniting early Sunday morning and exploded in size over the following 48 hours.
“Crews are working on structure defense while building and reinforcing containment lines,” Cal Fire officials said in a Wednesday night incident update. “Extremely dry fuels combined with warmer and drier weather has allowed short range spotting.”
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued Wednesday night for areas between Old Lawley Toll Road and Pope Valley Road, from Ink Grade Road to Aetna Springs Road, Cal Fire said.
All recreational areas in or near the RLS park including, but not limited to Table Rock Trail, Palisades Trail and Oat Hill Mine Trail, are closed. Highway 29 from Tubbs Lane to the Lake County line will remain open to through vehicle traffic, Cal Fire said.
Authorities issued a flurry of evacuation orders and warnings for Napa and Sonoma counties impacting tens of thousands of residents, including eastern parts of Santa Rosa and all of the city of Calistoga and town of Angwin.
Most of the evacuation orders remain in place as of Wednesday morning. Some areas, including a few neighborhoods in east Santa Rosa, had mandatory orders reduced to voluntary warnings on Tuesday. A live map of the evacuation zone can be found at socoemergency.org.
Napa County authorities also issued a new warning Wednesday morning for areas just west of Highway 29, including within St. Helena city limits.
Firefighting operations late Tuesday and overnight have been successful, but Cal Fire and local emergency officials during a midday news conference streamed to Facebook noted concern about the incoming windy weather and the urgency those conditions create.
“Now is the time for our firefighters to buckle down,” Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See said. “... We’re preparing for the worst case scenario, and we’re hoping for the best. Our fighters are gonna be working around the clock to secure those lines.”
Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit reported the fire grew about 3,000 acres to 51,266 acres by Wednesday evening and remained 2% contained.
Residential destruction totals stand at 107 homes in Napa County and 36 in Sonoma County, an increase from Tuesday’s report of 80 homes destroyed in both counties. The Glass Fire had damaged another 46 homes in both counties, according to Cal Fire.
Cal Fire officials said during Wednesday’s news conference that additional structures were lost Wednesday — an unknown number, but not as many as on Tuesday — and it’s not clear how many homes that may have included.
Several iconic wineries in the region have been destroyed or significantly damaged by the Glass Fire, as caught on video and documented by news media.
The true destruction toll from the Glass Fire will be clearer when fire activity dies down and more damage inspections can proceed.
No deaths or injuries have been reported, but Cal Fire said in a statement Wednesday morning that a pair of firefighters had to use an emergency fire shelter deployment late Sunday night while battling active flames in Napa County.
Fire shelters are “aluminized cloth tents” that Cal Fire personnel carry. They are generally only used in life-threatening situations. Cal Fire said both firefighters were uninjured, and that vehicles near them were damaged.
Five arrested in evacuation zones, sheriff says
Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said deputies have made five arrests for separate incidents involving people entering evacuated zones.
Those people were not residents of the evacuation areas and had “no lawful business to be there,” the sheriff said.
Essick said he believes those who were arrested were “looking for crimes of opportunity,” but he said no confirmed looting or burglary actually occurred due to quick response times from deputies. All five were arrested on suspicion of re-entering an evacuated area, Essick said.
Santa Rosa Police Chief Rainer Navarro said there were no burglary or looting incidents within the city limits. He said Wednesday evening that 12,900 Santa Rosa residents remained under an evacuation order and more than 22,000 were under an evacuation warning.
Sonoma County sheriff’s Sgt. Juan Valencia said nearly 7,000 people in the unincorporated towns remained under an evacuation order Wednesday evening, and 173 under an evacuation warning. He said none of the evacuation orders or warnings had been lifted.
“Basically, we want to keep everybody safe,” Valencia said Wednesday evening.
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 12:21 PM.
