Scotts Valley, California – Three massive wild birds were chilling Sunday through devastated Northern California landscape as firefighters raced to dig breaks and make other preparations ahead of a devastating weather system. That system caught high winds and more of the lightning that engulfed the enormous fires and scores of other fires around the state, putting nearly a quarter of a million people under evacuation orders and warnings.
At the CZU Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, south of San Francisco, authorities said their efforts were hampered by people refusing to take on evacuation orders and by those who used the chaos to to steal. Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart said 100 officers were patrolling and anyone who was not authorized to be in an evacuation would be arrested.
“What we hear from the community is that there’s a lot of looting,” Hart said. He said eight people had been arrested or quoted and “there will be more.”
He and District Attorney Jeff Rosell expressed outrage over what Rosell called the “absolutely soulless” people who are trying to fall victim to the fire. Among the victims was a firefighter commander who was robbed while helping coordinate efforts on Saturday.
Someone stepped into the commander’s fire truck and stole personal items, including a wallet, and “ran his bank accounts,” said Chief Mark Brunton, a battalion Chief for the California Department of State Forest Management and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
“I can not imagine a bigger empty life,” Hart said, promising to catch him and promising “the DA will hamper him.” A tweet from Cal Fire called it “unconscious,” according to CBS SF BayArea. “This is another reason why we need to stay out of the evacuated zones, not only reduce injury, but keep ALL LOOTERS OUT!” the tweet went on.
The station says a body, thought to belong to a 70-year-old man, was found nearby. The death was the sixth in the blasts in the Bay Area.
Noah Berger / AP
On Sunday night, Cal Fire officials said the fire grew to 74,000 acres, 77,000 people were evacuated, the flames were contained 8 percent and 131 structures destroyed, CBS SF BayArea reported.
The Santa Cruz fire is one of the “complexes”, like group fires, burning on all sides of the Bay Area. They were started by lightning strikes that were among 12,000 registered in the state in the past week.
The National Water Service issued a “red flag” warning on Monday afternoon for the drought-affected area, meaning extreme fire conditions, including high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts up to 65 mph, which “could result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.”
In almost a week, firefighters received no more than the 17% coverage for the LNU Lightning Complex fire in wine country north of San Francisco. It has been the most destructive blast, responsible for the other five dead and 845 destroyed homes and other buildings. It and a fire burning southeast of the Bay Area are one of the five largest fires in state history, with both more than 500 square miles.
In Southern California, an 11-day-old blister was kept stable at just under 50 square miles at Lake Hughes in the northern mountains of Los Angeles County. Rough terrain, hot weather and the potential for thunder with lightning strikes challenge firefighters.
Holly Hansen, an evacuator from the LNU fire, was among evacuees from the Angwin community who were allowed to back their homes for one hour to pick up belongings. She and her three dogs waited five hours in their SUV in turn.
“It’s awful, I lived in Sonoma during the (2017) Tubbs Fire, so this is time # 2 for me. It’s awful when you have to think about what to take,” she said. “I think it’s a very raw human basic emotion to be afraid of fire and lose everything. It’s scary.”
Meanwhile, firefighters were frantically prepared for predicted thunderstorms that would bring high winds and “dry” lightning, a term used when such storms have little or no rain. Brunton said while he is sure firefighters did the most with the time they had to prepare, he is not sure what to expect.
“There’s a lot of potential for things to go really crazy out there,” he said.
Since August 15, more than 500 fires of various sizes have burned throughout California, covering 1.2 million acres, as well as 1,875 square miles. Of these, about two dozen major fires consumed many of the state’s resources.
Most of the damage was caused by the three complex fires. They burned 1,175 square miles, destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and other structures and killed people, three of whom were found in a house in an area under an evacuation board.
Other victims included old redwood trees at California’s oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, plus the park’s headquarters and campground. Smoke from the fires made the air quality of the region dangerous, forcing millions to stay indoors.
Officials investigating maps at command centers are surprised by the sheer size of the fires, Calice spokeswoman Brice Bennett said.
“You could cover half of any of these fires and it would cover the entire city of San Francisco,” Bennett said Sunday.
In response to the emergency call, President Trump on Saturday issued a grand statement on disasters to provide federal assistance. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the statement will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services.
Firefighters, meanwhile, have struggled to get enough resources to fight the biggest fires because so many extinguishers have been burning around the state.
The wind farm fire has only 1,700 firefighters on scene. By comparison, the state had assigned 5,000 firefighters to the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018, the largest fire in state history.
“All of our resources remain in line with capacity we have not seen in recent history,” said Shana Jones, Cal Fire’s head of Calonom’s Sonoma Lake.
.
