Evacuations were extensive last night in the San Francisco Bay Area as wildfires in the region shook hundreds of square miles of land, to the edge of San Jose, producing perhaps the worst air quality in the world.
In all, more than 349,000 acres burned in Northern and Central California – the equivalent of 546 square miles, more than the land area of the entire city of Los Angeles. At least 134 structures have been destroyed, and the fire-fanning weather conditions that have brought record temperatures and thousands of lightning strikes in recent days are not expected to diminish any time soon.
The largest cluster of fires last night was in wine country, the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which burned a combined 124,100 acres black and the evacuation of nonessential personnel from Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and patients from Adventist Health St. Helena Hospital in Napa County.
Firefighters fight on Wednesday in Vacaville.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
In Sonoma County, the entire city of Healdsburg was under an evacuation warning early Thursday.
Fires also required evacuation crews on the eastern edge of San Jose, a result of the SCU Lightning Complex fire, which burned 102,000 acres at multiple locations generally east of Silicon Valley and the East Bay and west of the Central Valley. . There were flames closer to the famous Lick Observatory, which serves astronomers at the University of California.
Additional evacuation orders were issued in the wake of the CZU August Lightning Complex fire, which broke out in the remote mountainous area southwest of Silicon Valley, on the border of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. That fire burned 25,000 acres and forced the evacuation of more than 22,000 people, officials said Wednesday night.
In San Mateo County, the CZU August Lightning Complex fire threatened the communities of Pescadero and La Honda. In Santa Cruz County, structures were lost in the Swanton Road area, and a Cal Fire station was under threat.
The evacuation zone for this fire has expanded rapidly and now includes the communities of Davenport, Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek.
The weather conditions for the next three days look grim, said Cal Brunton of Cal Fire.
“That makes that threat very immediate and very real,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to protect life and property.”
According to the website PurpleAir, the Bay Area on Thursday was home to the worst air quality in the world. Air quality is particularly poor in Silicon Valley, San Mateo County and Livermore Valley, according to local air quality management officials.
“Smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, causing coughing, a dry crawling throat and irritating sinuses,” said the Bay Air Quality Management District. “Raised particulate matter in the air can cause wheezing in people suffering from asthma, emphysema” and other chronic respiratory diseases.
The Bay Area National Weather Service warned that increased firefighting would continue into Thursday morning, with possible gusty winds in the higher altitudes.
“Very dry and hot conditions will exist all over the interior and in the higher altitudes of the region,” the weather service said. “Smoky and hazy conditions are likely to affect parts of the region by at least this coming weekend.”
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As of Wednesday afternoon, 367 major fires were burning statewide, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“This fire season has been very active and, not surprisingly, the activity has taken shape in a number of counties up and down the state,” he said during a newsletter.
At this time last year, crews had responded to a total of 4,007 fires across the state, Newsom said. They have already been sent out to 6,754 this year.
The rapid outbreak of new extinguishers has stretched the state’s fire department resources to its limit.
Jeremy Rahn, Cal Fire’s leading official information officer for the LNU Lightning Complex fire, said Wednesday that the state had already applied for 375 additional fire engines, as well as additional out-of-state personnel, and hired “almost all available private” firefighters to call as required ‘aircraft in the Western United States. ”
“The magnitude and complexity of these incidents are challenging all aspects of the emergency response,” he said during a media briefing. “Resources for arson are low as new fires continue.”
However, Newsom expressed confidence that California was ready to take on the challenge and thanked the leaders of other states – including Arizona, Nevada and Texas – for their promises to send additional resources.
California “is putting everything we have into these fires,” he said, and “we are now receiving the support of some of our partners in the Western United States, and for that we are very grateful.”
Lin reported from San Francisco and Miller, Money and Serna from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Anita Chabria, Taryn Luna, Susanne Rust and Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.
