Two giant clusters of extinguishers – the LNU Lightning Complex and the SCU Lightning Complex fires – burned in 10 counties.
“This is an incredibly emotional and stressful time for many of us who have sustained many fires and natural disasters over the last few years,” said Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick.
On Wednesday, Gus Valerian woke up from desperate pounds at the door of his Vacaville home in Solano County, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. It was about 2 a.m. and a fire department official had come to warn her about the raging fire near his 16-acre family. Valerian ran his wife, Kersti, and her 3-year-old twins, Lincoln and Emmy, up and down.
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The LNU Lightning Complex Fire, which affects the city, spans five counties – Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo, Solano – and has burned more than 124,000 acres. It is 0% contained and authorities are evacuating some areas.
Outside Vacaville, Thuy Ngo was seen Wednesday when flames consumed the barn on his 30-acre farm property.
“We did not think the fire would get down here so fast,” he told CNN. “It’s just heartbreaking. … It’s just gone.”
Evacuations are expected in the region
The second largest fire in the state – the SCU Lightning Complex Fire – burned 102,000 acres. By Thursday, it was 5% and had affected Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.
A third fire, called the CZU August Lightning Complex, has grown to 25,000 acres in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. It was 0% contained by early Thursday.
With the heat wave adding to the fatigue and speed of the fires, evacuations are underway throughout the region, but officials have no clear number on how many people have been told to leave their homes. The priorities remain the safety of firefighters and the public, evacuation planning and structure and infrastructure protection, said Cal Fire Operations Chief Chris Waters.
Temperatures have risen above 100 degrees this week. On Thursday, they are expected to be in the upper 80s to low 90s.
“The low humidity levels and gusty winds can spread the fire quickly,” said CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
Power outages hit the state
Power outages are also a problem because the California power grid is not having a hard time keeping up with demand.
The rolling blackouts were implemented over the weekend when an intense hot wave caused record temperatures in the state, including an altitude of 130 degrees in Death Valley on Sunday.
“These blackouts, which occurred without warning or sufficient time for preparation, are unacceptable and do not meet the nation’s largest and most innovative state,” Newsom wrote in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission and of the California Energy Commission.
“The clearest link between wildfires in California and anthropogenic climate change to date has been through warming-induced increases in atmospheric aridity, which works to dry up fuels and promote summer forest fires,” the report said. “It has been well established that warming promotes wildfire throughout the western U.S., particularly in forested regions, by increasing the atmospheric demand of the atmosphere and decreasing moisture from the summer soil as snowpack decreases.”
Park Williams, lead author of the study and a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said man-made warming of the planet has caused vapor pressure deficits to increase by 10% since late 1800s, which means more evaporation has been prevented. By 2060, he expects that effect to double.
“This is important because we’ve already seen a big change in the wildfire activity in California from the first 10%. Increasing evaporation has exponential effects on fires, so the next 10% increase will probably have even potter effects, “he told CNN last year.
Dozens of fires burning nationwide
While the West has been suffering from record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires have devastated many areas, and red-flag warnings have been issued from the Northwest into the Rockies.
There were at least 77 large complexes of fires burning in 15 states nationwide this week – nearly a third of them in California, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
The fires have burned at least 649,054 acres in the 14 states where fires are still spreading, it said. Some of the states with multiple fires include Alaska with seven, Arizona with 11 and Colorado with five.
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