The fires grew rapidly overnight, resulting in raging evacuations.
Wildfires slept half a day through Northern California, spreading their rapes and houses crawling as firefighters fought to gain control of the blazes, which have forced a growing number of evacuations and were likely caused by lightning strikes in recent days.
People were ordered to flee for weeks in Vacaville, a city of about 100,000 residents near Sacramento, because a combination of uncontrolled fires took over homes northwest of the city. That group of fires, collectively known as the LNU Lightning Complex, destroyed more than 50 buildings and structures and threatened nearly 2,000 more, authorities said.
It grew more than 14,000 acres overnight and now occupies 46,225 acres in Napa and Sonoma Counties – larger than the size of Washington, DC – and is completely uninhabited, authorities said. Four people were injured in the fire.
Videos from Vacaville caused flames to burst through one neighborhood, from trees to houses to picket fences.
Philip Galbraith, 52, said he and his 20-year-old son received no warning of the impending fire until a neighbor “desperately knocked” on his door at 2:45 p.m.
“I came out of the house in all that I had on,” he said. “I have my son and we are gone.”
Authorities have also instructed residents to evacuate to several other areas where groups of fires, also likely caused by lightning, spread rapidly. The SCU Lightning Complex, a group of about 20 different fires, nightly more than doubled in size, and now burns over 85,000 acres across five counties – mostly in uninhabited regions near the Bay Area – and is just 5 percent contained. A third combination of fires, known as the CZU August Lightning Complex, has grown to 10,000 acres and forced evacuations in Santa Cruz County.
Firefighters were hoping for calmer weather last night, but light winds came instead, pushing the fire to vegetation and other fresh fuel, said Lynnette Round, a spokeswoman for California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
‘Today they will still be a fire,’ she said, as the wind and the dry, warm weather continued.
Waking up at 2 a.m., a Vacaville resident fled with his dog and not much else.
Clayton Jack, 31, a professional wrestler living in Vacaville, said he was woken up by a housekeeper at 2 a.m. Wednesday and immediately smoked smoke in the air.
“I go outside and see the big, red, orange glow on the hill and then I see tons of light,” Mr. Jack said. “And then I see a bunch of cars driving up and down the street.”
Mr. Jack, who wrestles under the name Kal Jak, said an officer told him it was time to leave.
“I could grab my dog, my own stuff, my laptop, my camera and then just drive from there,” he said.
In the car, Mr Jack realized he “smoked like fire from head to toe,” he said. He drove past fire trucks equipped with spotters and megaphones that brought urgent messages to evacuate.
“It was something out of a movie,” said Mr. Jack, who was able to leave Vacaville at 3:00 a.m. and drive northeast to Lake Tahoe, where his family owns a cabin.
“I’m very happy to have a place at the moment,” he said. “Hopefully the house doesn’t burn down.”
The mayor has declared a state of emergency.
Govin Gavin Newsom on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in response to the fires, which hit the state while fighting the effects of a swelling heat wave, rolling blackouts and the coronavirus pandemic.
The move will make vital resources available to combat the hundreds of burns that are burning throughout the state and have been aggravated by the heat and persistent high winds, the mayor’s office said.
“We use every available resource to keep communities safe as California fights over the state in these extreme conditions,” he said. Newsom in a statement. “California and its federal and local partners are working in the final stages to meet the challenge and remain vigilant in the face of continuing dangerous weather conditions.”
The fires across the state have claimed the state’s mutual aid system, which has made it difficult for jurisdictions to obtain the firefighting resources they need, according to the emergency proclamation. The statement states Mr. Newsom able to mobilize resources from the state, a top aide to the mayor said in an interview Tuesday night. The governor also mobilized the California National Guard to help with relief efforts.
In addition to the fires that swept through Northern California, the Lake Fire burned for eight days in the Angeles National Forest northeast of Los Angeles, and has grown to nearly 26,000 acres. The fire, which engulfed 38 percent, forced people to evacuate, destroying dozens of buildings and threatening thousands more.
Further east, the Dome Fire burns in one of the largest forests of Joshua trees in the United States, in the Mojave National Preserve near the Nevada border. The fire covered more than 43,000 acres in just three days and covered 5 percent.
California has to deal with rolling blackouts as a heat wave increases the demand for electricity.
The heat has also taken its toll on the state’s power supply, with operators of the state’s power grid twice ordering rolling outages and asking customers to use less power this week.
On Tuesday, as many as 2 million homes and businesses were warned that they could be subject to rotating blackouts of an hour or more, but the California Independent System Operator said a reduction in demand meant the outages were unnecessary.
Lawmakers and consumer groups have expressed despair that the operator had not prepared enough for the heatwave.
The blackouts, which began on Friday, were reminiscent of an energy crisis 20 years ago, when the elusive deregulation of the state of the electricity system left millions in the dark and the wholesale price of power skyward.
Gavin Newsom demanded an investigation into why state regulators failed to prepare for high-temperature temperatures, which were predicted for days.
The state has also used blackouts to prevent fireworks. Last year, Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility company, shut off power to millions of customers, some days long, to reduce the risk of its equipment setting wild fires.
Report was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Christina Morales, Azi Paybarah, Ivan Penn, Derrick Bryson Taylor, Lucy Tompkins en Alan Yuhas.
