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Firefighters throughout Northern California are advising to get a better grip on the massive wildfires that burned around the Bay Area on Sunday. But the anticipated arrival of the evening of unleashed wind and dry lightning threatens to spark new fires, and send the massive existing fires on multiple fronts, to homes and communities in much of Northern California.
Forecasters warn of the dangerous weather that arrived Sunday night, a remnant of a hurricane that hit the coast of Baja California will be much like the line of thunderstorms that hit the current wildfire crisis in California a week ago. It was the last way that weather conditions affected firefighters in the Bay Area, which was just beginning to make progress with the three major fire complexes burning in the region.
“We make a profit in one place and we have a loss in another,” said Chad Costa, a battalion commander with the Petaluma Fire Department, accused of holding a nine-mile line to maintain the Walbridge Fire in Sonoma County. of Healdsburg.
The winds of the storm system from the southwest threatened to push the Walbridge Fire down from the coastal mountains and into more densely populated areas of Sonoma County, including Healdsburg and Geyserville, causing evacuations west of Highway 101. Elsewhere in the North Bay, authorities feared this wind would spread the massive Hennessey Fire over large areas of territory north of Lake Berryessa.
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, wind-driven fires threaten to take over the communities of Bonny Doon, Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond, who have been under attack from the CZU Complex Fire for days. Crews also prepared for the potential for a devastating storm in the San Lorenzo Valley, deploying three fire lines designed to protect Felton, UC Santa Cruz and the city beyond.
And in South Bay, authorities ordered new evacuations Sunday in southern Santa Clara County as the SCU complex continued to burn in the mountains east of Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
Over the past week, firefighters have faced the only challenge after another with the containment of the flames – winds that shook flames in unpredictable directions, rough and difficult to access terrain, heavy smoke restricting air support , and, most importantly, a shortage of firefighters with nearly two-thousand large fire extinguishers burning throughout California.
Costa said he had about 20 snake personnel for those nine miles west of Healdsburg. In a normal scenario, one in which fires in the entire state did not burn, there would be perhaps 20 crews on each mile of the fire line.
“All you can do is save as much as possible,” Costa said. “We’re trying to keep the fire in our box.”
Normally, when forecasts call for warnings of red flags and other dangerous fire water, departments provide extra engines and have crews ready to deploy to put out fires quickly, said Daniel Potter, a spokesman for Cal Fire CZU. The stated goal of Cal Fire is to put out 90 percent of the fires before they grow to 10 acres.
But that’s not an option if you already have what you’ve got to do in fighting massive fires that threaten tens of thousands of homes.
“We are maxed out on equipment we can cover with our staff,” Potter said. “Virtually every hand crew we have available has been deployed.”
Some took a more optimistic stance – the active fires mean there are hundreds more firefighters in the area than might be the case under normal circumstances.
“The lucky thing is that we already have everyone in place,” said Fire Chief Rebecca Ramirez of the Yocha Dehe Fire Department, which serves tribal land belonging to the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, as well as the wider Capay Valley and Yolo County. “So when we had new lightning strikes, we had crews all over the place who could respond quickly.”
Calm winds and cooler temperatures in the early part of Sunday helped crews working the CZU Complex Fire limit their spread in Boulder Creek, while clearer skies allowed water droplets and other air support to protect Bonny Doon. Despite the progress, authorities announced the gruesome news Sunday night that a person was found dead at a house along Last Chance Road outside Davenport. The person whose remains were recovered Sunday is the first person killed in the fire. Four more people have been reported missing, according to the Sheriff’s Office in Santa Cruz County.
And yet, more houses went up in flames, even before the intense fire-water arrived; officials said 163 structures were destroyed, as of Sunday night.
Flames hit Boulder Creek from the west and north, tongues of fireworks fell from the main body of the blaze and flaming houses within a few hundred yards of the historic downtown strip along Highway 9. The situation for Boulder Creek and the cities south of it along the San Lorenzo Valley on Sunday were “critical” and fire crews advised against the time, said Battalion Chief Rich Durrell, leading a California Office of Emergency Services strike team in Boulder Creek.
While in earlier days firefighters took a defensive approach, playing ‘whack-a-mole’ to save homes as the fire spread from one area to another, making sure residents were out, Durrell said, ‘We are today more offensive than defensive. ”
Boulder Creek resident Gordon Rudy has been evacuated to his boat in Santa Cruz harbor, but snuck back to his home just above town due to a pre-emptive strike, he said. “I woke up at 1am and I was driving here,” said Rudy, 61, a realtor. Flames reached within 100 feet of his wooden house, built in 1937 and used as a vacation home by original Oakland Raiders owner Wayne Valley. But fire crews put them out. “I’m very relieved,” Rudy said.
Saturday night was pretty quiet in Sonoma County, and firefighters managed to keep the Walbridge Fire – part of the LNU Lightning Complex from making major new drives to Healdsburg, CalFire officials said Sunday, and did the same with the Hennessey Fire to the east. High on a mountain west of the city, two rescued workers marched out of the brush at 4.30pm, many of the men crashing to the ground after working on the fire line with hand tools most of the day.
Because of the coronavirus program and early release, the number of crews and their size is down because California has the worst fire crisis in its history, said Calfire Capt. Tim Erinse, a crew commander. Crews typically have 27 members, he said, a number that has now dropped to 24.
Nearby, Kelly Dicke from Chamise Road looked across a ridge line where smoke was rising into the air. The house where she has lived for 30 years – “a 120-year-old log” lay under a canopy of trees. Every night for almost a week she said she assumed it would be lost.
‘Every night you go,’ she’s gone, ‘but it’s not.’
On the east side of Lake Berryessa, most members of Ramirez’s 33-person fire department take turns up and down the fire line, building a decent contained line on their side of the ridge, and few structures are lost on tribal land, Ramirez said.
However, Ramirez said the lightning expected to arrive late on Sunday was her top concern.
“We are all envious because we are so thin at the moment,” she said.
