An unwelcome change in the weather, with higher winds, temperatures and lightning threatening to start new wildfires, came to Northern California on Sunday, where firefighters have three large “complexes” of fires in hundreds of homes for nearly a week destroyed and forced thousands to flee.
Firefighters made slow but hopeful progress on Saturday, aided by good weather but hampered by foggy skies that grounded some of the day’s water-dripping planes. Reinforcements came to support overwhelmed crews, and evacuation orders were lifted in some areas.
But the changing weather brought fears of new fires during the day and warnings from state and local officials to residents in endangered areas to prepare at any time to flee.
“There’s not a sense of pure optimism, but a sense of resolution, a sense that we have resources to support us,” said Sonoma County Superintendent James Gore.
Since August 15, state fire officials have said more than 12,000 lightning strikes across the state have left more than 500 wildfires. Of these, about two dozen large fires drew most of the state’s resources.
Most of the damage was caused by three clusters of fire “complexes” that destroyed forest and countryside in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. They have burned 1,120 square miles.
Among the victims were 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 people to stay indoors. In all, the fires killed five people, set fire to nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands out of their homes.
“Tuesday night when I went to bed, I had a beautiful house on a beautiful ranch,” said 81-year-old Hank Hanson of Vacaville. “As of Wednesday night, I have nothing but a bunch of ashes.”
The changing weather brought good news for some communities, including Boulder Creek, an old subsistence community of about 5,000 people in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Firefighters said they expected the flame to reach the community, but they took advantage of recent good weather to try to set ‘flames’ around the city. The storms forecast for Sunday are expected to help those efforts by changing the direction of the wind.
“As bad as that weather forecast is for certain parts of this fire, it will actually help us move it away from those particular communities,” said Mark Brunton, a battalion commander for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state its Fire Department Agency.
In response to the emergency call, Donald Trump issued a grand statement on disasters on Saturday to provide federal assistance. Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement the statement would also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services.
Firefighters, meanwhile, struggled to get enough resources to fight the two largest clusters of fire around the San Francisco Bay Area, which grew into the second-largest and third-largest fire in state history by size.
The fire, which burned in California’s wine country north of San Francisco Bay, had killed only 1,400 firefighters. By comparison, the state had assigned 5,000 firefighters to the Mendocino Complex in 2018, which still holds the record as the largest fire in state history – for now.
“All of our resources remain close to capacity we have not seen in recent history,” said Shana Jones, head of CalFire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit.
Underlining the danger posed by the fires to arsonists, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office released dramatic video of the rescue of the helicopter on Friday night by two firefighters trapped on a ridge line at Point Reyes National Seashore. They were raised to safety as flames advanced.
“If it had not been for that helicopter, those firefighters would surely have perished,” said Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick.
