Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group
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Wildfires burning from Wine Country to the Peninsula are forcing thousands to evacuate and threatening as many homes. There are so many blazes that Cal Fire combined them into three major groupings, the CZU August Lightning Complex (San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties), the SCU Lightning Complex (Contra Costa, Alameda and Santa Clara counties) and the LNU Lightning Complex (Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties), which are so named because they started following abnormal lightning strikes and historic summer heat over the weekend. By Sunday afternoon, this news organization mapped at least 14 lightning-sparked fires across the Bay Area.
Smoke from a series of fires hung over the region early Wednesday, bringing a smoky smell and hazy skies and leading the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to issue a Spare the Air alert through Thursday.
As of Wednesday morning the fires that have burned 32,095 acres in Napa were zero percent contained, while the lightning-sparked blazes of the Santa Clara area complex in the South Bay and East Bay were about 4 percent contained. More than 500 firefighters continued battling the Marsh and Deer Zone fires, the largest of 20 burning in the immediate Bay Area.
Mandatory evacuations are in effect in San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma and Napa counties.
For live Bay Area fire updates, CLICK HERE