Hundreds of thousands of acres across the Bay Area have been scorched by three large fire complexes which continued to burn with almost zero containment Thursday evening, forcing thousands of Bay Area residents to flee, consuming hundreds of buildings and stymieing overburdened firefighters amid a crushing heat wave.
In total, the three fire complexes had burned through more than 400,000 acres across a dozen counties in the region and beyond, fueled by high temperatures and rough hilly terrain.
- The LNU Complex, in the North Bay, jumped I-80 and forced evacuations in Vacaville and Fairfield. It had burned 215,000 acres and was still 0% contained Thursday evening.
- The SCU Complex, in the South Bay and further east, had engulfed 157,475 acres of remote land by Thursday evening. Fire crews had that blaze 5% contained, and it still had yet to reach any structures.
- The CZU Complex, on the Peninsula, had grown to 48,000 acres by Thursday evening and was still 0% contained. The blaze grew by about 15,000 acres overnight and fire officials said they expect “significant growth” in the next 48 hours. It had already entered Big Basin State Park, home to thousand-year-old Redwoods, and destroyed multiple historic structures at the state’s oldest nature preserve.
Follow below for the latest updates, and explore the map to see where fires are burning.
UPDATE: 11:15 p.m. | San Mateo County announces road closures
The CZU Lightning Complex Fire spurred road closures in San Mateo County late Thursday.
Highway 1 is closed from Tunitas Creek Road to Shaffer Road; Highway 35 is closed from Highway 84 to Highway 9 and Highway 84 is closed from Highway 35 to Highway 1, according to an alert issued by San Mateo County just before 11 p.m.
There is no estimated time to reopen the roadways.
UPDATE: 9:15 p.m. | Cal Fire updates CZU Lightning Complex Fire evacuation order
Cal Fire late Thursday updated an existing evacuation order to include Paradise Park as the CZU Lightning Complex Fire continued to burn in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The order initially applied to all Scotts Valley residents west of Highway 17; Santa Cruz County east of Zayante Canyon, west of Highway 17 and south of Highway 35; and UC Santa Cruz.
Evacuation centers have been established at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds at 2601 East Lake Ave. in Watsonville; the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium at 307 Church St. in Santa Cruz; and the Santa Cruz Seventh Day Adventist campgrounds at 1931 Soquel San Jose Road in Soquel.
As of 6 p.m., the fire had burned 48,000 acres and was zero percent contained, according to Cal Fire. The fire has forced the evacuation of nearly 50,000 residents.
UPDATE: 9 p.m. | Cal Fire confirms four deaths in LNU Lightning Complex Fire
At least three civilians and one first responder have died as a result of the LNU Lightning Complex Fire burning in Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties, according to Cal Fire.
The deaths were announced in an update Thursday evening. Three were in Napa County and one was in Solano County.
In the update, the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit said the fire had consumed at least 215,000 acres and was expected to increase in size. Containment stood at zero percent.
“Fires continue to make runs in multiple directions,” Cal Fire said. “Multiple fires have merged on the north side of Lake Berryessa into the Hennessey Fire, and continue to actively burn with critical spreads and (are) moving into large areas of timber.”
The fire has destroyed 480 structures and damaged 125 others. More than 30,000 structures are threatened.
UPDATE: 7:30 p.m. | ‘It’s a dangerous situation for everyone involved’; CZU Lightning Complex Fire swells to 48,000 acres
The CZU Lightning Complex Fire burning in the mountains of Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties swelled to 48,000 acres Thursday, leading authorities to completely evacuate the communities of Felton, Zayante and Scotts Valley.
“It’s an historic event,” said Ian Larkin, chief of Cal Fire’s San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit. “We have not seen fires burn like this in either one of these counties for many, many years. And those fires were much smaller than what we have in front of us today.”
Crews saw a growth of 700 to 1,000 acres an hour in heavy timber, said Cal Fire incident commander Billy See.
“That’s a dangerous rate of spread for our firefighters and for all those residents out there,” See said.
“We need to be cognizant that we’re in historic times in this fire that we’re dealing with here on the coastline,” he continued. “All the residents here in San Mateo County and Santa Cruz County need to be aware of that, pay attention to the social media and pay attention to the orders and warnings coming out. It’s a dangerous situation for everyone involved.”
Just shy of 1,000 personnel have been assigned to the fire, but “it’s still not enough,” See said.
As of 6 p.m., the fire was zero percent contained. The fire is threatening 20,952 structures and has destroyed at least 50 structures. Nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated.
UPDATE: 7 p.m. | Resident killed in blaze near Vacaville
Authorities say a resident has died in wildfires that are raging through Northern California and threatening tens of thousands of homes.
Solano County Sheriff Sheriff Thomas A. Ferrara announced the man’s death in a video posted online Thursday afternoon.
Ferrara said the man died somewhere on Pleasants Valley Road, west of Vacaville. He did not release any more information about how or when the man died.
His identity will be released pending notification of next of kin.
UPDATE: 6:20 p.m. | More evacuations in San Mateo County
Cal Fire officials added a large new portion along the coastal area of San Mateo County to their evacuation orders on Thursday evening.
The new order, released at 6 p.m., includes evacuation orders for the following areas:
- Pescadero Beach Area
- Pescadero Creek County Park Area
- Bean Hollow Area
- Pescadero Area
- San Gregoio Area
- La Honda Area
- Red Barn Area
- Russian Ridge Open Space Area
- Skylonda Area
- Langley Hill Area
Evacuees are directed to go to Half Moon Bay High School on Lewis Foster Drive.
UPDATE: 6:10 p.m. | Newsom cites wildfire fight, endorses Biden, Harris in DNC video
California Gov. Gavin Newsom made a short video appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, hours after he had canceled a planned address.
The video, shot in front of trees that Newsom said were about a mile from one of the nearly 400 fires burning across the state, may have been a quickly-shot response to President Trump’s earlier comments about the fires.
Newsom spoke of climate change, how “the hots are getting hotter and the drys are getting drier.”
“Mother Nature has now joined this conversation around climate change and so we, too, need to advance that conversation.”
Newsom derided the president’s claim that raking forest floors would prevent forest fires, noting the thousands of lightning strikes that had set off the blazes.
UPDATE 5:30 p.m. | Confusion abounds in San Jose over evacuation order
San Jose officials scrambled Thursday to explain who needed to flee the fires after Cal Fire ordered residents living “east of San Jose city limits” to evacuate.
Absent more instructions, the city said the evacuation area began exactly at San Jose’s eastern border, including parts of Alum Rock technically belonging to unincorporated Santa Clara County.
“I had an employee who did not get his door knocked on — but the neighbor across the street, the sheriff evacuated him,” said Ray Riordan, director of San Jose’s office of emergency management.
Cal Fire clarified Thursday afternoon with a map, found here, showing that the intended evacuation zone begins further east than the border itself and spares much of Alum Rock.
UPDATE: 4:45 p.m. | Cal Fire expands evacuation order, warning in parts of Santa Clara County
Cal Fire on Thursday afternoon ordered evacuations across parts of Santa Clara County and expanded a warning in Morgan Hill. The mandatory evacuation applies to residents east of Shingle Valley Road and everyone east of Anderson Lake, Coyote Creek, Coyote Reservoir, Roop Road east of Leavesley Road, Crews Road and Ferguson Road, as well as those east and north of Highway 152, those west of the Merced county line and north of Highway 152, and those south of Metcalf Road at Shingle Valley Road going east to the Stanislaus county line.
In Morgan Hill, areas east of Cochrane Road, east of Hill Road and south of Main Avenue and the city itself are meanwhile under an evacuation warning, in addition to those south of Metcalf Road, east of Coyote Creek to Anderson Lake, north of Maple Avenue, east of Foothill Avenue, north of San Martin Avenue and East of New Avenue.
An evacuation center is located at Sobrato High School in the Performing Arts building, 401 Burnett Ave. Residents who have questions about the fire evacuations can call or text 408-762-1635.
UPDATE 4:00 p.m. | South Bay’s historic Lick Observatory escapes the flames — for now
Lick Observatory, the historic telescopes under the majestic white steel dome atop Mount Hamilton, narrowly avoided the blazing SCU Complex fire after crews beat back flames in the foothills above east San Jose overnight.
But it’s not over yet. Firefighters have set up a command post at the observatory’s main building with a half dozen engines on site as the blaze scorches the canyon below. Melted garbage cans littered the side of the building, a reminder of the intense heat that gripped the night.
“This is my area,” said Station Capt. Gene Park, a South Bay native. “It’s under my watch, and I’m not going to let anything happen.”
UPDATE 2:50 p.m. | UC Santa Cruz campus, parts of Scotts Valley should prepare to flee, along with parts of Lake County
The University of California, Santa Cruz campus, Paradise Park, and much of Scotts Valley — including downtown and all areas west of Highway 17 — have been placed under an evacuation warning, meaning residents should be prepared to leave, Cal Fire said. Evacuation centers are located at the county fairgrounds in Watsonville, the Santa Cruz Seventh Day Adventist Camp Grounds and the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, which is at capacity.
Another warning was issued for all areas west of Highway 29 in Lake County and areas north and east of the Napa county border, plus south of Anderson Springs Road, Neft Road and the Boggs Mountain Demonstration State Park, down to the Hofacker Lane and State Route 29 junction.
UPDATE 2:15 p.m. | “You gotta clean your floors, clean your forests”
President Donald Trump suggested in a campaign speech Thursday that California should pay the full cost of managing hundreds of wildfires across the state, saying that “they don’t listen to us” and returning to a favorite but disproved talking point about raking forest floors.
“You gotta clean your floors, clean your forests — they have many years of leaves and broken trees,” Trump said.
The president showed a similar focus when touring the town of Paradise after the devastating Camp Fire in 2018, telling reporters that the nation of Finland “spend(s) a lot of time on raking” — a claim that experts quickly shot down as a wild distortion.
While the state performs a series of controlled burns ahead of fire season, California’s yearly blazes are driven by larger and more complex environmental factors such as climate change, high temperatures and winds. This week, the state’s 367 known fires were sparked by some 10,000 lightning strikes that accompanied a massive heat wave gripping the West Coast, while prior wildfires have started thanks to human error and PG&E equipment failures.
UPDATE 1:40 p.m. | Vacaville resident saves house with tractor, hoses
VACAVILLE — Up in the English Hills, Sandra Over and her husband used a friend’s tractor to build a fire break as flames raged on three sides of the 10-acre property.
She watched her neighbor’s house slowly burn over two hours as they used hoses to wet down her home — without help from Cal Fire.
“There were two hours where we were not going to have a house by the end of the day. Just mentally preparing myself while I was hosing it down,” Over said Thursday. “We saw a fire truck here or there, they had no resources, they were spread too thin. There was no preparation for anything like this at all.”
— David DeBolt
UPDATE 12:40 p.m. | Fire catastrophe forces Newsom to cancel DNC speech
With his state in crisis over hundreds of wildfires burning at all points, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has canceled his planned speech at Thursday’s final night of the Democratic National Convention, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Newsom’s speech, on the last night of the convention, just before Joe Biden accepts the party’s nomination for president, was to be a national spotlight for the politician, frequently named as a future presidential contender. When campaigning for governor in 2018, however, Newsom vowed that he would not run for president in 2020 or 2024.
UPDATE 12:35 p.m. | Bonny Doon residents fend for themselves
BONNY DOON — In the absence of any Cal Fire firefighters Thursday morning, about a dozen community members were going around the main Bonny Doon loop in Santa Cruz County — from Beauregard Vineyards to the community’s Presbyterian church — putting out spot fires, dousing of homes and building fire lines. As of Thursday morning, most of the homes in that area had not been hit by the blaze, with most of the damage in the area concentrated closed to and on Empire Grade Road.
“They just let it go,” said Jacob Metcalf, a 40-year-old resident of the small town in Santa Cruz County whose home so far has been spared, about Cal Fire’s response. “It seems like their strategy is to cut a line at Pine Ridge to save UCSC.”
— Maggie Angst
UPDATE 12 p.m. | New evacuations ordered in San Joaquin County
Residents south of West Corral Hollow Road to the Stanislaus county line, plus those west of I-580 to the Alameda County line and east of Alameda to 580 and Stanislaus, have been ordered to evacuate immediately. The PAR estates are exempt but remain under an evacuation warning — along with W. Vernalis Road, Bernard Drive, Stearman Road, Brichetto Court, S. Chrisman Road south of I-580, and the Tracy Golf & Country Club.
UPDATE 11:30 a.m. | Firefighters slow spread into Vacaville
Firefighters were “fairly confident” that they had stemmed the spread of the LNU Complex fires into Vacaville after flames raged past Interstate 80 Wednesday night, officials said.
But multiple fires — including Walbridge and Stewart in the North Bay — burned together overnight into a single blaze, while the Morgan fire in Lake County made a significant push into the south.
“Honestly, our resources are stretched very far,” said Cal Fire Unit Chief Shana Jones. “Please be patient — we’re working hard to put out the fire so we can get you back in your homes.”
UPDATE 11:15 a.m. | Santa Cruz County to overnight visitors: Get out now
Officials in Santa Cruz County are asking all out-of-towners to abandon their hotel rooms in order to free up space for evacuees from the fires that were burning out of control on the coast Thursday.
Local shelters were almost full Thursday morning, according to the county’s emergency operations center, as 28,000 residents between San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties rushed out of harm’s way. Visitors are asked to depart south on Highway 1 or north on Highway 17.
UPDATE 10:50 a.m. | Contra Costa fires in SCU complex well contained
Although the SCU Lightning Complex fires are just 5% contained altogether, the fires burning in Contra Costa County included in that cluster were mostly contained Thursday morning, according to Cal Fire.
The Deer and Marsh fires near Brentwood were about 3,000 acres each, but the Deer Fire was 70% contained and the Marsh Fire was 90% contained.
The Canyon Fires, burning mostly in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties, have meanwhile stumped firefighters as they burn through rolling hills of thick vegetation — which make for a fast-moving and unpredictable blaze. About 104,200 acres have been consumed, with zero containment.
The Reservoir Fire, which forced evacuations just east of San Jose’s city limits, had grown to 27,500 acres and was 10% contained Thursday morning.
UPDATE 8:30 a.m. | LNU Complex fires top 130,000 acres
Intense overnight spotting drove multiple fires across Napa, Lake, and Sonoma counties to engulf more than 7,000 acres overnight, taking over 130,000 acres in total, Cal Fire officials said Thursday morning. The fire complex remained 0% contained, while four civilians have been inured in the fire, 105 structures destroyed and another 70 damaged.
The Hennessey Fire in Napa — which also includes a handful of smaller blazes — accounts for the majority of the complex and encompassed 105,000 acres as of Thursday morning.
UPDATE 8:15 a.m. | Felton evacuated
Residents in all areas of Santa Cruz County’s Felton were ordered to evacuate immediately as the CZU Complex fires grow. Evacuation centers are located at Half Moon Bay High School or Santa Cruz County Fairground.
UPDATE 8:00 a.m. | SCU Complex fires grow to 137,475 acres overnight
About 20 separate fires raging across various counties — including Alameda and Contra Costa — have engulfed nearly 140,000 acres, Cal Fire officials said Thursday morning. Steep, rugged terrain made it difficult for crews to access the blaze overnight, and the fire remains 5% contained. More than 6,000 structures have been threatened but none destroyed.
Late Wednesday, residents east of San Jose city limits were ordered to evacuate, along with those south of Mt. Hamilton Road; north of Metcalf and San Felipe roads, east to the county line; and east of San Antonio Valley Road to Del Puerto Canyon Road to the county line.
UPDATE 6:45 a.m. | Firefighters had no luck against the CZU Complex fires during ‘very active’ night
The fires burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains have presented “unprecedented” conditions “unseen by veteran firefighters,” CalFire chief Mark Brunton said in an update Thursday morning. The fire gained another 15,000 acres overnight, growing in total size to 40,000 acres, ranging almost from Pescadero to Ben Lomond.
The northern edge of the blaze threatened La Honda and Pescadero, while evacuations were ordered overnight as far south as Davenport, which officials called “almost last minute” due to the fast-moving nature of the flames. Thick smoke, meanwhile, caused terrible visibility.
Between those challenges, the weather conditions and limited resources, CalFire chief Billy See expected the blaze to see “significant growth” in the next 48 hours and that new evacuations will be ordered.
Catch up on all the updates from Wednesday here.
Maggie Angst, Jason Green, Daniel Jimenez, Robert Salonga and Erin Woo contributed to this report.
