Click here if you’re having trouble viewing this gallery on a mobile device
Dozens of fires have exploded across the Bay Area and Napa’s wine country, scorching thousands of acres, forcing evacuations and sending residents an uncomfortable reminder that fire season in California is well under way.
Persistent hot weather and windy conditions Tuesday were complicating efforts to get the infernos — some ignited by rare weekend lightning storms — under control and sending unhealthy smoke wafting across the East Bay and later on the Peninsula from a fire burning in San Mateo County. A Spare the Air Alert was in effect for both days across the Bay Area.
As of Tuesday night, there was barely any containment on any of the region’s blazes — from a massive 35,000 acres burning across Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties to the 32,000-plus acres ablaze in Napa County, threatening a wine region already struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. The majority of the fires, however, were not burning in heavily populated areas.
The lack of containment, CalFire information officer Robert Foxworthy said, was partially a result of how recently the blazes broke out. But containment efforts have been further hampered by hot summer weather, which is expected to continue well into the week. And fire agencies have been stretched thin since Sunday, dousing upstart fires on dry vegetation that has turned to tinder in the late summer sun.
In the immediate Bay Area, the fast-burning Marsh and Deer Zone Fires were the largest of 20 fires in what officials are calling the SCU Lightning Complex Fire. More than 500 firefighters were battling the blazes, which closed roads and forced residents to flee the area.
The Deer Zone Fires were burning near Brentwood in Contra Costa County, while the Marsh Fire ignited just east of Milpitas in Santa Clara County. In southern San Mateo County, residents of communities east of Pescadero, in the Butano State Park area and the Butano Creek areas, were ordered to evacuate late Tuesday afternoon. That fire was part of the CZU August Lightning Complex, multiple blazes that had grown to about 1,000 acres early Tuesday evening and later prompted evacuations in the Boulder Creek area of Santa Cruz County.
The extensive wildfires in the region prompted officials to extend an air-quality advisory through “at least” Thursday, with the heaviest concentration of smoke expected in Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton.
Steep, treacherous terrain posed challenges for crews battling the blazes, especially overnight. As the fires spread, firefighters have focused on buttressing their existing positions while attempting to corral the flames where possible. But with temperatures remaining in the triple digits in places, fire officials categorized the rate of spread as “dangerous.”
Marsh Creek Road between Morgan Territory Road and Deer Valley Road remained closed Tuesday, as did Del Puerto Canyon Road between Mines Road and Diablo Parkway. Evacuees living along those roads were directed to the Brentwood Community Center, where city manager Tim Ogden said about 25 people sought refuge before the Red Cross placed them in local hotels.
Foxworthy was optimistic containment would increase “in the next day or two,” but his counterpart with the Santa Clara Unit, Pam Temmermand, said Tuesday that any advances were “not gonna happen today” for fires burning in the South Bay.
“The weather outlook is continued hot temperatures, low humidity,” Temmermand said.
To the north, several major fires in Napa County — which has been ravaged in recent years by deadly blazes — broke out Monday, consuming thousands of acres each, threatening wineries and putting longtime residents on edge, before exploding in size Tuesday night as the LNU Lightning Complex fire to more than 32,000 acres. Elsewhere, dozens of smaller fires in the region demanded resources and attention.
The Hennessey Fire, which grew to 10,000 acres late Tuesday, had destroyed several structures and threatened hundreds more, including Nichelini Family Winery, the region’s oldest family-owned and operated winery, built in 1890. In an update, CalFire said “extreme fire behavior” was “continuing to challenge firefighting efforts.”
“It hasn’t reached the winery yet,” fifth-generation winemaker Aimee Sunseri told this news organization. “We’re just bracing ourselves.”
The family has been preparing since the Atlas Fire blazed through the same region in 2017. Fireproofing the property has included clearing underbrush and trees within a 100-foot radius of their facility and installing concrete water tanks holding up to 10,000 gallons of water around the property.
By late Tuesday, winds of up to 50 mph were driving the fire east south-east to Mt. Vaca, and Solano County Fire Department resources were sending a fourth-alarm response to meet flames about a dozen miles northwest of Vacaville.
On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency and said California had secured federal grants to help fight fires burning in Napa, Monterey and Nevada counties.
“We are deploying every resource available to keep communities safe as California battles fires across the state during these extreme conditions,” Newsom said in a statement.
Just south of the Bay Area, five lightning-induced fires were burning in the Santa Cruz mountains, covering about 1,000 acres. Those blazes were also zero-percent contained as of Tuesday. And in Monterey County, the River Fire south of Salinas had grown to more than 4,000 acres, destroying several homes and forcing evacuations. By Tuesday, fire crews had the blaze 10% contained, but a new fire southeast of Carmel Valley Village broke out in the afternoon, prompting mandatory evacuations.
Further south, fires raged along the Central Coast and Los Angeles, as well as inland, near Riverside.
In any year, fire season can be devastating. But 2020 stands to be particularly dire.
The fires could well hamper efforts to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, said John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley who has been consulting with firefighters in the state.
“If you get COVID and you’re being exposed to a lot of particulate matter from the fires,” he said, “that’s going to certainly make COVID worse.”
Swartzberg is also concerned that with some of the larger fires drawing firefighters from around the state and beyond together in close quarters, the blazes could increase the spread of the deadly, highly infectious disease among fire crews and in their communities when they return home.
“It’s a perfect recipe for what we don’t want to do in a pandemic,” Swartzberg said, “and that is bringing people from disparate areas and congregating them together for a period of time.”
Staff writers Rick Hurd, Jessica Yadegaran and George Kelly contributed to this report.
