Not yet out of the woods. (Mandatory evacuation zones continue to increase.) The two largest fires in Sonoma County are at zero and one percent containment as of Wednesday morning. The Tubbs Fire is hitting both Sonoma and Napa (specifically Calistoga) counties. Large fires are also raging in Mendocino and Lake counties and only getting less media coverage because they’re not as populated as Sonoma and Napa.
Too heartsick to write much of a diary. The Press Democrat twitter feed and main page covers the up-to-date details.
Many first responders — fire fighters, police, medical professionals — have been on the job during the past forty-eight hours as their homes were destroyed. In Santa Rosa, power, cell phone coverage, and internet access went down for most of the area early Monday morning and now is slowly being restored. Two of the three major hospitals remain closed (patients transferred to other Bay Area hospitals) but expect to reopen sometime on Thursday.
Weather permitting.
Update — Monitoring developments of the fires (necessary to determine if I need to bug out), the mandatory evacuations ordered for Calistoga and Agua Caliente and an evacuation advisory for the northern part of the City of Sonoma seemed confusing. Until I checked on the direction of winds that have been increasing over the past few hours. Then a factor that hasn’t been mentioned in any of the reports from local officials or media finally hit me. Better known in SoCal and therefore, it wasn’t surprising that the LATimes identified it in ‘Diablo winds’ fuel widespread destruction…
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October can be a troublesome month for firefighters throughout California. The normal weather pattern near the coast is for moist sea breezes to come off the Pacific Ocean and into the land. But in the fall, high pressure that builds into the Great Basin causes wind to shift in the opposite direction, said Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San Jose State University and former meteorologist with the National Weather Service.In Southern California, they’re called Santa Ana winds, and in Northern California, they’re called Diablo winds. So in Northern California, air coming down from Nevada and Utah falling from an elevation of about 4,000 feet gets pushed down to sea level, and that air is compressed, and warm winds are created. Overnight, exceptionally dry winds came in screaming from the northeast to the southwest.
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Update #2 The expected warmer and stronger NNE and NE winds did materialize. They’ve varied from WNW to NNW and been in single digits with few gusts. Clearing out the air (worse today in SF than in Santa Rosa) and stopping westward progress of the fires. Not so good for areas east of the uncontained fires: Geyserville, Lake County (2015 Valley Fire), Mt. St. Helena, Calistoga, and SE Sonoma Co and SW Napa.
Firefighter reinforcements and equipment arrived yesterday. None too soon as many had been on the lines for forty-eight hours. (Normal shifts are an astounding twenty-four hours.)
What hasn’t been in short supply is food and drink. Good food for the first responders and evacuees.
In the midst of chaos, grief, fear and exhaustion, many local restaurateurs, farmers, caterers and chefs are offering up the most valuable thing they can this week — warm meals.
Something that wouldn’t be seen in too many places: Red Cross headquartered at Santa Rosa cannabis company. Even as Northbay cannabis farms devastated by fires. Many wineries were also devastated and grapes not yet harvested have been destroyed. (No estimate yet on the toll on vineyards.)
Relief for some residents but until the fires are out, we’re all still in a state of shock and unable to begin to process this disaster.
Update #3 – The situation deteriorated overnight. Flared up and is racing near Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Mandatory evacuations ordered at 4:30 a.m., 8,500 additional evacuees. CalFire spokesperson said that the next twelve hours are critical — they’re making progress but fire and wind remain difficult to predict. State Senator Mike McGuire (will have more to say about him later) announced that emergency managers are working to open another evacuation shelter in Marin County because all of the others are full.
