Fires in Sonoma County

[monik7]

I live in Dublin 55 miles south of Napa and other cities affected by the fires. Yesterday the sky was clear here due to winds from the west and the Pacific. However, today is a different story. The winds have shifted and are now from the northeast and blowing smoke all the way south to my area. While taking the dogs out for a walk this morning I could see the smoke in the air like a light fog and could smell it quite strongly. I was thinking it couldn’t be healthy to be breathing it. They’re quite concerned about this change in the wind as it will not bode well for the fire fighters. Winds are expected up to 50 mph tonight. I feel so bad for all those people who’ve lost their homes and businesses. They now say 3,500 structures have been destroyed.
Sandi

[Rufflesgurl]

Very sad about the devastation these CA fires have caused. One resident referred to it as a firestorm. I think it is! The last report I heard was that the way the wind is blowing will change the fire directions which is making it harder for the fire personnel. Scary! So. CA is having the Santa Ana winds. The sky is orange there from the fire(s) there.

Sandi, I had the same experience when I took the pup out this AM. It looked like it was foggy but it was smoke. The smoke smell was
awful also. We didn't last long outside this morning. I miss our blue, clear sky.

Linda

[Bethers]

So sad. My heart is breaking with all the devastation everywhere this summer. Heck, I had to wear a mask in SD this summer from fires in Canada and Montana. I highly recommend you get some. It made a big difference for me.

[BarbaraRose]

I just don't understand that. There is nothing they can do by staying there except to risk their lives and those who try to rescue them. So many people have been trapped and died already. Just not worth it.

[Bethers]

I've finally heard my friends evacuated. And, Barbie, they did so before it became mandatory. Here's part of their message:

"We left Sonoma late last night when we saw the red glow of flames rising above the mountain range in back of our house with what little we could cram into our Chevy. It was so hard to think it might be the last sight of our home as we backed out of our driveway. I just got a call from one of our last remaining neighbors that they were issuing orders for Sonoma residents to evacuate the city if at all possible. It appears that they will be trying to make a last stand one street from the back of our house. They were bringing in tractors and heavy equipment to make a fire break on the lower part of the mountain with the help of 350 National Guardsmen and firefighters. Please pray for all those people trying to save the beautiful Valley of the Moon as the Indians called Sonoma, and those people who had no chance to get out. The winds are supposed to be up to 40 mph. tonight."

[JudyJB]

An update--my son and his family are still at home, but staying indoors. Wife is middle school principal and they had long meeting today to discuss plans to bring in counselors for kids traumatized in the fire. That school has many kids who live in the area around the Silverado Country Club which is completely destroyed, so quite a few will have lost their homes. Other kids will have been traumatized at having to pick among their belongings and load into a car to evacuate. All must really be hard for them.

Wind is not expected to be very strong in Napa, at least according to weather.com over next few days--6-8 mph, which is good. Most of area where fire was close to my son's house (east of his house) has already burned, so it will not burn again, and northerly winds are pushing fire and smoke south to Fairfield, which is now evacuating. Hopefully, that will keep my kids safe, but put others in danger.

Also, if you are familiar with the Napa Valley, Napa city is at the south end and the valley gets narrower. End of valley is small town of Calistoga, which is now under evacuation order because of new fires near there.

Biggest problem for son and family are his outdoor cats who are whining and complaining at being kept indoors! Apparently, male cat put up a big fight at being crated to be evacuated and is NOT happy with having to use litterbox. They will be indoor cats until all fires are out so family doesn't have to run around catching them. Female younger cat mostly spends her time on front porch and other older cat is indoors anyway. Kids are bored with being inside. They do now have cell service, however.

[JudyJB]

Daughter-in-law has taken kids and evacuated to her sister's house in Walnut Creek because there is an advisory evacuation. Son is staying home but packed and ready to go. He is keeping an eye on things and will leave if they issue a mandatory evacuation.

One part of the Atlas fire is burning only 3/4 miles away from him, but luckily it is southeast from his house, and winds are still from north and north northeast. Right now at 11:15 pm, winds are only 5 mph, and even though National Weather Service is predicting high gusts for "wine country," Weather.com is predicting winds no higher than 8 mph over next three days. Humidity is also 50% tonight and they have a lot more firefighters from other states arriving. Doing a lot of dropping water. Other good thing is that there is a lot of stuff already burned that can't burn again, and there is a "buffer" of grasslands. Bad thing is that there are a lot of homes just east of there.

Anyway, all of this is very stressful. I am confident in son's ability to determine when he has to leave. Wife would not have left with kids if she was not confident also. Lots of ways to get out of town and none are blocked by fire.

[MandysMom]

Barbara, what you may not have heard, is, the people missing and those dead were asleep when this began and they just could not get notified quickly enough. Those who got out ran for their lives, many awakened by neighbors. Others were trapped by this sudden fire storm.

And Beth, they covered the mask situation tonight on news. A regular dust mask does next to nothing, they said go to hardware store and get a full on mask respirator as the regular paper masks are useless. We keep N 95 respirator masks on hand at all times here, have for years.

Praying for safety for all in the fire zone. I have a number of friends from the areas and only know a few for sure are already out. Hoping the rest just have not been able to check in yet but will. Most are people I knew in high school and college, one the elderly mother of a classmate. Praying many in the missing list are simply out of contact but know he list of dead is growing daily.

Velda

[Bethers]

Velda, I use an N95 also.

[BarbaraRose]

Yes, I was referring to those who are in evacuation areas but choose to stay anyways. Unfortunately so many didn't have any warning and got trapped which is horribly tragic!

[Cudedog]

I lived for about 30 years in the foothills above Loma Rica. I still live about 15 miles from there. There is a major fire in this area as well - Yuba County - but not much about it on the news, perhaps because the area is rural and perhaps because the fire news from Loma Rica is being overshadowed by the overwhelming fire news from the Napa/Sonoma area.

There have been about one hundred homes +/- lost in the Cascade fire (Loma Rica/Bangor), which is a significant percentage of all of the homes in the area. My daughter has childhood friends whose homes burnt to the ground in this fire, I also have friends who have lost their homes. We are planning to go up to help as soon as the evacuation orders are lifted and the closed roads are reopened.

I just don't understand that. There is nothing they can do by staying there except to risk their lives and those who try to rescue them. So many people have been trapped and died already. Just not worth it.

It's not quite so simple as that.

When living in a rural foothill area of California, wildfire is never far from one's mind in dry conditions when the autumn winds blow. Sometimes there are "official" warnings of an approaching fire - much more often there are none. Telephone lines often go down during a wind storm, and cell service does not exist in many rural foothill communities.

One learns to make it a habit during fire season to go outside frequently to smell for smoke (frequently during the day and before going to bed) to listen for fire spotter planes (they have their own distinctive engine sound) and to check the sky for smoke columns (which can often be mistaken for cumulus clouds) when conditions are dry and the winds are blowing. This becomes a usual part of one's day. This is often the only way one will know that there might be an approaching fire.

The Loma Rica fire started around 11:00 p.m., after many people had gone to bed. Loma Rica is a rural foothill community, there are no warning sirens or anything like that. Telephones and cell service were probably down as the fire began to rage, so an automatic message sent via text or email might not have arrived - and even if it did, people were already sleeping.

The area is rural, homes are generally on small acreage, so it is not like one can run down the block knocking on doors. I have heard reports that there are homes there that are burned to the ground, with burned vehicles still in front of the leveled home. Think about the situation if the residents were sleeping, then woke up with their home surrounded by fire, with their vehicles already on fire. This happened. The result is grim. There was no time, opportunity, or warning to evacuate

Authorities have not yet had the time to check on all of the 100 +/- destroyed homes in the burned area.

Some years ago there was a major fire in the rural foothill community of Brownsville, where I then lived. We were under a sudden mandatory evacuation, but chose not to leave, at least for the moment. Why? Because we had livestock that could not be quickly moved, and had no place to go to if we left. We knew that, had we gone, we would likely not be allowed to return for several days, leaving our animals in dire straights.

Also, and this most importantly:

We knew where the fire was burning (on the other side of the ridge facing my house, to the east) and we were not on an narrow, dirt, one-lane road (as so many rural places are) but were on the main paved road that ran north-south through our community. Our cars were packed, and I stayed up all night watching the ridge. We were not stupid, fighting a 100-foot wall of flames coming at us with a garden hose was not an option. I watched the ridge, and had the fire come over the ridge towards us we were set to go. Although I saw flames flickering at the top of the ridge a couple of times, it never came over the ridge and down towards us.

Had it done so, we would have released our livestock and just driven away, either to the north or to the south. It was a calculated decision, not without some risk. And a decision I am not telling anyone they should make in similar circumstances - all circumstances are different.

But: we knew the road, we knew how to get out, we knew where the fire was burning, we felt we were relatively safe.

That is one example of why someone might choose to stay during an evacuation order.

Every situation is different. It is never an easy decision.

Anne

[JudyJB]

Things are better in Napa this morning--even the mayor issued a positive statement, but still said to be prepared to evacuate, even though there is no evacuation order. Son said less smoke than in several days and wind was calm and from the north, which puts the fire away from him. Apparently all the firefighters have made some progress. DIL will stay one more night possibly with sister, then take kids to her mother's house to stay for a few days and take cats home. It is a real problem to add three cats to a home that already has one dog and cat, especially when you have a male who is bossy. (I still think the vet missed something when he was neutered!)

[SoCalGalcas]

Again, many thanks to all those of you reporting on the fires. I have been having crappy TV coverage, and just getting reports from the radio. Very sporadically.

Has anyone heard from Diana who lives in the town of Sonoma?

My daughter had several friends who lived in Fountain Grove. Her boss at Kaiser had his home destroyed!

The Trader Joe’s in Santa Rosa burned down. The bridge club next to it did not.

This is all such a horrible tragedy.

I had a mud bath in Calestoga several years ago!

Lyn

[monik7]

Has anyone heard from Diana who lives in the town of Sonoma?
Lyn

Lyn, Diana (mtngal) doesn’t live in Sonoma. She lives in Jamestown outside Sonora in the Sierra foothills. I haven't heard of any fires near there. Maybe she’ll check in.
Sandi

[JudyJB]

Air quality is still better in Napa. My son says he can now see the hills beyond the fields next to his house. One other thing he mentioned to me is that damage to the grapes. Very few vineyards have burned because they tend to be damp from drip irrigation and are also green this time of year. Several wineries lost buildings, but not the fields. However, some vineyards had not yet picked their grapes, and the grapes are now covered with ash from various fires throughout wine country. They cannot just pick the grapes and wash them off because that ruins the "bloom" or whatever is on the skins of the grapes that make good wine. So it is possible that hundreds or thousands of acres of very expensive grapes will be ruined this year.

I met a couple who said they owned a small vineyard on the shuttle yesterday who said they had come to Yosemite to escape the fire but had not yet picked their grapes. They were worried about their house and their harvest.