Wildfire forces evacuation
ST HELENA - A wind-driven wildfire erupted on Sunday in the heart of northern California’s Napa Valley wine country and spread across more than 1000 acres, forcing the evacuation of several hundreds homes and a hospital, authorities said.
Fire crews were out in force, scrambling to fend off flames threatening neighbourhoods and vineyards in the northwest corner of the famed wine-growing valley, about 120 kilometres north of San Francisco.
The blaze, dubbed the Glass Fire, broke out before dawn near Calistoga and raced toward the adjacent towns of Deer Park and St Helena, with flames advancing to within a mile of the Adventist Health St Helena hospital.
All 55 patients who were at the hospital at the time were safely evacuated by ambulance and helicopter over the course of five hours, beginning around 7am in the morning, hospital spokeswoman Linda Williams told Reuters.
“We had ambulances lined up from all over the Bay area,” she said, adding that while the facility was surrounded by smoke, the skies over the hospital itself remained clear enough for helicopters to land and take off with patients who needed to be evacuated by air.
It was the second wildfire-related evacuation of the 151-bed hospital since August, coming on the heels of a massive cluster of lightning-sparked blazes that swept several counties north of the San Francisco Bay region.
Some 600 homes were placed under evacuation orders, with residents of another 1400 dwellings warned to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice, according to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire) spokesman Tyree Zander. About 5,000 people in all were affected by evacuation notices, he said.
By 1:30pm, flames stoked by winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour (80 kph) had scorched some 485 hectares of grassy rolling hillsides and oak woodlands, with zero per cent containment, Mr Zander said.