‘Take care of each other’ during fires, says sheriff’s office
California’s governor declared a statewide emergency yesterday after officials ordered nearly 200,000 people to leave their homes as hurricane-force winds drove multiple wildfires through bone-dry vegetation.
Meanwhile, the state’s largest utility cut electricity to millions of residents as a precaution to prevent more areas from igniting.
Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement that officials were deploying ‘‘every resource available’’ to respond to the wildfires, including a large blaze in Northern California’s wine country powered by gusts that reached more than 164kmh.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, two grass fires briefly halted traffic on a bridge. The flames came dangerously close to homes in Vallejo. Another grass fire closed a stretch of interstate that cut through the state capital.
In the south, a wildfire in the Santa Clarita area near Los
Angeles destroyed 18 structures. As of yesterday, the Tick Fire was 65 per cent contained.
The biggest evacuation was in Northern California’s Sonoma County where 180,000 people were told to pack up and leave.
To prevent its power lines from sparking in the high winds and setting off more blazes, Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to 2.3 million people across 36 counties this weekend. Electricity is expected to be restored by today, though the utility warned it might cut power again as soon as tomorrow because of another forecast of strong winds that are expected to last until Thursday.
The fear that the winds could blow embers and spread fire across a major highway prompted authorities to expand evacuation orders that covered parts of Santa Rosa, a city of 175,000 that was devastated by a wildfire two years ago.
‘‘This is the largest evacuation that any of us ... can remember,’’ the Sonoma County Sheriff’s
Office tweeted Sunday morning. ‘‘Take care of each other.’’
Hundreds of people arrived at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa by Sunday. Some came from senior care facilities. More than 300 people slept inside an auditorium filled with cots and wheeled beds.
Scores of others stayed in a separate building with their pets.
Among them was Maribel Cruz, 19, who packed up her dog, four cats and fish as soon as she was told to flee from her trailer in the town of Windsor, which is about 100km north of San Francisco. She also grabbed a neighbour’s cat.
‘‘I’m just nervous since I grew up in Windsor,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m hoping the wind co-operates.’’
Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick urged residents in the evacuation zone that stretched from the wine country to Bodega Bay on the coast to get out immediately, citing the 24 lives lost when fire swept through the region in October 2017.