SUPERVISORS UPDATED ON LIGHTNING COMPLEX FIRE
Fire destroyed five homes in Yolo County
Yolo County supervisors were updated on the county’s response to the LNU Lightning Complex Fire, as well as future fire preparedness.
The fire, which lasted from Aug. 17 to Oct. 2, burned 400,000 acres and destroyed 1,500 buildings in Yolo, Sonoma, Napa and Solano Counties. Six people were killed.
Yolo County got off relatively easy, explained Dana Carey, manager for the county’s Office of Emergency Services. During Tuesday’s meeting, Carey told the Board of Supervisors that five residences in the county were destroyed and one was damaged.
Don Saylor — who represents District 2, which includes Winters — presented the results from the three listening sessions he held with both Solano County Supervisor John Vasquez, and Winters Mayor Wade Cowan. The listening sessions, which saw close to 55 participants, started as soon as the fires moved into Saylor’s jurisdiction.
Saylor noted the fear that Winters residents felt due to being unprepared for the fire to hit their homes.
“People had been assured that it wasn’t due to affect their lives that night, but the people that live on Positas (Road) just West of Winters live high on a hill, and they’ve been accustomed to watching the fires advance over the past five years,” Saylor said. “Each year there’s been a fire in that area. This one was moving much faster from their perspective. They described it as a wall of lava moving towards them from the hillside.”
During these meetings, Saylor said the main goal was to listen to the concerns of local residents. The hosts then developed local, regional — with Solano and Napa Counties — and state actions.
Local actions included exploring an audible siren system for those who do not get alerts through their phones.
In a townhall in early September, Carey had said that when the wildfires came dangerously close to Winters’ surrounding
rural areas, 100% of the voice call alerts sent to county residents failed, leaving many in the dark regarding evacuations. She explained that this failure was partially due to robocall blocking.
Carey said that her office is continuously working on improving the evacuation plan, which involves over 30 documents. She is also working on drafting both a repopulation plan in order to support the return of evacuated individuals, as well as an animal and human evacuation plan.
As for animals, the Office of Emergency Services is working with Yolo County Sheriff’s Office, Animal Services Section, as well as UC Davis’ Veterinary Emergency Response Team and community partners.
Additionally, the sessions led to a call to support legislation to enroll more residents in Mass Notification Alert Systems, and ask for the state to fully fund Cal Fire.
The “triangle” of Napa, Solano and Yolo counties was one of the biggest highlights of this presentation. It became imperative to officials that the three counties need to work together in their
fire preparedness, and resident communication.
“We listened to a lot of stories, very heart wrenching and very emotional from a lot of people that literally lost everything in this fire,” Cowan noted about these sessions in a video presented to supervisors. “The big takeaway from me is the need for Yolo County and Solano County to have better communication and better coordination in large events like this.”
District 3 Supervisor Gary Sandy expressed caution after hearing these plans due to the importance of moving forward with them in a coordinated manner.
“It’s gonna be like watching a caterpillar in action,” he said. “And as it attempts to move down the road, and if they’re not all coordinated together, it’s not gonna get us anywhere, so we’re really gonna have to take a long, hard look at this.”
The county launched its Fire Safety Council on Tuesday, which will provide support for wildfire prevention, wildfire response and post-fire recovery efforts by implementing priority projects identified in the Yolo County Community Wildfire Protection Plan.