High winds may fan already enormous California wildfires
A calm overnight allowed firefighters to make progress against a trio of massive wildfires burning in Northern California but they were girding for a weather system Sunday that will bring high winds and thunderstorms that could spark new fires and fan existing blazes that destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands to evacuate.
The “complexes,” or groups of fires, burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area were started by lightning strikes that were among 12,000 registered in the state in the past week. The National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning through this afternoon for the drought-stricken area, meaning extreme fire conditions including high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts up to 65 mph that “may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.”
At a morning briefing on the so-called CZU Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco, fire officials said they had increased containment to 8% and with the better weather on Saturday dug more protective fire lines around vulnerable communities, including the University of California, Santa Cruz.
But there is concern about the weather and the thunderstorms that will bring high winds and “dry” lightning, a term used when such storms have little or no rain. Radar images from late morning showed lightning offshore and approaching the coast.
Chief Mark Brunton, a battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said the winds can blow a fire in any direction and while he’s confident firefighters did the most with the time they had to prepare, he’s not sure what to expect.
“There’s a lot of potential for things to really go crazy out there,” he said.