Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Thousands flee California fires
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — Firefighters battled destructive wildfires Monday in Northern California wine country and on the wealthy west side of Los Angeles, trying to beat back flames that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
Also Monday, California’s biggest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, said power lines may have started two smaller wildfires over the weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area, even though widespread blackouts were in place to prevent downed lines from igniting fires during dangerously windy weather.
The fires described in utility reports to state regulators match two smaller blazes that destroyed a tennis club and forced evacuations in Lafayette, about 20 miles east of San Francisco.
North of San Francisco, the larger Kincade Fire broke out last week amid Sonoma County’s vineyards and wineries.
By Monday, it had expanded to at least 103 square miles, destroying 96 buildings, including at least 40 homes, and threatening 80,000 more structures, authorities said. Nearly 200,000 people were under evacuation orders, mostly from the city of Santa Rosa.
In Southern California, the Getty Fire in Los Angeles started before dawn Monday and roared up slopes into well-to-do neighborhoods, threatening thousands of homes. Tens of thousands of people were ordered to clear out.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the fire had grown to 500 acres and that he had seen five burned homes. Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said he expects the number to climb.
Terrazas warned people to act quickly if they were in the evacuation zone for the Getty Fire. He noted to reporters that the Los Angeles area has experienced several major fires in recent weeks because of strengthened Santa Ana winds and a lack of rain.
“It’s a dangerous season right now,” Terrazas said.
Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James tweeted that he and his family had to evacuate their home in the city’s Brentwood section. There was no immediate word on the home’s fate.
“I pray for all the families in the area that could be affected,” he tweeted. “Pretty please get to safety ASAP.”
The fire was burning in the upper elevations of the Brentwood area.
The evacuation area extended westward through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood down to the Pacific Coast Highway, encompassing some of the most exclusive real estate in California, where celebrities and executives live in mountain and ridgetop retreats that are surrounded by tinder-dry vegetation.
David Boyle, 78, said he awoke at 3 a.m. to his doorbell ringing and police officers pounding on the front door. They warned him the wildfire was advancing toward his Brentwood home.
“They said, ‘You need to evacuate.’ I’m like, ‘When?’ They said, ‘Now,’” Doyle said. He grabbed dog food and his wife’s jewelry and hustled his dogs out the door. They went to a recreation center.
Night-flying helicopters made water drops before daybreak, and airplanes unleashing loads of water and fire retardant joined the battle after the sun rose.
The Los Angeles Fire Department dispatched crews to protect the Getty Center, home to priceless artworks and a new exhibition of Edouard Manet’s paintings.
Capt. Erik Scott, a department spokesman, said the Getty Center, a billion-dollar complex that houses an art museum with works by Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, was not immediately threatened by the blaze.
Peter Sanders, another spokesman for the department, said the center was surrounded by firefighters as air tankers dropped fire retardant on canyons to the west, ahead of the advancing fire, to create a barrier. “There’s no longer an imminent threat to the Getty Center,” he said.
Mount St. Mary’s University evacuated 450 students from its Chalon campus nearby. And the University of California, Los Angeles in the city’s Westwood section canceled classes because of road closings and evacuations affecting people on their way to the school.
Similarly, in Northern California, some 40 school districts in Sonoma County canceled classes.
And the University of California, Berkeley, called off classes because of the power outages there.
More than 900,000 power customers — an estimated 2.5 million people — were in the dark at the height of the latest planned blackout, nearly all of them in Pacific Gas &
Electric’s territory in Northern and central California. By Monday evening, a little less than half of those had their service back.
But some 1.5 million people in 29 counties will be hit with more shut-offs starting today because another round of strong winds is expected, the utility said.
Southern California Edison had cut off power to 25,000 customers and warned that it was considering disconnecting about 350,000 more as Santa Ana winds return midweek.
Fire conditions statewide have made California a “tinderbox,” said Jonathan Cox, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Of the state’s 58 counties, 43 were under warnings for high fire danger Sunday, with flames driven by gusts that reached more than
102 mph.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency over the weekend.
The biggest evacuation was in Sonoma County, where some people who were packing up and fleeing Sunday had done so two years ago, when devastating wildfires swept through Sonoma, Napa and neighboring counties, killing 44 people.
Hundreds of people arrived at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa by Sunday. Some arrived from nursing homes.
More than 300 people slept in 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 her trailer in the town of Windsor, about 60 miles north of San Francisco. She also grabbed a neighbor’s cat.
“I’m just nervous since I grew up in Windsor,” she said. “I’m hoping the wind cooperates.”
A historic attraction outside Healdsburg was lost Sunday when embers carried by wind sparked a blaze that engulfed the Soda Rock Winery. The buildings included a general store and post office founded in 1869.
In central California, a tree toppled amid strong winds Sunday killed a woman and injured a man, officials said.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, gusts knocked over a 30-foot tree at a farmers market in Martinez, injuring nine people, including a toddler.