Wildfire forces more evacuations
SANFRANCISCO— Afastmoving fire in Napa County on Sunday forced evacuations north of the town of St. Helena as large swaths of Northern California faced dangerous fire weather.
The Glass fire has burned 1,200 acres about 4 miles northwest of downtown St. Helena, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and was burning “with a dangerous rate of spread.”
Crews were dispatched to the vegetation fire early Sunday, and it quickly grew to 20 acres, said Tyree Zander, public information officer with Cal Fire’s Napa Lake Sonoma Unit.
“And then it went from 20 acres to about 50 acres within an hour, hour and a half,” he said. “And then from 50 acres to 800 acres within a four-hour period.”
Crews reported no containment as of Sunday afternoon as the fire continued to grow rapidly, burning about 400 more acres.
The fire was burning to the north and northeast through dry brush, running uphill as it was pushed by winds, Zander said.
“It’s rugged, steep terrain and limited access, and a lot of it is one-way-in, oneway-out type of roads,” Zander said, posing difficulties to both getting fire crews into the area and getting evacuees out.
The Napa County Sheriff ’s Office ordered mandatory evacuations for several areas including along a stretch of the storied Silverado Trail, known for its wineries.
The orders covered about 600 homes and an estimated 1,500 residents, said Janet Upton, public information officer for Napa County’s emergency operations center.
Emergency officials were being particularly cautious when deciding what areas to evacuate because of the hot, dry and windyweather forecast for later Sunday, which raised fears of even more rapid fire growth and unpredictable behavior.
Much of Northern California is under a red-flag warning, which means the National Weather Service is highly confident that dangerous fire weather conditions will occur.
Five of the six largest wildfires in California’s modern record were fires ignited this year, and they’re still burning, according to Cal Fire.
The largest fire, the August Complex fire burning north of the BayArea in and around Tehama County, has burned more than 870,000acres and is 43 percent contained. One firefighter battling the August Complex fire has died.