SOME PEOPLE DEFY EVACUATION ORDERS
As strong winds spread smoke into an ominous haze and threatened to push flames to new ground Wednesday, the people of fire-ravaged Sonoma Valley waited.
Some stood at roadblocks sealing off their still-smoking neighborhoods, waiting to see what was left. Others sat inside homes they had drenched with water, waiting to meet the flames head-on, while many more languished at evacuation centers, hoping for good news.
Exhausted and shaken, all were waiting for an end to the living nightmare that has been their reality since late Sunday, when the first sparks of fire caught and blazed a trail of destruction through the fertile soil of this pocket of Wine Country.
The Tubbs Fire alone had devoured more than 27,000 acres by Wednesday evening, burning up entire neighborhoods and claiming at least 13 lives.
Northern Santa Rosa sustained the most significant damage, with flames jumping Highway 101 and eviscerating swaths of houses. The majority of confirmed fatalities were in this area, but as winds blew the blaze south, neighborhoods along the east side of the city were also forced to evacuate.
“It’s going to continue to get worse before it gets better,” said Ken Pimlott, the chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.
And with the Pocket Fire to the north and the Adobe Fire to the south, growing and contributing to the Tubbs Fire’s destruction, each day more join the thousands affected.
By mid-evening, the situation had further deteriorated. The Sonoma County Sheriff ordered evacuations only a few blocks to the east of the historic main square of downtown Sonoma.
The evacuations covered the area along Castle Road, 7th Street east and Lovall Valley Road. Residents were ordered to leave immediately.
The Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Department had reports of 285 missing persons, said Sheriff Rob Giordano, and with the focus mostly on “life saving and evacuations,” it may be some time before officials have a full scope of the situation.
Ash began raining on Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa Tuesday night. The sky was covered in a pall of smoke when Pat Lautrup, 74, escaped from her home with her husband and golden retriever. She grabbed photos, records and invaluable items from her children that could not be replaced. The rest — well, she said, she isn’t sure what happened to the rest.
On Wednesday morning, she stood at the entrance to her street, hoping for a chance to visit her home. Police had cordoned the street off. No one was going in or out.
“The only thing you can think of is, ‘Thank God we’re with all of our friends, hugging together,’ ” Lautrup said. “It is hard consoling your friends when you are worrying about your own home.”
Just 2 miles away, gusts of wind blew charred bay leaves into the front yard of Tracy Guanella’s childhood home, where she remained despite orders to evacuate.
She has lived on the 3-acre plot for 49 years — as long as she’s been alive. As a girl, she would ride her buggy to the goat farm down the dirt road. The vegetable garden her parents planted is still out back, surrounded by thick clusters of grapevines.
Guanella said she will die here if she has to.
“I said it, and I meant it,” she said. “I’m the only one crazy enough to stay.”
Neighbors who had heeded the evacuation warning begged her
for details on the scene, and Wednesday morning, she stood on the road to call in reports. The MacDonalds’ big white farmhouse down the road: unscathed. The wood house at the mountain’s base: still standing. As she spoke, fire trucks rushed past, sirens blaring, and helicopters dumped water on the line of flames licking down the hillside.
If the fire gets too close, Guanella said, she plans to hop into the pool in the backyard and wait it out.
“We are going to save our house no matter what,” Guanella said. “We have a hose and a sprinkler on the roof and three to four more on the yard. We’ve soaked everything.”
Thirty miles north in the gritty, grapevine-growing community of Geyserville, some residents shared Guanella’s determination.
A water truck with a fire hose was parked in 34-year-old Ben Vyborny’s driveway as a sprinkler doused the roof of his house. Indoors, his girlfriend fried bacon, the fat sizzling and popping in the pan.
“We are just going to wait and see what happens,” he said.
Vyborny was one of several Geyserville residents who were ready to stay and fight. But by Wednesday evening, the winds had shifted and flames moved enough that Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano made the evacuation order mandatory for portions of the community.
At a morning briefing, Giordano had begged residents to heed evacuation warnings. His deputies, and hundreds more from other agencies, had worked through the night to evacuate new areas, and were experiencing too many close calls.
One deputy, he said, was at the Mark West Lodge with 35 residents — including a 4month-old baby — when the fire essentially surrounded them.
Trapped, all they could do was stand in the parking lot, watch the flames burn around them and wait.
“My advice to those advised to go is ‘Go!’ ” Giordano said. “This is still a very serious event.”
At the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, hundreds of people who had taken his advice sifted through donated clothing, stared at their phones, nibbled on sandwiches and in some cases, simply stared into space.
It was Day 3 for many, with two nights sleeping on cots in a cavernous exhibition hall among hundreds of strangers. Volunteers at the fairgrounds counted 700 seeking refuge there on Tuesday night.
Lucienne Wilde had grabbed her dog, Tink, and her cat, Jack, when she fled her home near Spring Lake after neighbors pounded on her door in the early morning hours Monday.
She had been at the shelter ever since, sleeping in Finley Hall, which allowed pets.
People were friendly and kind, coming together in the face of a disaster, “commiserating,” Wilde said. She said the worst part was the waiting and not knowing if the homes they’d left were still standing.
“I’m in here until I find out,” she said.
Giordano cautioned those forced from their neighborhoods that even if their homes had survived, they probably would not be able to return to them until at least Monday. Jim Bray, assistant manager of the fairgrounds emergency shelter, said he anticipated that the American Red Cross would be there for the long haul.
“It’s a larger disaster for us,” he said. “And we still have more people coming.” Lizzie Johnson, Jill Tucker and Vivian Ho are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com, jtucker@sfchronicle.com, vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @lizziejohnsonnn, @jilltucker, @VivianHo