Fire risk lessens; ‘ not out of woods’
Winds slow, wave of new blazes quickly contained
Fears of calamitous fires in Northern California sparked by unceasing winds were averted Monday, but desertlike low humidity means that the Bay Area will remain under a red flag warning at least through Tuesday afternoon.
The arid conditions follow a night and morning of unusually gusty winds that triggered nearly two dozen small fires from the Bay Area to the Oregon border. But the blazes that broke out were rapidly contained by teams of firefighters who — despite the state’s worst fire season in history — were relatively wellrested and able to focus on threats in advance.
“We’re very fortunate that this weather event has occurred after the peak of the past two months,” said Daniel Berlant, a spokesperson for Cal Fire. “After Labor Day we were at maximum capacity, but firefighters have had a bit of a
break.”
The Silverado Fire in Orange County was the biggest new fire Monday in California. It had consumed more than 7,200 acres by afternoon and critically injured two firefighters. More than 70,000 residents east of Irvine were ordered to evacuate as the flames spread.
The ongoing fire danger was signaled closer to home in Solano County, where the Petersen Fire broke out Monday afternoon and consumed 350 acres of grassland near the delta before being contained.
As the high winds ebbed, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Monday afternoon began restoring service to customers whose power was cut to prevent winddamaged power lines from starting a blaze, as has repeatedly happened with disastrous consequences in recent years.
Full service should be restored by Tuesday evening, PG& E said Monday afternoon. At the peak of the planned shutoffs, more than 355,000 customers from the northern Sierra Nevada foothills to the Santa Cruz Mountains were affected. More than 91,000 shutoffs occurred in the Bay Area, with every county affected but San Francisco.
Singledigit humidity Monday led the National Weather Service to extend a red flag warning for upper elevations in the East Bay and North Bay through 5 p. m. Tuesday. Coastal areas, the Santa Cruz Mountains and valley areas were under another red flag warning through 11 a. m. Tuesday.
High winds also were expected overnight from Monday into Tuesday — though not to the extremes recorded late Sunday evening, when 89 mph gusts whipped Mount St. Helena in the North Bay and 72 mph winds hit atop Contra Costa County’s Mount Diablo.
“The low humidity, that’s the most worrisome thing right now,” said Rick Canepa, a meteorologist at the weather service. “It’s literally desert air being brought down to coastal California.”
Despite the combustive combination of high winds and low humidity, Northern California as of Monday afternoon had been spared any conflagrations as big as those in the past two months and the prior three years.
In Shasta County, for instance, six fires broke out on Sunday and early Monday. The first and largest was the Point Fire, which was 90% contained Monday afternoon after burning just 275 acres.
J. P. Zulliger, a battalion chief for Cal Fire’s ShastaTrinity
Unit, tied the success to a prompt and thorough response.
“When it’s the only game in town, we can move in a lot of resources,” Zulliger said.
The unit was at full strength when weather forecasts signaled the potential for major danger. That meant there was the ability to have all fire engines and crews ready to go — with some already deployed in vulnerable areas for faster responses.
That level of staffing and advance planning wouldn’t have been possible a month or six weeks ago, Zulliger said.
“There was a period of time when the 19 ( fire) engines we have weren’t all here” because they had been sent to other fires in the state, he explained.
Firefighters also responded aggressively to fire outbreaks in the Bay Area, including along Interstate 580 in Castro Valley, north of Healdsburg, south of Sebastopol and within the footprint of the recently contained Glass Fire in the hills above Napa Valley.
No fires were reported in the Oakland hills, where PG& E cut off power in advance to prevent downed lines from sparking a fire and Berkeley residents in upper elevations were told by the city that they should leave during the red flag fire warning.
Monday afternoon, some affected by shutoffs were at an impromptu resource center on the UC Berkeley campus set up by PG& E with tents and ample power for people who might otherwise be in the dark at home.
One was Sierra Boyd, 57, who works at a seismological lab and was working on her cell phone and computer Monday afternoon, one of eight people allowed in the resource center at a time. Boyd waded through messages not only about the power outages and fire weather, but also about a 3.6 magnitude earthquake that hit Monday morning near
Angwin in Napa County.
“This is the new normal,” Boyd said. “We’re getting used to responding to emergencies. We’ve got to practice.”
Mohammad Hamed, 44, sat working at his computer while his 7yearold daughter circled in the parking lot. He was attempting to work but finding it hard to concentrate. He’s a librarian at Berkeley — but with cars whizzing by, the outdoor tented resource center was a far cry from the solitude of a library. His power went off at 10 p. m. Sunday. The Orinda resident said, “It’s getting more difficult and it was already difficult with the smoke, the power outages, the kids.”