Winds fan Napa, Santa Barbara area fires
After forecasters predicted a gusty siege so fierce that a red flag warning for fire danger blanketed most of Central and Northern California, the wind delivered on Monday — fueling destructive brush fires, toppling trees and forcing inland road closures after trucks tipped over.
In Napa County, the Newell Fire in American Canyon sparked in the afternoon and quickly grew to 150 acres before crews halted its forward progress and wrestled it to 50% containment Monday night.
In Santa Barbara County, firefighters battled into the night against what had started Monday as a small fire in dense chaparral near Alisal Lake but quickly erupted into a racing blaze that sent thick, billowing smoke clouds over the county and the Los Padres National Forest. It triggered evacuation orders and road closures, fueled by wind gusts of up to 70 mph, the U.S. Forest Service said.
“The winds were just howling,” said Andrew Madsen, a spokesperson for the national forest. “We’ve got firefighters who’ve worked in Los Padres for 20 years or more and have never seen a fire like this. When the wind is blowing downhill as it was, the fire just raced down the hill, almost like a slinky. It just blew up.”
The Alisal Fire was estimated at about 2,000 acres by 8 p.m. Monday. Highway 101 to the west of Santa Barbara between Highway 1 and Winchester Canyon Road was shut down indefinitely in both directions, officials said. El Capitan State Beach, Refugio Canyon, Tajiguas, Arroyo Hondo Preserve and Arroyo Quemada Beach were all under evacuation orders, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff ’s Office.
Wind conditions were so strong that aerial firefighting efforts were called off at about 3:15 p.m. for safety, said Madsen.
Pacific Gas & Electric, seeking to keep its equipment from falling and sparking new fires, shut down power Monday for about 25,000 Californians, including nearly 8,000 Bay Area residents, the utility said.
And amid high winds in the southern desert region between Lancaster and Inyokern, portions of Route 14 and Highway 395 were closed off temporarily after the gusts caused dust storms and “several overturned vehicles,” according to a tweet from Caltrans.
“With the lack of moisture and some soils out there, you can definitely see some dust blowing around,” Brayden Murdock, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said. “Tall vehicles tipping over with some of these gusts isn’t unheard of, especially when seeing some of these mountaintops getting close to 50mile-per-hour gusts.”
Strong gusts knocked down trees and power lines in the El Granada area of coastal San Mateo County on Monday morning, damaging a home and crushing three vehicles, according to Cal Fire.
In the San Jose foothills, a vegetation fire in the area of Sierra Road and Varner Court grew to about 8 acres, threatening homes near Suncrest Avenue before fire crews were able to get the blaze under control, officials said.
Meteorologists said a twisting weather system known as an “inside slider” was behind the high winds, as a lowpressure system swooped in from the north and turned east over Southern California, wreaking havoc in areas already beset by drought and wildfires.
“As it’s moving south, we’re on the west end of it and that wind just piles up,” Murdock said late Monday. “We’re getting a ton of wind.”
A similar windy weather system helped fuel last year’s Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties, which grew to more than 67,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.
In other areas, sections of roads including Route 89 and Route 108 were closed due to snow and ice, according to Caltrans.
For most of the state, the windy conditions were expected to subside into Tuesday morning. High-elevation areas could see high winds through Tuesday or Wednesday, Murdock said.
Southern portions of Monterey County could even see some frost Monday night as temperatures drop, Murdock said.