Thousands flee wind-driven flames

California declares statewide emergency; more than 2 million people without power

Santa Rosa, California — With ferocious winds driving multiple wildfires through bone-dry vegetation and nearly 200,000 people ordered to leave their homes, California’s governor declared a statewide emergency Sunday. Meanwhile, millions of residents remained without power after the state’s largest utility cut electricity as a precaution to prevent more areas from igniting.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that officials were deploying “every resource available” to respond to the wildfires, including a large blaze in Northern California’s wine country powered by gusts that reached more than 102 mph. He said Sunday that the fire had grown to burn over 78 square miles and containment dropped from 10 percent.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, two grass fires briefly halted traffic on an Interstate bridge. The flames came dangerously close to homes in Vallejo. Another grass fire closed a stretch of interstate that cut through the state capital as smoke obstructed drivers.

In the south, a wildfire in the Santa Clarita area near Los Angeles destroyed 18 structures. As of Sunday, the Tick Fire was 65 percent contained.

The biggest evacuation was in Northern California’s Sonoma County where 180,000 people were told to pack up and leave, many in the middle of the night.

To prevent its power lines from sparking in the high winds and setting off more blazes, Pacific Gas & Electric said Sunday that power is out to 965,000 customers and another 100,000 have lost electricity because of strong winds, bringing the number of residents impacted by blackouts to nearly 2.7 million people.

Electricity is expected to begin being restored by today, though the utility warned it might cut power again as soon as Tuesday because of another forecast of strong winds that are expected to last until Wednesday.

The fear that the winds could blow embers and spread fire across a major highway prompted authorities to expand evacuation orders that covered parts of Santa Rosa, a city of 175,000 that was devastated by a wildfire two years ago.

“This is the largest evacuation that any of us ... can remember,” the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office tweeted Sunday. “Take care of each other.”

Hundreds of people arrived at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa by Sunday. Some came from senior care facilities. More than 300 people slept inside 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.”

Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick urged residents in the evacuation zone that stretched from the wine country to Bodega Bay on the coast to get out immediately, citing the 24 lives lost when fire swept through the region in October 2017.

“Although I’ve heard people express concerns that we are evacuating too many people, I think those concerns are not valid at this point,” Essick said at a news conference Sunday, noting that the winds pushed fire toward the towns of Healdsburg and Windsor overnight.