VHllejo Fire helping bHttle GlHss Fire
Blaze has burned over 42,000 acres
The year 2020 has been abnormal for many due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but to citizens around Napa County, one must have a sense of déjà vu.
By 2 p.m. on Tuesday, the Glass Fire in Napa had reached 42,560 acres burned in a blaze that began as a vegetation fire on Sunday. At least 80 structures have since been destroyed, while another 18 have been damaged. The blaze forced the county to have evacuation orders including south of Chiles Pope Valley Road, east of Ink Grade Road and west of Pope Valley Cross Road. The entire city of Calistoga has been evacuated.
But unfortunately for Napa and Sonoma County residents, this is something they are becoming all to familiar with.
More than 9,000 structures were lost and dozens of people were killed in 2017, when the Tubbs and Nuns fires swept through Santa Rosa and surrounding communities. Last year, the Kincade Fire, the largest ever in Sonoma County, put nearly 100,000 people under evacuation orders. The Tubbs Fire is currently the fourth deadliest fire in state history, having killed 22 people.
Once again, the Vallejo Fire Department is trying to help put out the flames, as it sent out five firefighters on Monday.
“Many of the local firefighters that are deployed to the Glass Fire are the same firefighters that battled the large Napa and Sonoma fires in 2017,” Vallejo firefighter and spokesperson Kevin Brown told the Times-Herald on Tuesday. “In many ways, it’s eerie to drive the same roads and see many of the same areas devastated by fire once again. On the positive side, we’re all very familiar with the local roadways and infrastructure. However, it
weighs on us to see the same communities evacuated as before.”
At least 70,000 Sonoma and Napa County residents have evacuated since the fire began. There are a total of 26 crews and 1,474 personnel working the blaze. It’s still 0 percent contained as of Tuesday at 2 p.m. but VFD is remaining optimistic.
“The main struggle with the Glass Fire came from the heat wave that settled in to our region,” Brown said. “It brought extreme temperatures, low relative humidity and gusty winds. That creates the perfect scenario for rapid fire growth. Fortunately, just as in recent years, the California master mutual aid system rapidly deployed over 1,000 firefighters to Napa and Sonoma counties. With these
fire crews now on the fireline, we expect to see real containment progress over the coming week.”
Fire officials like Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nichols were hopeful about a turn in weather conditions late Monday into Tuesday that could help them get the inferno under control. Much of Northern California has been under a red-flag warning because of the hot, dry air and windy conditions that fueled the blaze’s initial spread, but Monday night brought more moisture and lower temperatures.
It was those “critical burning conditions,” Nicholls said, that allowed the f lames to race unabated into the eastern suburbs of Santa Rosa Sunday night and, on the northern edge, prompted an evacuation order Monday evening for the entire town of Calistoga.
The air quality index number in Vallejo remained healthy at 55 as of 2:30 p.m on Tuesday. In Napa the number was moderate at 92, while in American Canyon it was a 42.
For more Sonoma County current evacuation center information visit https:// socoemergency.org/emergency/wildfire/evacuationcenters/Petaluma.
For Napa County evacuation information visit local.nixle.com/napa-countyoes/ while one can visit local.nixle.com/city- of- calistoga/ for evacuation information on the city of Calistoga.