Vallejo Fire Department returns home
The Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties is about 95 percent contained as of Monday.
After over a week of tiring work, five Vallejo Fire Department firefighters returned home after working the Glass Fire, which is 95 percent contained as of Monday at 1 p.m.
The Glass Fire has been active for two weeks and has destroyed 1,555 structures while damaging another 282. It has burned 67,484 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties. It’s been an extremely busy wildfire season as five of the top six fires concerning acres burned have taken place since August of this year.
“We’re proud to have helped contained yet another large California wildfire, especially one that displaced our neighbors,” Vallejo firefighter and spokesperson Kevin Brown said. “We hope that cooler weather continues to help put this fire season to rest. However, recent history dictates that more large fires can be expected, especially in Southern California.”
Brown went on to say the weather also played a big part in extinguishing the blaze.
“There was no measurable ‘wetting’ rain, however the cooler temperatures and higher humidities definitely slowed fire progression at the Glass Fire has well as all other fires across Northern California,” Brown said. “We’ve seen significant increases in containment levels across the state, including the Glass Fire, Zogg Fire, and August Complex Fire.”
The VFD unit was sent home from the Glass Fire on Thursday and the department currently has no firefighters working outside of Vallejo.
On Sunday the VFD was back at work putting out a structure fire in Vallejo at Lewis Brown Drive.
The blaze was dispatched at 9:34 pm Sunday night.
“After Hours Bar has a snack shack type structure outside of the main bar. There was a fire that started in the trash can located in this snack shack,” Brown said. “The fire was quickly contained with no damage to the main structure and minimal damage to the exterior snack shack structure.”
The air quality index number in Vallejo was 40 (good), while it read 58 (moderate) in Napa.
However, winds will be on the rise along with Bay Area temperatures this week, once again creating the threat of wildfires and the possibility of rolling power blackouts around the region.
A Spare the Air alert that reached 15 straight days on Sunday and expected to last through Tuesday instead ended Monday morning and was replaced by an advisory, Bay Area Air Quality Management District spokeswoman Kristin Roselius said. The district has issued 49 Spare the Air alerts this year, a record for a calendar year.
Even as that happened, PG&E warned customers of a possible Public Safety Power Shutoff on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. All Bay Area counties except San Francisco County are included in an elevated watch currently underway by the utility.
The high winds that brought the PSPS possibility also brought a fire weather watch from the National Weather Service for the East Bay hills, Santa Cruz mountains and North Bay mountains.
Bay Area News writer Rick Hurd contributed to this article.