California wildfires: ‘Cooperating’ weather, reinforcements give a boost
VACAVILLE, Calif. – Firefighters hard-pressed by some of the largest wildfires in state history scrambled Wednesday to take advantage of cooler weather and an influx of aid as they carved and burned containment lines around the flames.
“Every percent of containment is hours and hours of sweat and blood up on those lines,” Jonathan Cox, deputy chief with the state’s fire agency, Cal Fire, said Tuesday evening.
Progress was made on three major blazes around the San Francisco Bay Area and the wine country north of San Francisco. One was 27% surrounded.
The fires, which started as clusters of lightning-sparked blazes last week, slowed down at lower altitudes as a morning marine layer brought cooler temperatures and higher humidity. .
The marine layer was expected to spread into the Bay Area and the Santa Clara Valley overnight, and the weather pattern was expected to continue through Friday, Cal Fire said.
Another fire in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, south of San Francisco, was 19% contained after burning 319 homes.
“Another very positive day,” said Mark Brunton, Cal Fire operations chief. “We got a lot of work done. The weather is cooperating with us. We’re getting more personnel. As soon as they get in, we put them on the line.”
The massive fires – much earlier in the season than usual – have pushed firefighters to the breaking point as they deal with complications from the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of inmate crews.
Some firefighters were shuttled north after battling fires in the south.
Tim Edwards, president of the union representing state firefighters, said 96% of Cal Fire’s resources are committed to fighting the blazes. He was with a threeman fire engine crew that had traveled more than 400 miles from Riverside County to help fight the wildfires.
“Between the fires in Southern California and these, they’ve been going nonstop,” he said. “Fatigue is really starting to set in, but they’re doing it.”
Since Aug. 15, hundreds of fires have burned nearly 2,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of Delaware.
The blazes have killed at least seven people, burned about 1,300 homes and other buildings and prompted evacuation orders that affect about 140,000 people.
David Serna, 49, a firefighter with the Presidio of Monterey Fire Department, was battling a fire when his rented home in Santa Cruz County burned to the ground.
“I wanted to get up to the house and see what was left. Got up there and nothing. It was all gone,” Serna told KTVU-TV.
He and his wife found a metal heart-shaped decoration from their wedding day.
“All the years that I fought fires and seeing this type of destruction in other places,” Serna said. “But when it hits that close to home, it becomes almost unbelievable.”
In Vacaville, between San Francisco and Sacramento, Art Thomas, 76, said he found only ashes and melted metal at the site of the home he built with his own hands in a rural area where he had lived for 32 years.
“Possessions dating back to when I was a kid were all in the house. Everything is gone,” Thomas said. “Between sad, crying, laughing – every emotion is there.”
There are limited crews to tackle fires on the ground, so California relies more on bulldozers, aircraft and firefighters from other states and the federal government, said Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire chief of wildfire planning and engineering.