Napa ‘cowboys’ rescue wineries
Crews swamped, so community members help create firebreak
Matt Weinert is used to driving a bulldozer through rugged terrain. As the owner of High Demand Earth Work in Napa Valley, he specializes in clearing land so that vineyards can be planted. But now, Weinert can add another special skill to his bulldozing resume: stopping wildfires.
When the Hennessey Fire ignited in Napa’s eastern hillsides on Aug. 17, Weinert and his crew were at Ovid Vineyards, in the middle of a job clearing 25 acres of rock for a new vineyard. Suddenly, they could spot smoke rising from the other end of Pritchard Hill, behind Chappellet Winery.
The Ovid team reached out to Cal Fire, but “with so many fires up and down the state, we knew they’d be stretched pretty thin,” said General Manager Jack Bittner. It soon became clear that if they wanted to keep the Hennessey Fire from advancing, they would have to fight it themselves.
“We didn’t have any expectation that the cavalry was coming,” Bittner said.
What Weinert and a neighboring vineyarddevelopment crew accomplished over the next few days was extraordinary: Using their bulldozers, they cleared chaparral, brush and other vegetation to create a
nearly 4mile firebreak across Pritchard Hill. They saved some of Napa’s most prestigious wineries like Chappellet, Ovid, Colgin, Bryant and Continuum — and kept the fire from moving further into Napa Valley.
They weren’t the only ones to effect a rogue, community-firefighting operation in Napa County last week. In a testament to how thinly spread resources are right now, many residents and vineyard owners in the county relied on their own knowledge and equipment to remove brush in hopes of stopping fire. In Pope Valley , closer to Lake Berryessa, a group of residents — including winery and vineyard owners — hopped in their bulldozers and built a 5milelong fire line, which ultimately saved many homes. On Howell Mountain, vintner Randy Dunn recruited some volunteer heavy equipment operators to clear more than 2.5 miles of firebreak through the densely forested Wildlake Preserve.
It’s “cowboy activities,” as Dunn called them, and controversial. Though these rogue efforts largely succeeded, Cal Fire does not condone residents defying evacuation orders, and there are airpollution regulations surrounding certain types of heavy machinery. Removing trees, too, can raise environmental concerns.
Still, since Aug. 17, more than 1.35 million acres of California land have burned — an area larger than the state of Delaware — and “there’s no way that Cal Fire can be everywhere,” said Diana Eackle Hawkins, owner of Pope Valley Winery.
“People forget about all the people who live in rural Napa,” Hawkins said. “It’s harder to get resources out here. But there are a lot of us who live out here. And we’re gonna do everything we can to protect each other.”
For Hawkins and her community, the battle began on Aug. 18, when it became clear that the previous day’s lightning storm had sparked fires near Lake Berryessa, part of the LNU Lightning Complex. Hawkins’ brother, David Eackle, runs the family’s heavy equipment business, and soon, he and several other operators were in tractors clearing brush to establish a barrier for the fires.
“It was steep, steep terrain,” said Hawkins. By the next day, she, her brother and several
“People forget about all the people who live in rural Napa. It’s harder to get resources out here.”
Diana Eackle Hawkins, owner of Pope Valley Winery
other residents had drawn out a plan for a longer firebreak. She ran logistics on the ground, helping to coordinate meals. Some people drove the bulldozers, while others came through the line with chain saws, cutting vegetation.
By Aug. 21, they’d gotten Cal Fire’s attention, and the state agency sent in firefighters to set a controlled burn from the fire line they’d created, with hopes that it would burn enough of the land in the wildfire’s path to cut it off. Joel Steffen, a Pope Valley resident who had stayed behind to help, called it “the 5mile hail Mary.”
It worked. The fire destroyed several Pope Valley homes behind the fire line, but “it could have been so much worse,” Hawkins said.
Over on Pritchard Hill, Chappellet Winery, one of Napa Valley’s most famous estates, was the first line of defense.
Dominic Chappellet watched from the top of his family’s property as the Hennessey Fire began approaching from a nearby canyon on Aug. 17.
“We could see it crawling towards us,” he said. Then the flames arrived at the adjacent ranch, owned by Dominic Chappellet’s cousin. It’s open pasture and forest.
“We’ve known that property our whole lives,” he said. “And because we had access to it (through my cousin), we felt it was our job to keep the fire in the wild land and off our property and our neighbors’ properties.”
Soon, Weinert and the Ovid vineyard crew were on the way. Colgin Cellars was developing new vineyards, too, and sent over its crew. In all, six bulldozers — including a 108,000pound Caterpillar D9 — set to work moving chemise, coyote brush, greasewood and manzanita out of the way, establishing a safe zone at the edge of Chappellet.
“That whole place is fuel,” Weinert said, adding that he now has bruises all over his side from bouncing around in the D9. Danger was approaching: “It was like running with the fire right behind you.”
Clearing that line is a job that, under normal working conditions, would take Weinert’s crew about two weeks, he estimated. They did it in two days. By Thursday afternoon, Cal Fire crews arrived and, as in Pope Valley, started a controlled burn from their line.
If not for their efforts, Weinert said, “some of the most special places in Napa” might have burned.
A similar saga played out on Howell Mountain, west of Pope Valley. Dunn, owner of Dunn Vineyards, noticed a plume of smoke in the Wildlake Preserve, a 3,000acre property that’s part of Napa County’s Land Trust. His daughter posted on Facebook: Anybody got a dozer? They ended up with two volunteers, who took out miles of vegetation. Cal Fire did show up at various points to check on them, Dunn said, but the hard work had been done by community members.
The blaze came right up to the fire line they’d cleared, but no farther.
“It looks like a bomb field now,” Dunn said.
This year’s fires were a wakeup call, said Chappellet. Although wildfire has come to Napa’s eastern hillsides before, including during the 2017 Atlas Fire, this is the closest it’s gotten to Chappellet’s property since the early 1980s. After 2017, his family became more vigilant about creating defensible space, and they plan to become even more aggressive now.
“Building fire lines in California is going to become more important,” said Cyril Chappellet, Dominic’s brother. Swimming pools might be helpful; keeping animals who graze on flammable brush might be a good idea, too. “If we want to continue to protect ourselves and our neighbors, people have to realize that the tops of these hills may have the scar of firebreak on them.”
This sort of civilian firefighting, however, is not condoned by Cal Fire.
“We would never recommend that somebody stay behind to protect their home,” said public information officer Brice Bennett. When an evacuation order is issued, he said that residents should take it seriously and leave.
Creating defensible space at one’s home is important, Bennett said, but August is not the time to do it.
“We call that doing the right thing the wrong way,” he said. “Sometimes when you’re clearing defensible space, you can create a spark or a mechanical heat or spark a fire yourself.” He recommended that property owners consult readyforwildfire.org and their local FireSafe Council for help creating firebreaks during other parts of the year.
But these people who live and work in Pope Valley, Howell Mountain and Pritchard Hill say they had no other choice but to do what they could to keep the fires at bay.
“I don’t know where this fire would have gone,” said Cyril Chappellet. “Without these crews on hand, there’s a very good likelihood that a lot of people would have lost a lot more.”