Return home? No clear answer
Safety, infrastructure remain an issue for wildfire evacuees in fire zones
Favorable weather helped firefighters battling three epic Northern California wildfires, but tens of thousands of people still under evacuation orders Tuesday from the North Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountains were left wondering: When can we go home?
California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday 136,000 residents have been evacuated statewide, many of whom were forced to flee in the days after a freak lightning storm Aug. 16 sparked hundreds of fires across Northern California.
Some North Bay evacuees were allowed to return home Tuesday, but although the weather looks good over the next few days for the effort to corral the blazes, firefighters had no clear answer for nearly 80,000 residents forced last week to leave their homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
“Please be patient with us, we’re doing the best we can with the resources we have,” said Ian Larkin, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Pro
tection’s CZU unit in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.
The CZU Lightning Complex is the smallest of the three fires but had also been the least contained. It had burned 79,640 acres and was 19% contained Tuesday evening, up from 17% Monday morning.
“We’re in this for the long haul,” Larkin said. “We have never seen fire like this in the recent history we have any records for.”
Evacuees have been staying with family, friends, in hotels and shelters, a trying experience in normal times made even more difficult during the coronavirus pandemic. Rita Mancera, executive director of Puente, a nonprofit helping evacuated San Mateo County families, had to leave with
her own family from the coastal town of Pescadero last week, and while their home is still standing, it’s unclear when they can return.
“We continue asking that same question,” said Mancera, whose husband and 13-year-old son have gone to property the family owns outside the Bay Area while she’s remained in San Mateo County to help evacuees. “But we’ve been told, ‘Not yet.’ So we’re just waiting.”
Since they broke out a week ago, the three fires have combined to burn nearly 800,000 acres — an area more than twice the size of Los Angeles, or more than 25 San Franciscos — destroy more than 1,000 structures and force tens of thousands to flee. Fire crews have recovered six bodies, with more people reported missing.
Some residents of Vacaville and Fairfield evacuated
last week from the 356,326acre LNU Lightning Complex were being allowed to return Tuesday. The LNU Lightning Complex has been the deadliest and most destructive of all the fires. It had burned 356,326 acres and was 27% contained Tuesday evening. Five people have died in Napa and Solano counties, and 1,234 structures have been damaged or destroyed.
Brandon Camber, who lives with his wife and three kids in the English Hills neighborhood of Vacaville, where they fled in the middle of the night a week earlier, was thankful his house was still standing -- a miracle in a neighborhood decimated by the fire.
“We still have our lives and a home to go back to,” Camber said. Still, he’s unsure how long it will be before he can return to live in his house, with his neighborhood in ashes. Looters made off with his tools,
computer and a generator.
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the CZU Lightning Complex killed a resident in the mountains east of Año Nuevo State Park, destroyed 330 homes and other buildings and remains a threat to 25,000 houses, 77,000 people remain under evacuation orders in Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond, Felton and Scotts Valley.
“It’s still actively burning,” said Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Potter. The sheriff’s office in consultation with Cal Fire and utility providers will make the call on when residents can go home.
One threat, from firedamaged trees, was illustrated Monday when a limb crashed down onto the vehicle of a patrolling deputy sheriff, smashing the windshield, Potter said. Residents returning to areas still closed can hinder the battle against the fire, officials
said.
San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District canceled classes for kids from Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton until Sept. 8, after Labor Day.
It’s not just the fires that could impede a return home for evacuated residents in fire-ravaged areas. The San Lorenzo Valley Water District reported Sunday that a water main was destroyed by the fire and that an emergency contractor was awaiting clearance to begin repairs later in the week.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said it has not been able to gain access to the properties of 10,655 Northern California customers to restore service.
There were 3,580 customers impacted by outages related to fires in Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties, and 6,085 customers without power from the fires in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Evacuee Clara Elliott, of Felton, who’s staying with her husband and two children at a Cupertino hotel while a friend in Watsonville cares for their dog, said she’s just grateful their home survived.
“While I’d definitely love to be home, I understand it’s not safe,” she said. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to give them the space and time they need until it’s OK for us to return.”
The SCU Lightning Complex has burned the most acres, but the majority have been in rural Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. It had burned 365,772 acres with 20% containment Tuesday evening. It had destroyed 37 structures and injured three first responders and two civilians but has not resulted in any fatalities.