Whipping winds but no major fires — for now
Potential disaster averted in Bay Area, though SoCal not so fortunate
Winds gusted at the highest speeds measured this fire season, air moisture levels clung dangerously low, and the grasses and timber that typically fuel California’s apocalyptic blazes were bone dry.
Yet Northern California escaped relatively unscathed this weekend from what meteorologists and fire officials described as a perfect storm for potential disaster.
By Monday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews began restoring power to customers, the notorious Diablo winds were subsiding, and any small fires that broke out the day before had almost entirely been knocked down by fire crews.
“In terms of winds, these were the most pronounced winds we’ve seen this fire season, so to be where we’re at right now and to see how we’ve handled it is really remarkable,” Gerry Diaz, a meteorologist at Bay Area National Weather Service, said Monday.
The same could not be said for Southern California, however, where the region’s Santa Ana winds fanned a small grass fire outside of Irvine to spread to 7,200 acres within a matter of hours on Monday. The blaze, known as the Silverado Fire, quickly
exploded over a hilly area of Orange County, prompting a mandatory evacuation order for about 90,000 residents.
The Orange County Fire Authority announced Monday afternoon that two firefighters battling the blaze were critically injured with second- and third- degree burns, each covering half or more of their bodies.
While meteorologists don’t expect any more extreme wind events after Tuesday, they also don’t see much-needed precipitation for the thirsty Golden State.
“It looks like we’re going to have pretty dry conditions through the rest of the month and into early November, so we still don’t want to put our guard down,” Diaz said.
California is in the midst of a historically devastating wildfire season, in which four of its five biggest fires ever have erupted since midsummer. The fires have killed 31 people, destroyed at least 9,200 structures and burned more than 4.1 million acres — a state record for most acres burned in a season. The gusty winds experienced across the state Sunday and Monday amplify the possibility of a small spark quickly becoming a disastrous wildfire.
Overnight winds in the Bay Area and Northern California peaked at 89 mph atop Mt. Saint Helena, 72 mph on Mount Diablo and even 58 mph at sea-level Oakland International Airport, according to the National Weather Service. In the hills above Oakland and Berkeley, the howling winds downed trees, tore off branches and damaged some restaurants’ outdoor dining tents, but the worst fears of flames never materialized. By late Monday afternoon, the winds in lower parts of the Bay Area had subsided, and a red f lag warning for the region’s more populated portions expired at 5 p.m.
Katrina Cameron, 29, who lives in the Montclair neighborhood of the Oakland hills, said the wind was “so loud that it sounded like it was almost raining outside.”
“I woke up in the middle of the night because I could hear the trees and my plants getting hit really hard by the wind,” she said. Cameron was among about 355,000 PG& E customers across the state who lost power Sunday night when the utility company issued a planned safety power shutoff to prevent wind- damaged power lines from sparking new blazes.
As of 6 p. m. Monday, PG& E had restored power to about 95,000 customers and expected to have everyone back on by the end of the night.
But by early afternoon, Cameron was still patiently waiting for her power to come back on. “It’s an extra layer of added anxiety when we’re already in the midst of a period of peak anxiety,” she said.
A red flag warning for elevated areas in the North Bay mountains and East Bay hills will remain in effect until 5 p.m. Tuesday. In preparation for potential blazes, Cal Fire has increased staffing and prepositioned additional resources in critical fire areas through Tuesday evening.
More than a dozen small blazes broke out across Northern California on Sunday night but were quickly quashed by fire crews, including multiple fires in Shasta County that burned more than 400 acres.
On Monday, some people were suggesting this year’s long and historic fire season actually may have been one reason the Bay Area managed to avert destruction from the overnight wind event.
“Not only were people very aware of the situation that was going to unfold, but people seem to be a lot more cautious right now after the events earlier this year,” Diaz said.
Sue Piper, who lost her home in the 1991 East Bay hills firestorm that killed 25 people and destroyed 3,500 houses, said she’s had to-go bags packed for months. And although she didn’t evacuate her Oakland home Sunday ahead of the strong winds, she was monitoring the weather closely and had stashed away f lags, decorations and other outdoor knickknacks she could think of that might ignite from flying embers.
As president of the Oakland Firesafe Council, a group of fire survivors who advocate for fire safety, Piper said she commended officials in Berkeley, Contra Costa County and Alameda County for taking a proactive approach in urging residents in high-risk areas to evacuate before the overnight windstorm.
“Yes it made people nervous, but it also forced them to think about what they needed to do,” she said. “Because every time something like this happens, you get better and more prepared.”
Compared to the 1991 hills fire, Piper said officials are getting much better at issuing early warnings to residents, which is critical given the frequency, intensity and rapid growth of the more recent fires.
“It’s not a matter of if anymore, it’s a matter of when because the fires are here and they’re not going away, so the only thing we can learn to do is to live with it,” she said. “And part of living with it is being prepared.”