LAKEPORT >> If the Lake County Fair had a theme song, this year’s could have been “Hot! Hot! Hot!” or “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
Temperatures were well over 100 degrees during the fair’s four-day run and heavy smoke from wildfires in far northern California and southern Oregon caused health advisories to be issued for Lake County by the state’s environmental agency.
The official highs in Lakeport hit 104 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, according to Weather Underground. Unofficially, fair-goers and workers say it felt hotter, more like a “Heat Wave.”
At about 5 p.m. Saturday, fair attendee Angela Ogo of Kelseyville had just come from the Hawaiian shaved ice booth.
“I’ve been at the fair an hour and a half and it was 110 degrees when I got here,” she said. “It’s a battle to stay cool.”
Ogo added that her two favorite ways to beat the heat were to spend time at one of several misting stations at the fair along with, “Drinking lots of water.”
Fires to the north also blanketed the county with a smoky haze that seemed very familiar to one fair worker on Saturday: “It reminds me of when I go to L.A.,” said Ruth Darling of Lakeport, a volunteer at the Lakeport Rotary Club’s beer booth.
Cooling off took many forms at the fair and one of the most popular was cold beverages, from sodas and slushies to wine and water.
Beer was one of the most popular ways for adults to cool off and the Rotary booth sold plenty of that beverage at this year’s annual fair.
Ironically, the booth had its slowest beer sales during the hottest afternoon temperatures, according to Darling.
“It’s much slower during the day because people aren’t out in the heat,” she said Saturday. “But at night, sales are rocking.”
During the heat of the day, while beer sales are down, the booth has a bright spot. “We still sell a lot of $1 bottles of cold water,” Darling said.
If a cup of suds wasn’t your thing, the fair offered an alternative for adults: the Lake County Fair Foundation’s wine booth, featuring the pouring of only local wines. Most popular were the $9 crushed slushies with either white or red wine but even their sales suffered during the high heat.
“Business has been slow but I expect it to pick up when it gets dark,” booth volunteer Steve Reese of Santa Rosa said late Saturday afternoon. However, $1 bottles of ice cold water were selling well.
Many people carried cardboard fans given out by several booths at the fair.
In addition to humans, there was some concern about animals and the heat in the livestock area.
A visit to the open-air poultry and rabbit barn late Saturday afternoon found most of the rabbits and chickens panting from the heat despite attempts to keep them cool.
Most rabbits had bottles of frozen water in their cages that the bunnies laid on or against or licked. There was also a “mister” in the barn along with large and small fans and an air conditioner.
Jacob Perry, 13, of Clearlake, had seven rabbits on display Saturday afternoon and all had frozen water bottles in their cages. Perry is a 4-H Club member.
“They do alright in the heat,” he said. “They’re tired right now.”
In addition to ice bottles and a nearby fan, Perry used a hand-held water bottle to occasionally mist his bunnies.
Perry sat next to his rabbits wearing the traditional 4-H white uniform with his shirt buttoned to the neck and a dark necktie, sweating slightly and looking a bit uncomfortable from the extreme heat. How did he cool off?
“I go to my trailer that has air conditioning and lay down,” he said. “Then every once in a while I come to check on the rabbits to make sure they’re doing okay.”
This was Perry’s sixth year at the fair with 4-H but his first exhibiting rabbits. In his first year at the fair, he entered chickens and the following four years, turkeys.
“Next year, I can hopefully move up to steers,” he said, although the problem with that is not having the space needed to accommodate cattle.
Teagan Miller of Lakeport worked at the Tasty Tiki Hawaiian Shaved Ice booth Saturday afternoon. She said sales had “gone really well” and that Saturday sales were “a lot better” compared to Friday.
“People are telling us that they need to cool off and order a Hawaiian shaved ice,” she said.
Miller said she cools off by having a cup of shaved ice “every now and then.”
She agreed with other fair workers that Saturday was the hottest of the fair’s first three days.
Russell Jonas of Clearlake, owner of Jonas Energy Solutions, had a popular booth at the fair with large fans and air conditioning units behind their front counter that enticed many fairgoers to stand in front of them, sometimes for minutes at a time.
Jonas has had a booth at the fair since 1999. “This weekend is the hottest I can remember,” he said Saturday. “But we bring our own air conditioning,” he added, pointing to a huge fan nearby.
“We normally have an air conditioner on the front table but we’ve lent it to the livestock barn,” he said.
Janeane Bogner, president of the Lake County Fair and a member of the Fair Foundation board, said the fairgrounds took measures to help humans and animals keep from overheating.
Actions included “misters” in the livestock barns along with extra swamp coolers and fans, she said. Also, all buildings, except floriculture, had air conditioning. In addition, there were several outdoor shaded areas with picnic tables and misters on the fairgrounds.
“Wine slushies are a fun way for adults to cool off,” Bogner added.
The fair’s head honcho said she didn’t think the heat had affected fair attendance and that Friday was the smokiest day and Saturday the hottest.
“Probably people with asthma will not come out,” she said Saturday.
She added that she was not aware of any heat-related problems with the fair animals.
Asked how she personally kept cool, Bogner grinned and pulled a bottle of water from each of her pants’ front pockets. For her, the fair’s 2017 theme song could have been, “Long Cool Woman.”
