Multiple firestorms raged across the state’s bucolic wine country on Monday, resulting in at least two deaths, destroying more than 1,500 structures, emptying hospitals, dropping ashes over San Francisco and forcing the panicked evacuation of thousands of residents to crowded shelters.
With 14 different fires throughout Northern California since late Sunday night, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Director Ken Pimlott said an estimated 20,000 people had been evacuated. He cautioned that the number of burned structures was very conservative and said firefighters were too busy trying to save lives to battle the blazes. Adding to the chaos was the loss of cellphone coverage, power outrages and roads blocked or clogged by people fleeing the area. Combined, the fires had scorched parts of eight different counties, including Lake, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Yuba.
Cal Fire confirmed one person died in Mendocino County and the CHP confirmed to KGO TV that a second person had died, a blind elderly woman found in her driveway in Santa Rosa. NBC Bay Area interviewed a man who said his elderly parents, ages 98 and 100, did not escape from a home in the Silverado Resort in Napa.
Most of the fires started at about 10 p.m. Sunday and continued into Monday morning, Pimlott said. Their causes are under investigation. He didn’t have an estimate on the number of people hurt and missing. The same scenes that occurred in the Clearlake area were repeated around the region. As homeowners literally ran for their lives in the smoky darkness, firefighters responded to four wind-whipped fires across Napa and Sonoma counties alone, each fueled by strong winds throughout the night that pushed the blazes over a combined 34,000 acres by the time the sun came up. The rest of the Bay Area, stretching as far south as Santa Cruz, shared in the experience vicariously as thick smoke blotted out the morning sky and left an acrid stench across the nine-county region.
“It was an inferno like you’ve never seen before,” said Marian Williams, who fled through the flames before dawn in a caravan with neighbors as one of the wildfires reached the vineyards and ridges at her small Sonoma County town of Kenwood.
Williams could feel the heat of the fire outside her car as she fled.
“Trees,” she said, “were on fire like torches.”
By mid-morning on Monday, after 130 patients had been evacuated from the Kaiser Santa Rosa facility, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties, authorizing the state’s National Guard to mobilize. No deaths had been reported at that time, but there were injuries and some people are unaccounted for, Janet Upton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told the Los Angeles Times. She could not estimate the number of injuries.
Perhaps the most dramatic of the fires was Tubbs Fire which threatened a large swath of Santa Rosa and had burned more than 35,000 acres by Monday afternoon. That fast-moving blaze jumped Highway 101 Freeway, prompting police to completely shut down the major thoroughfare.
Two other large fires were the Atlas Fire south of Lake Berryessa, which was burning as many as 12,000 acres by mid-morning, expanding to 25,000 by the afternoon.
The fast-moving blazes destroyed dozens of home in Journey’s End Mobile Home Park, located next to Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa. At sunrise, several small fires were still burning amid the debris. The Fountaingrove Inn in Santa Rosa was also destroyed. Early Monday morning, flames engulfed the hotel.
The fires threatened Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Santa Rosa and Napa as patients at the Santa Rosa facility were taken to Kaiser hospitals in San Rafael and other locations, the health care provided announced on Twitter.
Kaiser stated it has cancelled all appointments and surgeries Monday in Santa Rosa and Napa and will continue to is monitor the fires in both locations.
Sutter Hospital is Santa Rosa was also evacuated, according to Sonoma County officials.
There we reports of stores, restaurants and a Kmart destroyed along Highway 101 in Santa Rosa.
With so many fires, residents of Sonoma County struggled to figure out what roads to take, finding downed trees or flames blocking some routes in the region north of San Francisco. In addition to the Tubbs Fire, crews were battling the Nuns‘ Fire north of Glen Ellen, the Patrick Fire west of Napa and the Atlas Fire, which had burned 5,000 acres off of Atlas Peak Road south of Lake Berryessa by noon.
The Tubbs Fire in Napa was the most worrisome, forcing hundreds of evacuees to gather in the middle of the night at an all-night Safeway market in Sonoma. Several residents said they saw homes burning.
“It’s been incredibly windy here,” Napa County spokeswoman Molly Rattigan said. Winds are consistently “around 15 miles per hour and we have gusts up to 22 miles per hour, and we’re expecting that to continue throughout the day.”
In Napa County alone three evacuation centers had been opened before sunrise — the Crosswalk Community Church, the Calistoga Fairgrounds and another at Napa Valley College.
The Press Democrat reported that flames destroyed homes and a historic barn, and authorities worked to clear out hospitals and senior centers in northwestern Santa Rosa, which is about 54 miles (86 kilometers) north of San Francisco.
Deputies were dispatched to help firefighters and California Highway Patrol officers with evacuations, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.
Windsor Fire Chief Jack Piccinini said that nearly all of Sonoma County’s fire resources were being used.
“Everyone in Sonoma County is spread out fighting these fires, but they don’t have enough resources to handle something like this. The only thing we can do is hope the wind will come down,” he said.
Emergency lines were inundated with callers reporting smoke in the area, prompting officials to ask that the public “only use 911 if they see actual unattended flames, or are having another emergency.”
While Sonoma State University was not in danger from the fires, the school announced that all scheduled classes and events had been canceled. “Some essential personnel have been requested to report to Incident Command on campus,” said the statement, “but the campus is currently not under immediate threat.”
The National Weather Service said widespread wind gusts between 35 mph and 50 mph were observed in the north San Francisco Bay region and isolated spots hit 70 mph.
Community centers, the Sonoma County Fairgrounds and other local centers were opened for evacuees.
