Nearly 12,000 firefighters are battling nearly two dozen major fires and complexes across California. Overnight Thursday, firefighters continued to make progress despite extreme weather conditions according to a statewide summary released Friday by Daniel Berlant, CAL Fire assistant deputy director.
“Since the lightning siege started on Saturday, August 15, 2020 there have been nearly 12,000 lightning strikes,” noted CAL Fire officials adding that during this time-period, there have been more than 560 new wildfires, most of which have been contained due to aggressive firefighting. The fires have burned over 771,00 acres in total as of press time Friday.
“As we move into the weekend, fire danger remains elevated with a few holdover lightning ignitions still possible,” officials warned adding that a warming trend is likely. Gusty winds were expected in the Eastern Sierra, elevating the fire danger. Fire officials continued to monitor the weather closely as lightning is expected to return Sunday night through Tuesday across Northern California.
Since January 1, 2020, CAL FIRE has responded to over 5,600 wildfires.
“The recent spike in wildfire activity is an important reminder for residents to take steps to prevent sparking a wildfire,” officials noted. “Having an evacuation plan, a supply kit, and important paperwork will make it easier when it is time to GO. Remember one less spark, means One Less Wildfire. Learn more at www.ReadyForWildfire.org.”
CAL Fire Batallion Chief Paul Duncan reported gave a report to the Cobb Area Council Thursday evening. Duncan said crews were working actively on the Round Fire just outside of Jerusalem grade for protection of Hidden Valley fire from the south which is out of the Aetna Springs area.
Officials announced advisory evacuations for Middletown and Duncan said he was getting ready to issue some for Lower Lake and the Twin Lakes area, all the way through Morgan Valley.
He told the council the fire was zero percent contained, and he added local crews were very shorthanded.
“We are sitting about 600 personnel this morning assigned to about 120,000 acres,” he said and noted the department was short on personnel and doing the best they could, “We’ve got folks that have been up for 96 hours straight, (we are) trying to get them a couple of hours of shuteye and then back to the fire line.”
Duncan said more equipment was on the way following a nationwide call for resources so the local crews could see equipment from all over the Western U.S. and out of the North West, thanks to a five state compact that local departments have with Washington, Oregon, Montana and Idaho.
“The fire that is the biggest hazard right now is coming out of the East into Jerusalem Valley into the back side of Hidden Valley,” Duncan told the Council adding that crews were hampered by some challenging terrain. “A benefit that we do have is there’s been a lot of dozer work already done there over the past fires, so we will utilize that the best we can and just save us some time. We are so short (on) resources is the issue,” he said.
Fifty structures destroyed, 20,000 threatened in Santa Cruz mountains
Hundreds of thousands of acres scorched. Tens of thousands forced to flee. Hundreds of structures left in ashes. And on Thursday, the first casualties of the lightning-sparked wildfires ripping through the Bay Area.
The three fire complexes around the region have combined to burn nearly 500,000 acres and were still hardly contained as the sun began to illuminate hazy skies Friday morning. On Thursday night, fire crews announced the first three civilian casualties discovered in the rubble left in Napa County and a fourth in Solano County; a PG&E worker in Solano County and a helicopter pilot near Fresno have also died fighting the infernos.
The fires were sparked by some 11,000 lightning strikes around the state since Sunday, which ignited at least 360 blazes statewide, squeezing firefighting resources. Those had grown into 23 separate fire complexes, the largest of which being the LNU, SCU and CZU fires in the Bay Area.
- The LNU Complex, in the North Bay, was the deadliest and most destructive of all the blazes. It had burned 219,067 acres across Napa, Solano, Sonoma, Lake and Yolo counties and was responsible for the four civilian casualties, as well as at least 480 structures destroyed. Crews had the blaze 10% contained Friday morning.
- The SCU Complex, in the South Bay and further east, forced evacuations on the outskirts of San Jose Thursday night. It had burned 229,968 acres by 7 a.m. Friday and was threatening 20,000 structures.
- The CZU Complex, in the Santa Cruz mountains, had burned 50,000 acres and was still 0% contained Friday morning. Evacuations were ordered for more than 60,000 residents, including the UC Santa Cruz campus. So far, at least 50 structures have been destroyed and another 20,000 were under threat.
