NORTHERN CALIF.— CAL Fire officials provided updates Tuesday in regards to their progress battling multiple fires. Officials noted that overnight more favorable weather conditions continued to aid firefighters in their efforts towards containment of the LNU Lightning Complex Fires.
Currently, more than 14,000 firefighters continue to battle over two dozen major fires and lightning complexes across the state. Weather conditions overnight were more favorable, yet officials added that there were over 200 lightning strikes across California. Firefighters continue to monitor for additional lightning strike wildfires and the potential for additional lightning this week.
CAL Fire Asst. Deputy Director Daniel Berlant in his statewide report Tuesday noted that since the lightning siege that started on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020, there have been over 13,000 lightning strikes, with 233 new strikes in just the past 24 hours. During this time, there have been more than 650 new wildfires, which have now burned over 1.25 million acres. The significant acreage burned makes the fires collectively larger than the State of Delaware. In this siege, there have been seven reported deaths and more than 1,400 structures destroyed.
“If you put that in perspective, that’s a lot of acreage,” added CalFire Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit chief, Shana Jones during a report at a community meeting Monday. “Our firefighters are extremely tired, but happy to be here. They’re doing a great job. I’m very proud of the work that’s been done.”
Berlant noted that overall weather conditions have improved compared to last week. While firefighters braced for another round of thunderstorms Sunday through Monday, lightning activity was relatively low, although officials warned that isolated thunderstorms are still possible in the upper portion of northern California and the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. A Red Flag Warning has been issued due to the possibility of lightning with little to no rain. The rest of California will experience a return to a warm and dry weather pattern.
Officials reiterated that residents need to take steps to prevent sparking a wildfire. To learn more ways to prevent sparking a wildfire visit www.ReadyForWildfire.org.
Community meeting
The County of Lake streamed a live meeting Monday to update the community about the status of the fires in the county.
“As everybody knows, on August 18, there was a series of fires that started in some of our neighboring counties sparked by some pretty significant lightning events. Since that time, all these fires have grown to form a huge fire with that occurring at the same time as others throughout the state,” said Lake County Sheriff, Brian Martin and added that looting in the evacuated areas will not be tolerated with patrols routinely checking on those areas.
“The Hennessy fire is currently moving north, out of Napa County, in the direction of Lake County. The northwest side of the fire continues to be active,” noted the Chief for the LNU Lightning Complex, Chris Waters, “it’s actually our top priority. Basically from Calistoga all the way up into the old fire scar of the Jerusalem and Rocky fires. In Middletown, you can see quite a bit of fire activity off in the distance. A lot of this fire is burning in areas that have already burned in previous fires, and it’s still showing quite a bit of difficulty to get on top, but we have everything we have available to us currently working the fire.”
“We are doing everything we can to halt the spread of this fire continuing forth into Lake County. We’re going to continue to fight this fire with a robust army of our fixed winged, which is our air tankers,” said Deputy Operations Chief, Nick Brown, adding that among the aircraft being deployed are large air tankers capable of carrying 4,000 gallons of retardant each. Two DC10s and one 747 were also used to combat the fire by air at the Napa-Lake County line.
25% overall total containment; 171 structures destroyed and 234 structures damaged
At press time Tuesday, according to CAL Fire reports, the Hennessy Fire totaled 296,050 acres and was 29% contained. “Over at Sonoma County, the Wallbridge Fire is 54,503 acres with 17% containment. The Meyers fire, which is the one bright spot that we have right now, is sitting at 2,360 acres and 97% contained,” said Cal Fire Chief Sean Kavanaugh.
He added that personnel wise, the last 72 to 96 hours they had been receiving personnel and equipment for the incident to bolster resources.
Kavanaugh in reference to evacuations praised the local Sheriff Department and added, “Please, adhere to evacuation orders as they come through. Be ready to go.”
“These evacuation orders are in place for the purpose of saving lives and saving property. If and when the time comes that we need to actually take action, and fire activity increases in this area, firefighters and law enforcement are going to take time to help people. Fortunately, here in Lake County we have no loss of life or injuries to report so far. My goal is to keep it that way, but I can’t do that without the public’s help, so I’m asking you, when it comes to evacuation orders, please, take notice of those and get out”, concluded the Lake County Sheriff.
—Freelance reporter Renata Appel contributed to this report
