California Wildfires

We are fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places in California and I love to take a drive in the weekends through the Napa Valley. There are two major issues though with living here: earthquakes and wildfires. The last one is causing some havoc lately…

Forecasters say a storm system that pushed into the Northwest touched off numerous thunderstorms across northern California on Saturday. According to Accuweather.com, the thunderstorms produced significant rain but also sparked lightning, igniting wildfires as the lightning bolts struck the extremely dry vegetation covering parts of northern California, predominantly in the state’s wine country.

So yesterday we drove towards Napa to see the fire with our own eyes. All day the sky was clouded with smoke and this morning a strange mix of smoke and fog was visible. Numerous fire planes were flying over the smoked covered hills West of Napa. By Sunday night the fire had spread out to Solano County stretching over an area as big as 3,500 acres. It looked pretty bad. I guess this is going to be a long and hot summer…

Update:

The major North Bay fires are:

In Napa County: Wild Fire, northeast Napa and northwest of Fairfield, 3,750 acres, 40 percent contained, started at 4 p.m. Saturday, being fought by 438 firefighters with 41 engines. Several residential areas under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders.

In Lake County: Walker Fire, near Indian Valley Reservoir, 2,000 acres, not contained, being fought by 54 firefighters with 12 engines, voluntary evacuations at Double Eagle Ranch and Bear Valley Ranchland.

In Mendocino County: Ninety fires were burning 7,625 acres. The largest are the Orr Fire at Orr Springs Resort, 200 acres, no containment; Navarro Fire, 1,400 acres, 5 percent contained; Cherry fire, 50 acres, 50 percent contained; Foster Fire, 50 acres, 50 percent contained; Table Mountain Fire, 1,000 acres, 5 percent contained; Mallo Pass Fire, 800 acres; and Juan Creek fires, 100 acres.