[SE Mom]

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Wine-Country-fires-first-fatal-hours-12278092.php

This article may help to answer your questions. I wouldn’t have believed a fire like this were even possible. It’s a long but an excellent piece with anecdotal examples of various people’s experience that night.

This is incomprehensible- at one point the fire was estimated to be moving at over 200 feet per second.

[Will88]

Thanks for the link. That does explain it well: embers the size dinner plates and winds up to 80 mph, and many homes in wooded hills and other areas.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

200 feet per second — for reference, 60 mph is 88 feet per second! So that’s about 130 mph.

I’m guessing that’s because the winds were blowing embers far in front of the flame front and starting fires a mile downwind. That’s why the only way to stop a firestorm like that is to get way ahead of it and do a back-burn - you intentionally burn out the fuel in front of the fire, creating a firebreak.

Thanks for the link. I’ll read that article.