Posted on 10/16/2017 8:01:41 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
long Highway 12 through Sonoma Valley, world-famous vineyards beginning to show off their brilliant fall hues are now juxtaposed against a jarring backdrop of mountains blackened by flames.
Majestic parklands ringing the valley have been scarred, including Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and Hood Mountain Regional Park near Kenwood, where flames Sunday continued to send a massive plume of smoke into the sky visible for miles, fueling fresh rivulets of anxiety for both residents and firefighters.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tom Siragusa, an assistant chief for the San Francisco Fire Department and Petaluma resident who has worked in the fire service for 40 years, said Sunday morning while standing watch with members of his strike team at a home at the end of White Circle Drive in Oakmont.
The hillside home borders the eastern edge of Trione-Annadel State Park, where flames chewed through the undergrowth and came dangerously close to the neighborhood of exclusive estates.
Elsewhere in Sonoma Valley, the rampage continued unabated. Along large swaths of territory and in pockets of small, historic communities, dozens of homes and other structures have been lost and landscapes distorted. This is the new reality, and with evacuation orders still in effect for much of the area, it’s one relatively few people have yet seen.
It will be shocking.
The valley normally hums along on an economy largely built on winemaking and tourism. Both are likely to suffer as a result of fire damage.
Winemaker Steve Ledson said late Sunday his castle-like Highway 12 winery, which has not been damaged by fire despite flames drawing close, remains closed due to power outages. The same is true of his Sonoma hotel and crush facility, which also are closed.
Ledson said his crews have been unable to harvest 100 tons of cabernet grapes hanging on vines on Cavedale Road due to emergency response to fires there. He is working on plans to help his 150 employees financially through this period of unexpected upheaval. But he acknowledged the unavoidable impacts of going without a paycheck for any length of time.
“When they’re not working, how do they pay for their rent and gas? It’s a chain reaction,” Ledson said.
Outside his Highway 12 home near Kenwood on Sunday afternoon, Will Carpenter still appeared dazed as he looked eastward across vineyards at a massive plume of smoke rising above Sugarloaf.
Speaking through a mask covering his mouth, the registered nurse expressed “heartbreak” over the scarring of the beloved parks he and countless others escape to for recreation and quiet.
The sound has been replaced with sirens, the whir of firefighting aircraft and someday soon, hammers and chainsaws.
“It’s going to go from a sleepy little place to a construction zone,” Carpenter said.
On Adobe Canyon Road leading to Sugarloaf, numerous homes have been destroyed by the inferno. Flames still coursed along the hillsides Sunday, bringing fresh anxiety for Harry Trembley.
The Emeryville resident said he spent more than three years building the 2,600-square-foot home on Adobe Canyon Road where his 83-year-old mother lives — and where she has remained despite evacuation orders.
“I’m going to do what I can to defend it,” Trembley said
This county probably has 95% of the 100,000 evacuees from these fires.
We need better Forestry solutions. How about reviving CCC Camps....and putting young folks to work. My dad and his brother went to the camps. The money sure helped the family back home. Dad loved it.
Well on the bright side with all the trees burnt up the chance of future forest fires has been lessened. I suppose the next danger will be from mudslides and such?
More cattle or sheep grazing. Save CA, eat more meat.
I have not seen any reports of the pot farms burning up...that is already a multi-million $ industry in the county.
Now they are forcing clean up should follow all environmental standards.
You know, this/these was not “tree” fires, in the main. This was not your curtain of flame as we saw in Yosemite. Yes, it is true that Sonoma, Mendocino are certainly thought of as forested areas and they have forested areas. But these were not forest fires in particular. These were for the most part ignited by flying embers from grass fires landing on roofs, and then blowtorched by 40+mph winds. While I am sure that some forested areas burned, that was definitely not the predominant mode. The grief here is that houses burned, and they burned in rather suburban areas, in subdivisions where one wouldn’t think this could happen. These homes were by and large not mountain cabins nestled among the redwoods.
Remarkable, to me, were the two burned out stores in Santa Rosa, a McDonalds and an Arbys. These were standalone restaurants (called “in line” in the trade) that caught an ember on their roofs and burned to the ground. They were probably no more than 10-15 years old, in a fairly new shopping center.
Just drawing the distinction. I was up there Saturday 2 days ago, visiting my brother’s vineyard upon which the house burned to the ground.
“Well on the bright side with all the trees burnt up the chance of future forest fires has been lessened. I suppose the next danger will be from mudslides and such?”
Actually, much of the indigenous Oaks and other large trees were not destroyed, it’s the scrub stuff down on the surface that provided the fuel, and there was a lot of it due to the heavy rains we had last winter.
“More cattle or sheep grazing. Save CA, eat more meat.”
Nah, according to Jerry the Fairy Brown, cows fart too much, causing globul warming. He things “we” should do the grazing ourselves.
For the maximum use of any $ donations.
Please consider the Salvation Army:
Salvation Army
93 Stony Circle
Santa Rosa, California 95401
(707) 542-0981
From the pictures the MSN showed hourly they looked they were making it out to be walls of firegendon sweeping the area.
Yes, true. There were distinct firelines up in the hills formed by super fast moving grass fires, and where there were pix of structures you saw bright yellow flames filling those structures and pouring out the windows. Many of those houses burned to the ground in ten minutes or less. Our neighbors home went from ember on the roof to fully engulfed, flames pouring out the windows in 3 minutes. A 300 x 300 poorly maintained cemetary on the other side burned in about 15 seconds. But oddly, those fires mostly moved so fast they did not ignite that many trees. I know in many pix you will see trees silouhetted against curtains of flames but when those fires swept through, they moved so fast and consumed the ready fuel so fast they did not hang around long enough to ignite the trees.
Put it this way: You see essentially zero pictures of what were heavily wooded areas with blackened tree stumps as you’d expect in a “forest fire”.
The following explains what made these fires so dangerous and out of control.
To: Grampa Dave
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/epa-waterways-wetlands-rule-118319
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_pool
Nearly every acre of land from San Francisco to Eureka has a tributary stream (even if dry in summer) and vernal pools. EPA claimed jurisdiction over all of it in 2015 and said farmers, ranchers...anyone...could not cut anything within 100 feet of these “protected waters”.
The CA EPA supports and enforces these rules stridently.
Underbrush and grasses exploded.
Then they exploded in fire.
That’s the root cause of this horrible tragedy.
66 posted on 10/14/2017, 9:45:00 AM by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
Again not many trees, but a lot off brush/grasses not mowed as per Mariner:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/epa-waterways-wetlands-rule-118319
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_pool
Nearly every acre of land from San Francisco to Eureka has a tributary stream (even if dry in summer) and vernal pools. EPA claimed jurisdiction over all of it in 2015 and said farmers, ranchers...anyone...could not cut anything within 100 feet of these “protected waters”.
The CA EPA supports and enforces these rules stridently.
Underbrush and grasses exploded.
Then they exploded in fire.
That’s the root cause of this horrible tragedy.
66 posted on 10/14/2017, 9:45:00 AM by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
20 fire investigators descended on that area couple days ago to find the “cause” of the fires.
I wonder what they will make up?
More pot farms in parts of Sonoma not on fire and in Mendocino county. Some of those farms in Mendocino county were hit by fires up there.
If the investigators are Ca Fire people, the reports will probably be fairly accurate.
If any of Gerry Brown’s thugs are involved, they will place the blame on PG&E and not the following root cause:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/epa-waterways-wetlands-rule-118319
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Water_Rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_pool
Nearly every acre of land from San Francisco to Eureka has a tributary stream (even if dry in summer) and vernal pools. EPA claimed jurisdiction over all of it in 2015 and said farmers, ranchers...anyone...could not cut anything within 100 feet of these “protected waters”.
The CA EPA supports and enforces these rules stridently.
Underbrush and grasses exploded.
Then they exploded in fire.
That’s the root cause of this horrible tragedy.
66 posted on 10/14/2017, 9:45:00 AM by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
One would think CA would put a fire resistant roof on their homes and businesses. A plain old metal roof would ward off lots of flying embers.
In a wooded area with new construction, absolutely.
I will note that a large apt complex in Santa Rosa with the typical Spanish terra-cotta tile burned on the first day. You have to wonder how that happened.
These were “unusual” fires. Nobody thought those suburban, subdivision homes in Santa Rosa were in any way vulnerable. Normally, a small ember landing on a composition (asphalt shingle) roof is no big deal because it carries little heat input to whatever it lands on. But precede the landing with some of the hottest weather we’ve had in CA (about a month ago) and seriously hot, dry, continuous winds, and stuff you wouldn’t think could go can go and go fast.
The terra cotta roof question was answered by a news report one day.
According to the report, there are vents on the roofs that actually suck the embers right into the attic.
If it’s done right, doesn’t metal roofing last longer?
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