Posted on 09/23/2006 3:32:25 PM PDT by mgstarr
A wind-driven wildfire on Saturday threatened some of California's premier vineyards and the winemaking city of Napa, one of several blazes kindled across the state by dry conditions and seasonal Santa Ana winds.
The 400-acre (160-hectare) Napa fire started on Friday morning off a rural highway north of the wine lovers' haven by what fire officials believe was a downed power line.
Firefighters had cornered the blaze northwest of the city and were hoping to have it contained by Sunday evening.
The Napa Valley, about 40 miles north of San Francisco, is famed for its wine production and beauty and is a popular tourist spot.
Forecasts for low humidity and winds of up to 60 mph (96 kph) starting on Saturday morning had fire officials across the state on high alert throughout the weekend.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The Napa Valley gets Santa Ana winds? Who knew?
Napa makes auto parts.
L
Meanwhile, down here in SoCal, the Day Fire continues burning into week three. The smoke plume visible from Santa Clarita looks like somebody dropped a thermonuclear bomb up there.
Just how dry are those vineyards then....
FYI Ping!
Click to be +/- on this low volume wine ping list.Oenology news ping.
Wonder what the excess heat is doing to the sugar/water content of the nearby grapes?
The four seasons in California, fire, flood, earthquake, and drought.
I suppose mudslides fall under flood?
Without rain...
No problem.
All the wineries need to do is hype this up big with an ad campaign advertising wine made with "fire roasted grapes".
"The Napa Valley gets Santa Ana winds? Who knew?"
Except in Sonoma and Napa Valley the winds blow from the North. They can average 30-35 mph and gust up to 60.
These north winds hit the east bay hills and caused the fire back that burned a lot of the east bay hills.
I have talked to friends in S California when they are getting their Santa Annas from the South, and we were getting the North winds. I guess they collide somewhere in between.
We were out of town and saw the pictures from afar.
There must be 100 hundred plus California Fire Fighting vehicles parked/camped out in every local Fair Ground.
They did a great job of containing the fire with the help of the wind dying down to the lower digits by noon Friday.
If the wind and heat had continued the Mayacamas, the West side of Napa and East Side of Sonoma might have gone up like a tinder box.
We will be checking on friends on both sides of the fire tomorrow at church and on the phone before and after.
Steelie, are you, your family and friends okay on your side of grape heaven.
"Wonder what the excess heat is doing to the sugar/water content of the nearby grapes?"
Hopefully the sugar levels went up. We have had cool nights in most of the N California grape land and the harvests in many areas are behind.
We have four fires burning east of us in the Trinity and Kalamath drainage. Three of them were caused by lightening on July 27 and the fourth about three weeks ago on highway 299 west of Weaverville. The four total over 400,000 acres but who is counting. There are a few small young vineyards in the area that haven't seen day light in almost two months. These wines will have a unique smokey taste...
Stay safe, Dave. Sounds like you'll pull a Mid Watch tonight.
Cripes, I have not really felt safe to cast a fly in those rivers for about 4 years.
One can only imagine the tinder boxes created by the green eco terrorists/er viralists. A couple of normal summer lightening strikes and Kazaam, there goes a 400,000 acres.
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