The Glass Fire continued to tear through Sonoma and Napa counties overnight Wednesday, with low humidity and higher than usual temperatures. The fire, which consumed 48,440 acres, grew by about 2,000 acres overnight. Weather conditions threaten to fuel the fire’s spread into more neighborhoods in the coming days.
As of Wednesday, dozens of wineries, vineyards and homes were reduced to ash, and 22,000 structures were threatened. Roughly 80,000 fire-weary residents awaited word on the fate of their neighborhoods.
A fire weather watch was issued for the Glass Fire and the North Bay mountains from Thursday at 1 p.m. through Friday at 6 p.m., with winds up to 30 mph at the highest elevation.
“There's a lot that can still burn,” said Tony Gossner, the Santa Rosa fire chief.
The fire, which is 2% contained, burned the green trees and golden grass wedged between the blackened scars left by the 2017 Wine Country fires.
The fast-moving blaze forced the evacuations of entire communities, including Calistoga, Angwin and Pope Valley as well as the eastern edge of Santa Rosa.
The damage was nothing short of catastrophic to the valley’s wine industry.
On Tuesday, some vintners who had evacuated their properties were only just beginning to take stock of the havoc.
Les Behrens and Lisa Drinkward made it back to their Spring Mountain estate, Behrens Family Winery, only to find two of their main buildings, including the primary winery, in ruins. Neighboring Sherwin Family Vineyards also found its winery destroyed.
Since Monday, the Burgess, Newton, Chateau Boswell, Hourglass, Fairwinds and Hunnicutt wineries had been damaged or destroyed.
“It just happened so fast,” said Carlton McCoy, CEO of Burgess Cellars, whose barrel warehouse and 1880 stone winery on Howell Mountain burned. “The wind just wasn’t in our favor.”
The new fires pushed the total acres burned in California this year to a stunning 3.8 million, according to Cal Fire. That’s nearly twice the previous record year of 1.98 million acres burned in 2018, and the 2020 fire season is not over yet. The fires have destroyed 7,824 structures and killed 29 people, Cal Fire reported.
As the Glass Fire continued to blacken acre after acre unabated, thousands of homes and businesses remained in the potential path of the blaze.
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Officials repeated pleas for residents to leave, yet many continued to stay behind, believing they could save homesteads and historic buildings without losing their lives.
It was a dangerous gamble, fire officials said.
“A garden hose is not going to protect you and your home,” said Shana Jones, head of the Cal Fire unit covering Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties. “You have to leave.”
Joe Ortega, 61, of Calistoga, didn’t heed that advice. On Tuesday, he stood next to his green fold-up chair watching a small blaze, but only hours earlier, the flames had towered over trees and raged down the hill. They were close.
“The trees go up like matches,” he said. “It looks like a bomb went off.”
Several residents said they spent a harrowing night second-guessing their decision to stay as flames licked the edge of their property and trees exploded.
Shawn Ogorman, 47, of Calistoga, pumped gas at the food mart Tuesday morning and said he decided not to leave his mountain house, which has a big pool and fire pumps. But late Monday night he could see flames peeking through the trees not far from his home.
“It looked like it was coming down at us,” he said. “It was kind of scary.”
The fire-weary homeowner said he had a moment of weakness Monday night.
“When I saw the flames, I kind of gave up for a second,” he said. “I was so exhausted because we were running around trying to get everything wet. This is like the fourth fire. It’s hard to think straight.”
Calistoga was otherwise quiet Tuesday morning with a small, but active fire burning along Highway 128 and the Silverado Trail, which flanks the small town known for mud baths and wineries.
The 1,500 firefighters battling the blaze focused much of their effort on the Calistoga-Angwin area, Cal Fire officials said Tuesday. They said the fire zone was expected to get considerable assistance from helicopters and air tankers dropping water and bright-orange fire retardant.
On Tuesday, officials added the town of Pope Valley to the mandatory evacuation list, with most of the 600 residents leaving town.
AJ Taege refused to go. He said he had seen fires close in on the small town before, including the recent LNU Lightning Complex blazes, which surrounded the community and its one grocery store with the deer and pig heads tacked to the walls. Those flames “basically closed in 360 degrees around us and we made it,” said Taege, 29.
As the Glass Fire headed his way, he and others stayed at the Pope Valley Garage, saying they would defend the 1915 building from fire.
“It’s been through wars, recessions and it’s never closed its doors and we plan on keeping it that way. It’s everything to me,” he said. “We don’t plan on giving up easily.”
The garage’s owner, Jeff Parady, readied the water tenders, excavators and bulldozers Tuesday afternoon. It was the second time in two days that Parady, 42, risked his life to save some buildings.
At 10 p.m. Sunday, Parady had kissed his 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and told his wife, “I’m sorry,” as he bolted out the door.
He met up with nine other friends to defend a homestead built in the 1890s, as well as another friend’s home between Deer Park and Angwin.
The buildings remained standing.
For many of those evacuated, the Glass Fire was reminiscent of the wind-driven Wine Country fires of 2017 that consumed entire neighborhoods, killed 44 people and leveled nearly 3,000 homes.
George Bruner, 87, didn’t want to be a statistic. He fled his Calistoga mobile home Monday as soon as he saw the red glow from the window.
On Tuesday, Bruner remained at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building with other evacuees, including Mary Roach, who fled her Santa Rosa home Sunday night. It was her fourth evacuation.
“We’ve done this and done this and done this,” she said. “I’m getting really tired of fires.”
Firefighters were hoping that a change in weather Tuesday, which brought in a marine layer, cooled temperatures and calmed winds, could help them control the spread of the flames.
“It’s still hot and dry up there and the fuels are primed to burn but without the winds is pretty much burning in place or at least slowing,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Drew Peterson. “Without these winds pushing things, it’s not as extreme as the last 24 to 48 hours.”
But hotter, stronger winds and higher than usual temperatures could return on Thursday and Friday, Peterson said. Winds are expected to shift again Thursday night. They’ll be weaker than last weekend, he said, but will still pose a fire danger. Weather Service officials are considering issuing another fire weather watch as well as another hot weather advisory.
The Glass Fire started as three separate blazes on Sunday before merging and raging out of control Monday.
No one has died and everyone reported missing in Santa Rosa so far has been located, Police Chief Ray Navarro said. .
Elsewhere in Northern California, dry winds overnight whipped up the Zogg Fire southwest of Redding as well as the west zone of the North Complex Fire in Butte County. The Zogg Fire killed three people as it ripped through 40,317 acres near the small towns of Igo and Ono. Cal Fire officials said Tuesday morning that 146 structures had been destroyed and that they had no containment on the fire.
Evacuations were ordered in parts of Paradise and Magalia, areas devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, as the North Complex flared up again on Wednesday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Napa, Sonoma and Shasta counties Tuesday morning and sent a letter to President Trump asking him to declare a “major disaster” that would send fire assistance grants into the state.
But amid the disaster declarations and heartache, there were also moments of good news. On Tuesday, Peter Wright, 70, and his wife, Connie Wright, 76, were searching for information from firefighters about their home when they parked outside a road barricade at the corner of Silverado Trail and Deer Park Road.
“I’m hoping I have a home to go into,” Wright said. A few minutes later, firefighters gave Connie Wright the news.
“They said our house is fine,” she told her husband. “Thank goodness.”
Chronicle staff writers
Esther Mobley, Michael Williams, Peter Fimrite, Megan Cassidy, Chase DiFeliciantonio, and Erin Allday contributed to this report.
Michael Cabanatuan, Sarah Ravani and Roland Li are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com, roland.li@sfchronicle.com jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan, @saravani, @rolandlisf @jilltucker
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Glass Fire still raging through Calistoga, Napa Valley and Santa Rosa: ‘There’s a lot that could still burn’ - San Francisco Chronicle
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