Winds, low humidity prompt Red Flag warning for North Bay mountains

Emergency personnel around Sonoma County are gearing up for the first warning of elevated fire danger of the 2018 season, scheduling extra people in local fire stations and dispatch centers under new protocols for wildfire readiness triggered by last year’s catastrophic firestorm.

With high heat, low humidity and breezy conditions on tap for the weekend, public safety officials want first responders to be ready to pounce on any fires that might ignite.

The new approach is more formalized and collaborative than in years past - part of a countywide effort to act on lessons learned and be better positioned for what fire experts say will be the “new normal,” as extreme weather leads to larger and more frequent wildfires.

“Obviously, because of October, we’re changing business a little bit,” Gold Ridge Fire Protection District Chief Dan George said.

Conditions will not be nearly as severe as they were last fall, when fires broke out across six counties including Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino, killing 44 people and destroying thousands of structures, fire officials and meteorologists said.

The risk this weekend is largely expected to affect elevations of 1,000 feet or higher, National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Rowe said.

Still, emergency response officials want to avoid being caught off guard.

“I just call it a kind of enhanced vigilance,” said Christopher Godley, interim county emergency management director.

Pacific Gas & Electric also will open its emergency operations center in San Francisco on Saturday and will have extra crews on duty locally in the event of triple-digit temperatures and expected high-energy consumption overload on the power grid, leading to outages.

For the first time, the company is prepared to de-energize power lines in high-risk terrain if fire danger presents itself, spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said.

PG&E does not anticipate conditions severe enough to take such action, she said.

After enduring criticism in the wake of the October fires, however, the company has developed new protocols under which it can cut power to select lines in the same way some Southern California power providers do during high-wind events or other extreme conditions.

Cal Fire investigators have determined that 12 of October’s Northern California fires were sparked by PG&E equipment, often through contact with trees during extremely high winds. The company, which is disputing some of Cal Fire’s findings, also has been targeted with nearly 200 lawsuits, and could be held liable for at least ?$2.5 billion.

Contreras said PG&E will only de-energize lines when it’s clearly warranted, in part because it requires the power be cut for at least 24 hours before it’s restored.

“It’s a decision we’re not going to take lightly,” Contreras said. “It’s a last resort.”

Lines would only be de-energized in areas deemed by the California Public Utilities Commission to be at “elevated” or “extreme” risk of ?utility-related fires, Contreras said. Customers in those areas should have been notified over the past two weeks, she said.

Improved readiness all around reflects the intense public scrutiny and self-?examination that has taken place in the eight months since a series of fires that erupted during 24 hours last October devastated parts of the North Bay, including Sonoma County, where 137-square-miles burned.

The fires killed 24 people in Sonoma County and destroyed about 5,300 homes.

The Tubbs fire, which started near Calistoga before sweeping across the Mayacamas Mountains all the way to Coffey Park, remains the most destructive fire in California history.

Though the October fires spread with unprecedented speed and intensity, they revealed deficiencies in preparedness, emergency communication protocols and overall understanding of the heightened severity of wildfires in an age of climate change and increased development in urban-wildland interface zones at elevated risk.

As a result, county officials and emergency personnel have taken steps like allocating $900,000 in county funds earlier this month to allow for an extra layer of fire protection during periods of increased fire danger.

Local fire chiefs were still working on an activation plan when the National Weather Service this week issued a fire watch and, later, a red flag warning for much of Northern California, including Sonoma County, one of the few coastal areas affected.

It is also NASCAR weekend at Sonoma Raceway, meaning the county will host about 100,000 extra people, so county fire chiefs decided to pull together a task force for the weekend just in case.

Seven engines and about 25 associated crew will be available to respond from various agencies to any part of the county where they might be needed, over and above regular on-duty crews, officials said.

“This is a great way to give depth to the county and give additional resources for early on,” Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner said.

Santa Rosa also is staffing an extra battalion chief, and Rincon Valley is offering an additional water tender, outside the county plan, Gossner said.

Cal Fire is at peak staffing, with 195 fire engines about 100 fire crews available for an initial attack anywhere in the region, spokesman Jonathan Cox said.

At the county Emergency Services Department, which assigns an on-call duty officer for each ?24-hour period, Godley, the interim director, will double as backup officer.

Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said the public has its own responsibility to be aware and remain prepared, as well, developing emergency plans with loved ones that include knowing what to take in event of evacuation and what alternative escape routes exist.

“The future in California has to be treating red flag warnings as our equivalent of hurricane warnings,” Gore said, “and the way to do that is not to induce fear, but to make sure people use it as a call to action, not just an advisory.”

Gore said Sonoma County should heed the lessons of Lake County, which endured five destructive wildfires over the past three years. Last year’s fires in Sonoma County do nothing to lessen the risk this year, and each red flag warning should inspire awareness and caution, he said.

“Last year, what happened, there was a red flag warning and in the community hardly anybody who lived in fire country really knew what that meant or paid attention,” he said. “It wasn’t taken as seriously as it needed to be.”

The warning is in effect 11 a.m. today to 8 p.m. Sunday.

A heat advisory also will be in effect today, from ?11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The city of Santa Rosa will host a cooling center from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at the Finley Community Center, 2060 W. College Ave.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.