Firefighting help on its way to Sonoma County, but ramp-up to take days

Exhausted firefighters battling along the frontlines of Sonoma County’s wildfires should get support from reinforcements soon, as crews released from incidents elsewhere in the state arrive in the North Bay to bolster efforts to contain fires covering more than 360 square miles over parts of five counties.

During a briefing Friday at the Calistoga Fairgrounds, base camp for the more than 219,000-acre LNU Lightning Complex, which includes Sonoma County’s Walbridge fire, Gov. Gavin Newsom said help is also coming from a half dozen neighboring states.

Already, a doubling of firefighting personnel Thursday on the LNU complex burning primarily in Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties has allowed for operations beyond the most immediate, dire situations to more defensive operations, officials said Friday.

Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls, who is overseeing the Sonoma County firefight, said a sustained air attack involving multiple tankers and other resources, including behemoth supertankers, helped crews “button up” a bulldozer line on the northeast side of the Walbridge fire near Lake Sonoma and West Dry Creek Road, in anticipation of a change in wind direction that had started Friday evening.

Additional ground crews, meanwhile, allowed for deployment of teams for the first time to the Cazadero area, where Nicholls worried shifting winds would direct the part of the Walbridge right down Cazadero Canyon if defenses weren’t strengthened.

“We did see a significant increase of resources on the line today,” Nicholls said in an afternoon briefing. “I’m happy to say that there are resources all the way around the fire today. We have engines on all four sides of it working hand in hand with the bulldozers to try and start containing this fire and putting it to bed.”

Evacuated winemaker Daryl Groom and his wife, Lisa, who left their Mill Creek Road home on Tuesday, watched the drifting smoke above the Walbridge fire from their friends’ Geyserville home and rejoiced at the sight of aerial tankers dumping loads of retardant on the fire zone.

“It gives you such comfort,” said Groom, noting that grape farmers and winemakers in the midst of harvest are trying to anticipate the damage from smoke taint.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of angst among growers,” he said.

The number of personnel on local fire line, however, remains remarkably thin.

Morning dawned Thursday at Calistoga base camp with 587 firefighters assigned to the LNU incident and by nightfall had reached 1,059, which is where the count started Friday. By evening, the personnel totaled 1,429.

A rough count of the people assigned to bulldozers, water tenders, engine teams and hand crews on the Walbridge fire in Sonoma County on Friday stood at about 181 people, Cal Fire Public Information Officer Jeff Chumbley said.

That excludes a surge force of more 200 local agency firefighters who have been working in support of Cal Fire since the beginning of the fire.

But even so, that’s a small number compared to the usual staffing that’s reached on a major fire after three or four days. And even with engines on the way from Southern California and other western states, it will be some time yet before firefighting forces reach anything approaching full strength, officials said.

In addition to continuing demand for people to fight fires around the state, those managing the larger regional complex need to consider the competing needs within their operation, said Cal Fire Incident Commander Sean Kavanaugh. The Hennessey fire in Napa County, for example, dwarfs the blazes in Sonoma County, though its most active front is now on the remote and sparsely settled eastern side of Lake Berryessa.

“In Sonoma County we don’t expect any sizable amount of resources for at least another day or two,” except for “a strike team that trickles in here and there,” said Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner, the local representative overseeing mutual aid for the area.

“Until we get some significant resources in, there’s just not enough to go around, and so it’s going to be up to what we have,” he said.

The outbreak of about 560 lightning-sparked fires around California over a roughly 72-hour period earlier this week – with “sleeper fires” taking sometimes two and three days to make their appearance known – has put a strain on firefighting resources like never before, officials say.

Almost 12,000 firefighters were toiling on nearly two dozen major fires and regional lightning complexes like the one in the North Bay, Cal Fire said, prompting what Newsom said were requests for assistance not only from western states but from governors throughout the United States, as well as Canada and Australia.

Oregon already has committed 25 fire engines; Arizona, 12; Washington, a fixed wing surveillance plane and other resources, in addition to support from Utah, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Texas and others, Newsom said.

But all of those assets are being requested for the state of California, and it’s unclear what will find its way to base camp in Calistoga and, eventually, to Sonoma County.

No one could say Friday.

Since the lightning arrived Sunday and Monday, touching off at least 60 fires in Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Solano and Yolo counties, Cal Fire and local agencies have struggled to muster sufficient personnel to cover the sprawling needs.

That is even after state moves following the historic 2017 North Bay fires to bolster the mutual aid system that coordinates extra, outside help for fire-struck regions when needed.

Under a local firefighting surge plan developed then, local fire chiefs on Monday called up every available firefighter and all equipment for the Walbridge fire, leaving stations sparely staffed so help was where it needed to be.

That added about 250 firefighters from local agencies into the state attack. Some of those teams got their first rests Friday, Gossner said.

“The whole county is throwing as much resources to where we’re diminishing service within our own cities and jurisdictions right now – not that there isn’t a need in Santa Rosa right now, or in Cloverdale or Petaluma. But that’s where we find ourselves.”

He counted at least three occasions this week where an “all call” signal was issued requesting urgent assistance from any available firefighter in any equipment. The county’s agencies still managed to “squeeze” out several task forces from on-duty personnel stationed at their home departments, Gossner said.

“The important thing is taking care of the community,” he said.

Kavanaugh said he’d seen fire engines pulling into base camp late Thursday night, and Chumbley said arrivals continued on Friday.

Those folks would be rested and plugged into the operations plan by the next day, he said, as the numbers continue to rise.

“First responders have been stretched thin everywhere throughout the state, but they continue to work hard, and they're getting little rest, we’re trying to switch that but incoming resources are trickling in, and that’s going to help us,” Shana Jones, Cal Fire chief for the Lake-Sonoma-Napa unit, said during a briefing Friday.

She urged people to heed evacuation orders, and asked for patience.

“I hope for good news, but it’s going to be a long time,” Jones said.

Chris Smith contributed reporting to this story.

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