Sonoma County braces for long fight against Walbridge fire

An exhausted and determined force of mostly local firefighters tried to strengthen their defense Thursday against two main fronts of the 20,000-acre Walbridge fire threatening communities west of Healdsburg and along the Russian River outside Guerneville in Sonoma County.

Declaring the Walbridge fire the most critical of many major blazes in the region, Cal Fire officials began mustering a significant air attack, including a converted 747 Global Supertanker, the largest aerial firefighting air tanker in the world.

Four days into the grueling firefight, the sights and sounds of the growing air fleet signaled a much longed-for infusion of help keeping the Walbridge blaze from spreading into more populated areas. Still, an uncounted number of homes and ranches in forested communities have been destroyed this week.

Yet the local firefight continues to be stretched thin by an extraordinary demand for the state’s firefighting resources, taxed by nearly two dozen major fires threatening life and property across the state.

Shana Jones, Cal Fire chief over the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, where 215,000 acres were burning by Thursday night, acknowledged she had limited resources at her disposal to battle wildfires active in five counties.

"It's going to take time. This is a very large fire. It's one of many in the state of California, and honestly our resources are stretched ... very far," Jones said during the public briefing, her voice unsteady. “So please be patient. We're working hard to put out the fire so that we can get you back in your homes.“

The spread of the fire already has jeopardized public infrastructure, including cell towers and signal repeaters at high elevations atop Mount Jackson and Meyers Grade, located in separate burn zones, Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said.

Fire crews were preparing to make a stand at critical Sonoma Water sites near Wohler Bridge on the Russian River in Forestville, facilities that help supply about 600,000 consumers in Sonoma and northern Marin counties.

County Emergency Management Director Chris Godley said the water could be produced using generator power if electrical equipment is damaged by the fire.

But he and Sonoma Water staff have urged residents to make it easier for the water agency and its suppliers by using only what is necessary so that water storage tanks can be filled for drinking water and fire protection.

All told, the fires in Sonoma, Lake and Napa counties were collectively burning across 215,000 acres so far, a complex of blazes that erupted after a two-day lightning storm that was thunderous and mostly dry. The Meyers fire burning near the Sonoma Coast was holding at about 3,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.

All told, officials said 480 structures had burned, 125 were damaged and 30,500 remained threatened by the fires, which were entirely uncontained and burning out-of-control.

Thursday night, Cal Fire indicated its firefighting force for the three counties had nearly doubled in the past 24 hours, with 1,059 personnel as the fires burned into a fifth day.

In contrast, by day three of the 2019 Kincade fire that hit Sonoma County last October, the state had put 2,830 firefighters on the lines. That force stopped the Kincade from burning into Healdsburg, Windsor and Santa Rosa, holding the blaze at below 78,000 acres — less than half the size of the fires a much smaller force is battling now.

“There is no more equipment out there — you’ve heard it for three days now,” said Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner, who serves as an operational coordinator for the county during major wildfires. “The people out on the line have been out on the line since it started. They are still out there. It’s a very difficult situation.”

Gossner said that 20 local strike teams were deployed to fight fires outside the county, further depleting the local force.

More than 27,000 Sonoma County residents were under evacuation orders or warnings as of Thursday night, including 12,000 residents of Healdsburg.

Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said late Thursday the Walbridge fire was “testing the line” at Sweetwater Springs Road.

Shortly after 1:30 p.m., a fresh start on the southern edge of the fire snaked its way uphill less than a quarter mile from an abandoned mercury mine along Sweetwater Springs Road.

Ash rained from the sky as the fire line grew slowly despite a gentle breeze that pushed the smoke north and west.

Residents in the area said several structures, hidden by long and winding gravel driveways, were lost overnight.

Two PG&E crewmen applied fire retardant to as many power poles as they could get to ahead of the advancing flames, aiming to prevent road blockages due to downed equipment.

California Office of Emergency Services personnel out of San Diego patrolled Sweetwater Springs Road, putting out spot fires and keeping watch over private residences.

By 5 p.m., the fire was sparking further north and west, slowing its push southward. A team of Office of Emergency Service engines were staged at an abandoned quarry/mercury mine.

A Sacramento Metro Fire Department battalion chief was just beginning to scout potential locations to make a nighttime stand.

As the afternoon wore on, acrid smoke drifted lazily upward, punctuated by the occasional blackish orange plume that billowed following the fire’s quick consumption of an evergreen tree.

Intact homes dotted the ridge lines, overlooking less fortunate neighbors. As many as a dozen homes along Sweetwater Springs Road were destroyed by fire this week.

Cal Fire had dedicated a significant portion of its fire crews to the eastern portion of the fire, an active blaze with tall flame flanks, Nicholls said.

“We are working to secure the heel of the fire so that it doesn’t come down more into the upper Dry Creek,” Nicholls said.

Casualties of the wildfire will include areas of Armstrong Woods Redwood State Reserve, an 805-acre treasure on the north side of Guerneville that has generated significant concern since the fire started near adjoining Austin Creek State Recreation Area.

Nicholls confirmed Thursday evening that flames had been backing into the park — that fire crews had been needed to protect communities and hold fire lines and couldn’t be spared to save the park.

Though not “a flaming front,” he said the fire was continuing to “chunk down the mountain” into the park and “toward Guerneville proper.”

In Lake County, the Morgan fire merged with the larger Hennessey fire threatening parts of Napa County, morphing into the largest of the blazes at 192,000 acres.

Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin declared a state of emergency in response to the fire and added evacuation warnings and orders covering a sizable portion of lower Lake County.

The warning area includes Middletown and much of the same area that was devastated by the fast-moving Valley fire of 2015, a catastrophic wildfire that consumed 40,000 acres in its first 12 hours and helped usher in a new era of cataclysmic fires in Northern California.

Sonoma County supervisors Friday were meeting Friday to consider declaring a state of emergency. U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said he and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, had already drafted a letter seeking federal support for the region.

State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, said the state had secured assistance from the National Guard, which was sending 20 12-person hand crews to help fight fires in California. Officials also asked Canada and Australia to send firefighting support.

McGuire promised more firefighting resources were on the way as other fires lessened in priority, allowing the state to release crews. Firefighters and equipment being released from other incidents “should start arriving this evening and through the weekend” to Sonoma, Napa and Lake counties, McGuire said.

Where the region’s recent, catastrophic fires have been fueled largely by extreme, sometimes hurricane-force winds that have powered flames across whole landscapes in mere hours, Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls described the Walbridge as a “fuel driven, terrain driven fire,” kicked up by winds in the afternoons but otherwise fed by the heavy, dry timber that’s grown densely on steep hillsides and in remote canyons, allowing the flames to follow winding pathways across the terrain.

But he and Cal Fire Incident Commander Sean Kavanaugh said “weather is going to be a factor” moving forward.

While he placed some hope in deepening marine layer that could help with overnight moisture recovery, National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Anderson said it was unlikely to make much difference in the hills where much of the fire is being fought. He said hot, dry conditions, with temperatures around 90, would prevail into the middle of next week.

But a wind shift in the offing that will blow more toward the northeast by Saturday could be additional pressure on the Walbridge, Kavanaugh said.

More troubling is the possibility that lightning could return Monday or Tuesday — a possibility still being analyzed by fire weather experts, he said.

Supervisor James Gore, who said he spent most of the day along the fire’s dangerous eastern front in his district, said many homes were lost in the upper reaches of Mill Creek Road, and said the fire posed grave danger in those hills plus areas east of West Dry Creek Road.

“This terrain and the amount of fuel out there is extremely difficult,” Gore said. “There are a lot of people exasperated and looking for a big savior to come in, the big planes, but the reality is we’re going to be in this for the long haul.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.