Sonoma County braces for second night of strong winds
Sonoma County skirted catastrophic wildfire late Sunday during the first of back-to-back windstorms dealing hurricane-force gusts to ridgelines and strong, erratic blasts down into the valleys, toppling trees and starting about a half-dozen small fires.
Roving crews of firefighters rushed to contain these blazes before they could spread on land primed to burn amid supremely dry conditions brought by these inland Diablo winds on what was a long and sleepless night for many across the North Coast.
About 34,500 customers remained without power Monday night as the region headed into a second anxious round of winds, although packing less strength.
“The winds may be less in strength and speed, but humidity is at rock bottom right now,” Sonoma County Fire District Chief Mark Heine said. “Even out to the coast, it’s in the single digits — that means there’s no moisture in the air, the grass, the trees, the brush. That means that any fire that starts has the potential to get large.”
PG&E crews began inspecting power lines in some areas of Northern California battered by winds, but not yet in Sonoma County, where dangerous weather conditions were expected to last through the night into Tuesday morning, utility spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said.
Winds between 10 and 20 mph with gusts up to 60 mph were expected in areas above 1,000 feet between midnight and sunrise Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service forecast.
Roughly 28% of the 345,000 customers affected by the outage in 34 counties statewide had their power restored by Monday afternoon, the utility said. The utility hoped to turn the power back on by 10 p.m. Tuesday in Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino counties if weather conditions allow inspection crews to start checking power lines and other equipment for signs of storm damage by morning, according to Contreras.
PG&E said that 23,400 homes and businesses were without power late Monday. That number translates into about 34,350 residents, according to county officials.
Sonoma County was hit with some of the fiercest winds in PG&E’s service area, which encompasses 70,000 square miles from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. Gauges measured an 89 mph gust and sustained winds of 76 mph on Mount St. Helena, according to the National Weather Service.
The winds echoed those that fueled disastrous wildfires in Sonoma County, including the 2017 October firestorm and the 2019 Kincade fire. For many haunted by memories of those fires — and two major blazes this year that together burned more than 400,000 acres and destroyed 497 homes — the sound and fury of the winds made for a restless night.
“I barely slept (Sunday) night, and I’m not the only person,” said Alma Bowen, who was working as a 911 dispatcher Oct. 8, 2017 when a half-dozen fires broke out simultaneously during a windstorm.
On little sleep, Bowen was preparing to spend Monday evening holding virtual meetings with community groups urging people to stay vigilant and prepared to leave if there’s any sign of fire.
“We live in such a state this time of year, we’re constantly afraid of what we’re going to wake up to,” said Bowen, who now runs an organization, Nuestra Comunidad, or “our community,” to help prepare local Latino and immigrant communities for emergencies. “Are we going to wake up at night to run out of our own house or are we going to wake up in the morning to another part of our community affected?”
Local fire crews extinguished several small brush fires that broke out in Sonoma County during the early morning hours Monday, including at least two that were caused by either sparking transformers or power lines, fire officials said.
Firefighters contained blazes north of Healdsburg, near the Parkland Farms neighborhood, as well as in Windsor and in Twin Hills, southwest of Sebastopol.
The fire that broke out north of Healdsburg about 1 a.m. Monday had “high potential” to spread quickly and threaten dense neighborhoods. But fortunately, it started in an area slightly sheltered from the wind and many firefighters attacked it quickly, Heine said.
Other fires erupted but were kept small: at 1:15 a.m. on Primrose Avenue southwest of Santa Rosa, followed by fire at 3:04 a.m. near Stage Gulch and Watmaugh roads in Schellville southwest of Sonoma, then a 3:07 a.m. report of flames on Blucher Valley Road in Twin Hills, southwest of Sebastopol.
Two fires in east Santa Rosa, on Violetti Road by Spring Lake, and at the intersection of Summerfield Road and Sonoma Avenue were contained at less than a quarter-acre, said Jason Jenkins, a battalion chief with the Santa Rosa Fire Department.
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