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.

Firefighters suspected an illegal campfire in Howarth Park may have started the blaze along Summerfield Road. A sparking transformer damaged by tree limbs likely caused the fire on Violetti Road, he said.

A spot fire along Pleasant Avenue in Windsor was started by trees that fell onto power lines, said Cyndi Foreman, fire marshal for the Sonoma County Fire Protection District.

Firefighters also spent the night chasing down reports of falling trees to ensure no roads were blocked.

“Crews were out there with chainsaws all night long, cutting them up,” Heine said.

The storm front was much cooler than Diablo winds from previous years, brought by a cold and dry front that gathered across the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin before pushing into California, according to Matt Mehle, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“Temperature isn’t necessarily a main driver of fire, it’s the wind and humidity and fuel moisture,” Mehle said.

He said the weather service does not keep records for relative humidity but noted it is "very unusual to see humidity this low this time of year.“

The second round of winds expected to blow over the region late Monday into Tuesday morning weren’t forecast to be as strong as the ones recorded overnight Sunday, though they did pose a larger fire risk because of the drier conditions, said Scott Strenfel, PG&E’s senior meteorologist.

“The fuel moistures are drier and this is the second day that some of these locations will experience very low relative humidities, so even though the winds have gone down, the fire potential index has come up,” Strenfel said.

Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner cannot recall ever seeing such a vast area of California report such low levels of humidity, and that he suspected it would be record dry conditions for Santa Rosa.

He urged people using generators to keep them outside, unlike a resident of Oakmont he found refueling a generator while it was running in a garage — posing double dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and igniting a fire while refueling.

Monday night, the county was again defended by an added force of firefighters on patrol separate from those at the fire stations: at least 15 additional engine crews whose job it was to guard the county.

“Everyone is prepared. Everyone knows what we face. They know the weather conditions,” Gossner said. “Everyone is ready to be engaged.”

Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem. You can reach Staff Writer Yousef Baig at 707-521-5390 or yousef.baig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @YousefBaig.