Sonoma County sheriff sees aerial view of Kincade fire, part of area where he ordered evacuations

ABOARD HENRY 1 - The helicopter shook and bounced like an amusement park ride, the Kincade fire raging a few hundred feet below.

At the controls of Henry 1, the chopper used by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office, was a laconic New Zealander named Nigel Cooper, who cheerfully identified the source of the turbulence: a 25-knot wind from the east.

Asked by Cooper how he was doing, Sheriff Mark Essick replied, “I’m really enjoying it.” The sheriff, on a Sunday afternoon reconnaissance mission to take the measure of the blaze, was clearly not enjoying this ride.

Elected to his office 16 months ago, the 50-year-old is prone to mild air sickness. But that doesn’t keep him out of the chopper. As Essick recently proved, he can stand some discomfort, if he’s convinced it is for a good reason.

While not as controversial as PG&E’s rolling blackouts, Essick’s decision to evacuate some 190,000 people from their homes compounded the misery endured by many in the county during this historic trifecta of hardships. While the majority of those forced from their homes accepted their fate with equanimity, others - in particular those many miles from the blaze - accused the sheriff of overreacting.

He can see their point. “If I’m in Bodega Bay, 40 miles from the action, and Essick’s telling me to evacuate,” he said, “Well, I’d want to know why.”

Essick leaned heavily on Cal Fire experts who used computer models to forecast where the fire might move. Some of those models predicted that the wind-whipped inferno could cross over Highway 101, into the Russian River corridor, dense with old-growth trees and accumulated fuels.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he declared with conviction at a Sunday night press conference, “we are doing the right thing by keeping you out of these areas.”

He is unafraid to dig in on a position, even when his principles might make him unpopular. Essick was an administrative captain in 2018 when he testified in court against a sheriff’s deputy on trial for felony assault.

After reviewing body-camera footage of an officer responding to a domestic violence call, Essick concluded that the deputy had committed a crime.

He went to then-Sheriff Steve Freitas. “I said ‘We have to out this, and get the DA to look at it.’ Because I felt it was more than just a violation of our policy. I felt he committed a crime.”

That’s how, during his campaign for sheriff, Essick found himself on the stand, telling jurors his former colleague had committed assault.

Outside the law enforcement community, some were skeptical of his motives and timing. Inside it, he was accused of disloyalty, and worse.

“I caught a lot of s___ from both sides,” he said. “But it was a pretty clear path: this was right, this was wrong.” His feeling at the time: “If you don’t like it, don’t elect me sheriff.”

The jury on that case deadlocked, and a mistrial was declared. But Essick won his three-way election with 57% of the vote, which Sonoma State political scientist David McCuan described at the time as “a butt-whooping margin.”

Sixteen months later, facing the sternest test of his tenure, Essick was bouncing above the menacing fire on Henry 1, sitting beside Assistant Sheriff Jim Naugle, who at one point declared, “Look at that save.” Naugle was pointing to a rooftop covered with fire retardant dropped by a tanker.

“Fire came right up to the walls,” Essick agreed. “That was a great shot.”

Sharing the cockpit with Cooper was Deputy Sheriff Henri Boustany, who is highly trained in aviation and rescue. As the chopper passed over a smoking, blackened hillside, Boustany flipped on its thermal imaging camera, which revealed invisible hot spots, areas where no flame was visible, but which remained a danger.

This is one of the reasons Essick and Cal Fire leaders will err on the side of caution before allowing residents back into burn zones. “There are thousands of little hot spots we can’t see,” he said. “You apply a 50 mph wind to that hot spot - boom - fire’s back.”

Toward the end of the half-hour flight, Cooper executed a tight right turn, which made the sheriff slightly airsick, but also allowed for an excellent view of a DC-10 tanker, dropping its load of fire retardant just east of Fitch Mountain, where a pitched battle unfolded below, as firefighters toiled to keep the blaze out of Healdsburg.

This was the DC-10’s final mission on Sunday before returning to Sacramento. Looking down at the flames encroaching on Windsor, Essick shook his head. “I know they can’t,” he said of the tankers, “but I wish they could keep just keep hitting this fire all night.”

At a press conference following the Sunday flight, he returned to his talking points: “It’s still too dangerous to enter the evacuation zones,” he said. “Your life is our priority.”

The next afternoon, after conferring with Cal Fire, Essick lifted the mandatory evacuation for much of west county, but made no apologies for imposing it in the first place.

He vividly recalls the firestorm of October 2017, the 24 lives it claimed, and the lessons it taught: “We were unprepared, it came up on us really fast, we didn’t have the warning systems we have now.”

For this fire, “We had time, we had the alert systems in place, and we had the experience under our belt. There’s absolutely no reason we should lose a life this time around.”

Not everyone cared for his decision on the evacuations. To Essick, however, the path was clear.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at 707-521-5214 or austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Ausmurph88.