Fire staffing beefed up in Sonoma County, North Bay amid red-flag warning

The combination of high winds and warm weather across the North Bay this weekend amid a dry start to fall have increased the threat poised by wildfire, leading forecasters and fire officials to raise a now all-too-familiar alarm.

Winds out of the northeast were expected to kick up starting late Friday into early today, with speeds up to 30 mph and gusts up to 60 mph at the highest elevations, said Anna Schneider, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

With less than 2 inches of rain since spring in many areas of the county, the ground is dry and weekend humidity levels were expected to remain very low in some places, the weather agency said.

“Usually by this time of year, we’ve had some rain,” said Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner, “but there really is no rain in sight for another three to four weeks, from what I’ve been told.”

Assistant Santa Rosa Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal said 13 extra fire engines and other local resources will be patrolling areas deemed at risk during the “red-flag” warning, in place from 1 a.m. today to ?6 a.m. Sunday for elevations above 1,000 feet in the North Bay and East Bay.

Cal Fire also bolstered the ranks of its available personnel, staffing all fire crews and bulldozers on round-the-clock shifts. The agency is ready to call in additional personnel in the event of a major fire, spokesman Will Powers said.

The pre-planned response helped corral a small blaze that broke out before 9 p.m. Friday off Sweetwater Springs Road in western Sonoma County. The fire destroyed a large pool house. Its cause was unknown Friday night.

The weather forecast was not deemed severe enough to prompt the kind of pre-emptive power outages implemented by PG&E in mid-October, when service to 17,000 customers in Lake, Sonoma and Napa counties went dark as a defensive measure to minimize the risk of equipment failures sparking fires.

“PG&E’s Wildfire Safety Operations Center and our meteorologists monitor conditions around the clock,” spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said in an email. “At this time, the forecast doesn’t indicate a need to initiate a public safety power shutoff. However, conditions can change quickly.”

A small fire near the Sonoma Coast off Coleman Valley Road on Thursday night was started by a tree branch that apparently fell across a power line. Absent wind, it was kept to about one-eighth of an acre, Bodega Bay Fire Capt. Lou Stoerzinger said.

“If there had been a wind, it might have been a little more exciting,” he said.

The area covered by the red-flag warning includes large swaths of Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties - including places struck by the October wildfires last year.

Kristin Drummond lives in one of those areas. Her family’s home on Cavedale Road above Sonoma Valley survived the Nuns fire that devastated much of the region, burning through ?98 percent of the Mayacamas fire district where her husband serves as a volunteer firefighter.

Drummond, co-chairwoman of the Mayacamas Fire Safe Council and assistant to the fire chief, raised the department’s red-flag warning Friday afternoon to alert neighbors. This is the fourth such warning in the region since Oct. 6, and Drummond said she hoped that neighbors wouldn’t grow complacent.

“I hope people still stay vigilant,” she said.

Gossner echoed that concern.

“Every red flag we have where nothing happens, where a fire doesn’t start, that just lessens everyone’s thought process,” he said. “We’re constantly talking about, ‘Hey, don’t let your guard down.’ Just because we didn’t have a fire last time doesn‘t mean we won’t this time.”

Schneider, the National Weather Service meteorologist, said a slight chance of rain exists next weekend. The 1.23 inches of rain that fell in Santa Rosa early last month put the season rainfall at about 56 percent of normal, though this early in the season the numbers are so low it’s hard to make too much of it, she said. The rainfall season runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.

But with rainfall of 25.24 inches last season, compared to a 30-year average of 36.28 inches, it’s pretty dry, she said.

With highs this week in the 80s - about 10 degrees above normal - the weather has even longtime fire veterans on edge.

“We need some rain,” said Rincon Valley Fire Capt. Ron Busch. “We need a break.”