After a day of relative calm, Northern California is bracing for another windstorm that could complicate efforts to contain the immense Kincade Fire that has forced nearly 200,000 wine-country residents to evacuate.
The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for parts of Sonoma and Napa counties between 12 p.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday, with the strongest gusts expected overnight. The increased wind will create “rapid fire growth potential,” the Weather Service said.
At the same time, conditions in Southern California, where the Getty Fire scorched the western edge of Los Angeles on Monday, are expected to be even more dangerous: The Storm Prediction Center warned of “extremely critical fire weather” beginning late Tuesday, when powerful Santa Ana winds are expected to whip across the region. A “long duration of low humidity and dry vegetation will make this a very critical event!” the Weather Service said.
The dire weather warnings came just days after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a statewide emergency over wildfires — and amid an unprecedented wave of blackouts ordered by Pacific Gas & Electric, which has shut power to millions of customers in an effort to curb fire risk.
Fire officials said Monday that they had contained only 15 percent of the blaze, which now covers nearly 75,000 acres — an area more than twice the size of San Francisco — and is moving steadily toward the city of Santa Rosa.
Firefighters got a brief reprieve Monday when gusts died down, but they struggled to keep pace with the expanding blaze as winds changed direction, officials said. Even as officials lifted mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the county along the Pacific coast, they issued new evacuation warnings for a part of Lake County as the flames threatened to lurch eastward.
At least 123 structures have been destroyed in the fire, but only one injury has been reported — and there have been no deaths attributed to the blaze, which is burning in the same region where 22 people were killed in the Tubbs Fire in 2017. Evacuations have largely gone smoothly as the nation’s most populous state adapts to increasing wildfires that many officials link to climate change.
Emergency responders on the other end of the state are trying to beat back a fast-moving brush fire that has consumed about 618 acres on the western edge of Los Angeles. Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) said Monday evening that the Getty Fire was 5 percent contained and had not grown since midday.
The Getty and Kincade fires have been sparked by hurricane-like winds that for three years have caused fiery infernos to break out across the Golden State, which is coming to accept the blazes as the new normal. The gusts are known as “Diablo winds” in the San Francisco Bay area and Santa Ana winds in Southern California.
Northern California faced a blast of wind last Wednesday and Thursday, and again over the weekend, when it was whipped with hurricane-force gusts. The coming surge, on Tuesday and Wednesday, is expected to be the third windstorm in quick succession.
“I’ve been in this business for 28 years; I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Steve Anderson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s forecast office serving the San Francisco Bay area.
Kim Bellware, Kayla Epstein, Derek Hawkins, Hannah Knowles and Jason Samenow contributed to this report.
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