By now, we have all heard of the devastation caused by the wine country wildfires in 2016. With a new fire season in full swing, many parts of the area still are trying to recover. Many residents forced to flee last fall are facing the same situation again.
The Tubbs fire, as the event was known, began in November 2017 amid dry vegetation and brush. With little rain and the hot Diablo winds off the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains, conditions were prime for an out of control fire.
Northern California is no stranger to wildfires. Situated between the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges, the hot winds from the desert southwest pound the area during the summer and fall. These winds dry out the vegetation and help fuel existing wildfires into raging infernos. This year was no different. It was only a matter of time before an inferno erupted.
In October 2016, during the peak of fire season, crews were stretched to the limit battling wildfires in the West. At approximately 9:45 pm, fire crews were about to come face to face with a monster wildfire. Cal Fire dispatchers received word of a brush fire and quickly alerted nearby crews of the incident. It would turn out to be one of the most devasting fires in Northern California history.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, crews had just extinguished a grass fire nearby when word got out of another fire close by. In order to get an idea of the situation and determine a plan of attack, Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner climbed a ridge to get a better view of the fire. The wildlife preserve set in Sonoma County’s thickly wooded hills was just 6 miles away, and Gossner knew that it was a uniquely dangerous spot. The winds this Sunday night were stiff, and parched grass and tinder-dry trees filled the valleys leading straight to town. Gossner drove up a hill to take a look. Off in the distance, as he crested the slope, was an orange glow, angry and wide.
“My God,” he thought. “We’re in trouble.”
Sometime in the half hour before that radio dispatch — Cal Fire records say 9:45 p.m. — something had ignited in the woods in neighboring Napa County, near tiny Tubbs Lane just north of Calistoga. October is high fire season in California, and all evening the dreaded Diablo winds, dry and reaching hurricane speed, had been blasting through the area at up to 80 miles an hour in 80-degree weather. All that was needed was a spark somewhere.
The Tubbs Fire would be the most lethal and destructive of the fires to scorch the wine country that year. What made this one unique was not how it started, but the fast pace at which it would move. Hurricane force winds, some clocking as fast as 80 miles an hour, tore through the region.
By night’s end, driven by capricious winds, the swarm of conflagrations would hopscotch seemingly everywhere across an astonishing 100 square miles of Wine Country, growing into the worst wildland urban cluster of fires in state history. At least 40 people would die and more than 5,000 structures would be incinerated. One of the nation’s most popular tourist regions would be ravaged, the fires’ unstoppable fury continuing day after day as fire crews struggled to tame them.
While investigators still are not sure of the cause, Jon Keeley, a fire ecologist at UCLA, said the strongest likelihoods are arson or human-induced accidents, a careless match, a spark from a muffler or power lines slapping against trees in the high winds.
Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E, which is responsible for providing power to large parts of California has been cited as a probable cause for its failure to maintain the trees and brush along the path of its power lines. Firefighters estimate that at times, the flames raced 230 feet per minute and, inconceivably, threw embers a full mile ahead of the fire front. It moved so fast that chickens, cats and other animals were charred where they stood, left standing like blackened statues.
Gently spread across Napa and Sonoma counties, the region known as Wine Country is a slow-paced land of vineyards, ranches, suburban tracts and touristy getaways connected by winding, tree-lined lanes and a few key highways. A woodsy cousin to San Francisco, it’s a land of stone-castle tasting rooms, ramshackle farmhouses, old family homes and placid suburbs. Visitors flock to its wineries and world-renowned restaurants throughout the year.
By 7am the next morning, the winds backed down in the growing gray light of dawn and everyone took hope that maybe some relief was in sight. It was not to be. A long, hellish week lay ahead.
When the sun finally crested the horizon around 7 a.m., the smoldering tableau of Santa Rosa instead drove home a sense of hopelessness.
Gossner had only a moment to take in the sight. “The sun came up,” he said, “and ... holy smoke.”
A firefighter for 27 years and a chief for four, he has spent his career fighting fires, trying to save lives. This one left him at a loss for words.
“It was just ... unstoppable,” he said. He pursed his lips, struggled to keep his face a mask of authority. But sadness in his eyes betrayed him.
“You get a pit in your stomach,” the chief managed. “It’s terrible.”
According to The Washington Post, since the autumnal fires, Sonoma and Napa counties have been in deep recovery mode while the grapevines have been sound asleep. But come spring, the region will shift from restoration to renewal.The plants will bud, the winemakers will pour and the visitors will raise their glasses to California Wine Country, which needs a drink now more than ever.
The numbers are startling. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire, for short) reported 21 major wildfires in the area, including the Tubbs and Nuns fires, which consumed nearly 95,000 acres and 7,000 structures in Sonoma and Napa. The inferno wiped out entire neighborhoods, such as Coffey Park and Fountaingrove in Santa Rosa. More than 40 people lost their lives.
“It was like a dragon’s breath was being shot at him,” Rene said of the flames that thwarted winemaker Dan Barwick, who was trying to check on Paradise Ridge. “Things were just crazy, with the glow, the flames and the burning homes.”
‘There were terrible winds and a week of hot weather,” said Lorraine, a volunteer at the Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen.
“The personal stories and accounts convey the intensity and emotion of that experience,” Jeff said. “It’s interesting to look at what remains.”
