We’re closing the blog down but thanks for being with us.
You can read the full report here:
Summary
Here are the main developements with the California wildfires today:
- Firefighters are battling 367 known fires, governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday. Many of these are in northern California, and are burning to the north, east and south of San Francisco fuelled by drought, a heatwave and high winds.
- More than 10,849 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours have caused the fires to start, with Newsom declaring a state of emergency in California, which is already being ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
- Dozens of properties have been destroyed and thousands of people have fled their homes to escape the fires.
- The lightning strikes have given their names to the fire complexes. The LNU lightning complex fire is made up of several fires in five counties north of San Francisco, and affecting more than 46,000 acres.
- Vacaville, a city of about 100,000 people between San Francisco and Sacramento, saw at least 50 homes destroyed. The fire jumped across Interstate-80, closing the road between Vacaville and Fairfield and causing long lines of traffic..
- The biggest fire is the SCU lightning complex burning through 85,000 acres around Santa Clara county south-east of San Francisco.
- There are also a number of fires burning around Los Angeles. You can use this locator map to find out where they are.
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There are 8,900 personnel making up 13 teams across California to fight the fires, the agency said. However, numbers are depleted because the usual backup crews from the state’s prisons are in Covid-19 lockdown and cannot be released to help.
- The Bay Area had the worst air quality in the world on Wednesday as the fires sent plumes of smoke over the region and the city of San Francisco.
You can read our full report here:
Updated
Associated Press have just field an updated report from Vacaville where there are multiple evacuation orders in place.
One resident, Karen Hansen, described the scene: “The whole sky was red orange and it was coming over the hill there and it was massive. I’ve never seen anything like it and it only took a few minutes to get here.”
She evacuated her Vacaville home late on Tuesday as flames rushed toward her family’s small farm, packing up her smaller animals but unable to bring along two beloved horses. They returned Wednesday to find the house and barn destroyed, but their horses had survived.
“I’m not upset about the house. Im just happy that my horses and animals are alive and my daughter,” she said.
However, with I-80 freeway closed in both directions for much of the day many people have chosen to stay in their homes.
Still on the wider implications of the wildfires, Associated Press has spoken to a fire scientist about the link between Coid-19 and the fires.
Jennifer Balch at the University of Colorado says the virus is forcing us into the outside where transmission is lower. But the fires are leaving people with no option but to shelter indoors.
“These disasters need solutions that are in direct conflict with each other,” she said. “Covid-19 is forcing us outside to reduce transmission risk while extreme wildfire smoke is forcing us back inside where the air is better. We’re running out of options to cope, under the weight of compound disasters.”
And there’s also the issue we’ve touched on already about how the lockdown in prisons has deprived firefighters of their usual backup from crews of inmates.
As we said earlier, residents in California have been urged to conserve power as the wildfires raging across the state trigger outages on the electricity grid.
It has people sweltering in their homes as they are unable to use their air-conditioning or even fans to keep cool.
One of the worst hit areas is the Bay Area, where the air quality slumped to the worst in the world on Wednesday with another equally bad day due on Thursday.
Erin DeMerritt, of the Bay Area air quality management district, suggested visiting cooling centers where they were available or any indoor space with filtered air while following mask-wearing and social distancing protocols.
It’s also important to note that bandannas and masks used to protect yourself from the coronavirus do nothing to protect against smoke from wildfires.
There are some very powerful pictures coming out of California, particularly from around Vacaville.
Napa county has also released new evacuation orders as the wildfires continue to posr a “significant threat to life and property”.
New evacuation order issued. https://t.co/uUakDWPn8n
— County of Napa (@CountyofNapa) August 20, 2020
The order says:
An evacuation order has been issued for Highway 29 at the Lake County line to Silverado Trail, Silverado Trail to Highway 128, Highway 128 to Chiles Pope Valley Road, Chiles Pope Valley Road to Pope Valley Road, Pope Valley Road to Butts Canyon Road, and Butts Canyon Road to the county line. This includes the communities of Angwin and Deer Park.
Locator map of west coast fires
To help get an idea of where these fires are burning, here’s a map that the fire authorities in California have linked to. You can zoom in and out so hopefully it will help you (and me) get a handle on things.
Police in Fairfield 50 miles east of San Franciso have issued multiple evacuation orders for neighbourhoods under threat as the LNU lighning complex fire advances south-west from Vacaville.
The fire destroyed at least 50 structures in Vacaville, including some homes, and 50 were damaged, according to Associated Press.
The fire then jumped interstate 80 in the afternoon and began to bear down on Fairfield.
Evacuation Order Peabody Rd/ Cement Hill Rd/ Vanden Rd (Circled on map) https://t.co/pYbnVAVqSp
— Fairfield, CA Police (@FairfieldPolice) August 20, 2020
Hello. I’m Martin Farrer and I’m taking over the wldfires live blog. You can contact me at martin.farrer@theguardian.com or, if you prefer, on Twitter at @MartinFarrer
The Sacramento Bee has an interesting story saying that there is a shortage of firefighters this summer because hundreds of prison inmates in Lassen county who are usually deployed to help in the effort are locked down because of Covid-19.
According to the report, “only 30 of the state’s 77 inmate crews are available to fight a wildfire in the north state”, citing prison officials.
It adds:
California’s incarcerated firefighters have for decades been the state’s primary firefighting “hand crews,” and the shortage has officials scrambling to come up with replacement firefighters in a dry season that is shaping up to be among the most extreme in years. The state is hunting for bulldozer crews and enlisting teams that normally clear brush as replacements.
Updated
What we know so far about the fires
There are now hundreds of fires blazing across California, but where exactly is affected and how will it be contained? Here is what we know so far.
Firefighters in the state are battling 367 known fires, Gavin Newsom, the California governor, said in a press conference on Wednesday. Many of these are in northern California, fueled by climate change-induced drought coupled with high heat and major storms in the state in recent days.
More than 10,849 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours have created more than 367 new fires, according to Cal Fire, the California Department of Forest and Fire Protection.
There are currently 8,900 personnel making up 13 teams across California to fight the fires, the agency said.
Cal Fire is collectively referring to the wildfires that broke out this week as the Lightning Complex fires. This is because most of them were sparked by lightning and are “complex” fires, meaning there are two or more fires concentrated in one general location.
Fire services distinguishing between the largest active incidents as follows.
LNU Lightning Complex: LNU stands for Cal Fire’s Lake-Napa Unit. LNU Lightning Complex thus refers to the fire that began in Napa county on 18 August and has since expanded to Solano and Yolo counties, primarily affecting the neighborhoods on the western edge of Vacaville. It has burnt more than 46,000 acres and is 0% contained as of 1.40pm PST on Wednesday.
Within the LNU Lightning Complex are a number of individual fires including the Hennessy fire, Gamble fire, Green fire, Markley fire, Spanish fire, Morgan fire, Wallbridge fire and Myers fire.
SCU Lightning Complex: SCU stands for Santa Clara Unit, and SCU Lightning Complex refers to the fire that began in Santa Clara county on 18 August and has since spread to parts of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. So far, 85,000 acres have burned and the fire is less than 5% contained as of 3.30pm PST on Wednesday.
The SCU Lightning complex includes more than 20 fires in addition to an 800-acre brush fire in Point Reyes national seashore. They are divided into three zones: Calaveras zone, Canyon zone and Deer zone.
CZU Lightning Complex: CZU stands for San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit, referring to the fire that began in Santa Cruz on 17 August and has since spread to parts of San Mateo county. So far 10,000 acres have burned and the fire is 0% contained as of 4pm PST on Wednesday.
The CZU Lightning complex includes the 5-15 fire, 5-18 fire, 5-14 fire, Waddell fire and Warrenella fire.
– Kari Paul
Updated
Residents in northern California seeking to flee the expanding wildfires have run into major traffic delays as the blazes shut down many highways in the area.
Traffic stopped on westbound interstate 80 as LNU complex fire jumps across freeeway @sacbee_news pic.twitter.com/NaoaXikfC7
— Molly Sullivan (@SullivanMollyM) August 19, 2020
Interstate 80 between Fairfield and Vacaville in California was stopped on Wednesday afternoon as the LNU complex fire jumped across the six-lane freeway and spread up the hill on the other side.
Wildfire jumps I-80 in Fairfield, shutting down lanes, threatening homes and forcing residents to evacuate.
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) August 20, 2020
🎥:@dustingardiner
Read more: https://t.co/LOHr2HISS3 pic.twitter.com/sOf2z58iuD
The highway is near the areas experiencing evacuation orders on Wednesday. California Highway Patrol officers waved traffic onward through the smoke.
- Kari Paul
Updated
Wildfires have forced Californians from their homes and into evacuation shelters, but the pandemic is complicating efforts to safely feed and house evacuees.
At one evacuation site at the fairgrounds in Santa Cruz, workers set up a dozen large tents inside a large warehouse-like building, with each tent spaced six feet apart. Site organizers, wearing protective masks and gloves, took evacuees’ temperature once they were allowed inside the shelter, reported the Mercury News.
In years past, dozens of cots would have been lined up just a couple feet apart. But things have changed, said one rescue worker: “You can’t do that in Covid and expect a pure result,” he said.
Elsewhere, in Sonoma county, officials raced to establish a separate evacuation center for anyone with symptoms of Covid-19. And a number of sites are hustling to secure hotel rooms to house the recently displaced.
“Go where you can congregate with the smallest amount of people you can – that would be preferable,” one Stanford doctor said. “It’s not going to be ideal no what matter what we do.”
-Mario Koran
Updated
A helicopter involved in the fight against fires has crashed south-west of Fresno, in California’s Central Valley, sparking a separate brush fire.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the crash happened around 11am. Rescue teams entered the rugged terrain to search for survivors, but the conditions of those aboard remains unclear.
– Mario Koran
Updated
Fires burning in all but one of the nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay area has created the worst air quality in the world.
An air quality map from the San Francisco Chronicle shows fires that are ringing the metro area and the poor air that’s settled over the region.
So what does poor air quality mean for people recovering from Covid-19?
“People are already worried about catching the virus and becoming ill. Having respiratory problems and other problems, and then having a natural disaster to deal with or multiple fires going on during fire season is not pleasant,” Vinayak Jha, a San Francisco pulmonologist, told the Chronicle.
Breathing in wildfire smoke can cause shortness of breath, coughing and sore throat and could exacerbate symptoms of Covid-19, he said.
Wildfire smoke is like tobacco smoke without the nicotine, said a professor of medicine and environmental health sciences. When burned, it produces carbon particles with toxic hydrocarbons.
When inhaled, the fine particles make it deep into the lungs, causing inflammation. The condition has been found in the lungs of firefighters. The closer someone is to the fire, the more risk of inflammation.
A growing number of reports emerging from China, Europe and the US suggest that poor air quality is associated with increased Covid cases and deaths, Jha said.
-Mario Koran
Updated
Evacuee tells of terrifying escape from Vacaville: ‘The sky was just orange’
Terilyn Steverson, 28, felt helpless much of Wednesday as she waited to hear about the fate of the Vacaville home she grew up in – a home that has been in her family since the 1970s. She and her sister currently live about an hour away, but their uncle, who has mental disabilities and requires care, still lives in the house.
Steverson and her sister had planned on staying with him to keep him company until the fires passed – instead, Steverson woke up at 3am to multiple phone calls from friends in Vacaville, telling her about the mandatory evacuation. “I called him to tell him we’re coming to get you and I couldn’t get a hold of him for 10 minutes,” she said.“It was literally the longest, scariest 10 minutes of my life.”
He had left with a neighbor, bringing with him a change of clothes and some personal belongings. Steverson and her sister hopped in the car and rushed to pick him up from another friend’s home in Vacaville, driving straight into a hellscape. “At three, four in the morning, the sky was just orange,” she said.
“There was just this glow of orange and red. We hit Vallejo and there’s this light ash falling from the sky. We get closer and closer and the closer we get to Vacaville, the thicker the smoke is and the thicker the ash is that is falling from the sky. It was so scary.”
Steverson and her sister weren’t allowed back into the neighborhood to pick up any possessions of sentimental value from their family home. But all that mattered to them was getting their uncle and getting to safety. What’s been harder, she said, was not being able to lean into her community in the face of this disaster. When she picked her uncle up at her friend’s house, she couldn’t hug her friend or comfort her friend in the way she normally would have without the threat of coronavirus.
“In times of crisis you find out that the community you built is even more important than you thought and really connected,” she said. “And it’s just weird that we can’t be there to support each other at this time. We just wouldn’t be able to do the things that are so naturally human.”
Having grown up in Vacaville, Steverson had always been ready in case of evacuation with a “go bag”. She asked that others in California be prepared and have a bag ready to grab and go in case the need to evacuate should arise, whether because of a wildfire or an earthquake.
“Every year we have fire season. Every year they say we might have to evacuate. But it’s never been to a point where it’s 3 am and everybody has to get out of the house right now, get all your stuff, go go go,” she said. “It’s just been really surreal.”
– Vivian Ho
Updated
How did we get here?
Maanvi Singh reports:
A bout of unusual, extreme weather has spawned many of the fires raging across California today.
First came the heat, which scorched through the west starting this past weekend, bringing record-breaking temperatures. Then, a tropical storm off the coast of Mexico brought in humidity, and a thunderstorm more than a thousand miles south of the Bay Area brought in moisture and created ripples of pressure that triggered thunder and lightning across swathes of northern and central California.
Thick smoke covering much of NorCal this AM. Two lightning fire complexes made almost unbelievable forward advances overnight in Santa Cruz Mtns & near Vacaville--together burning >50,000 acres since yesterday. #CAwx #CAfire #LNULightningComplex #CZUAugustLightningComplex pic.twitter.com/Ipm4bB84IG
— Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) August 19, 2020
High winds stoked flames ignited by the lightning – and helped them quickly spread across hundreds of acres. “In once case, I saw footage of lightning strike a bush – and then that became the Hennessy fire,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.
A particularly dry winter and spring had dried out brush and vegetation fueling many of the fires. “Now the fires are also burning through coast redwoods, through tense forest that would be normally pretty damp still this time of year,” Swain told the Guardian – noting that the recent heatwave, and the dry months that preceded it have primed the state’s forests to burn.
Updated
Firefighters are in short supply in California as the state continues to face hundreds of fast-spreading blazes.
Nearly 7,000 firefighters are currently on the frontlines fighting the fires, but it isn’t enough: agencies have requested 375 fire engines from neighboring states. Arizona and Nevada have sent equipment to California and Texas has offered to send firefighting crews, Governor Gavin Newsom said in a press conference on Wednesday.
“We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Newsom said. “That is a resource challenge where they are stretched in ways where we haven’t seen in the last few years.”
The difficult job is made even harder this year by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Many of the incarcerated laborers relied upon to fight fires are out of commission due to outbreaks in prisons across the state. Prisoners are crucial in the state’s fire response plan, fighting fires in exchange for wages as low as $2 per hour and reduced sentences.
Non-incarcerated firefighters who are able to work risk contracting Covid-19 themselves. Most firefighters stay in makeshift communities near the hot zones, sleeping close together. A Covid-19 outbreak could quickly sweep through such camps, and exposure to wildfire smoke can worsen Covid-19 symptoms and outcomes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and prevention.
Covid-19 outbreaks affecting firefighters could easily threaten the firefighting mission, according to a study published by researchers at Colorado State University and the US Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station.
“If simultaneous fires incurred outbreaks, the entire wildland response system could be stressed substantially, with a large portion of the workforce quarantined,” the study’s authors wrote, suggesting social distancing and screening measures in the camps.
- Kari Paul
Updated
Maanvi Singh reports:
Last night the sky over Vacaville, California, was glowing red, and clouds of smoke had been raining ash down Valerie Arbelaez Brown’s street. So when a neighbor knocked on her door at 4.30am, urging her to evacuate, she told her four kids to grab their most precious possessions – “the things money can’t buy” – and tucked the whole family into the car.
The fires in Vacaville have been moving so quickly that police and fire crews began knocking on doors at dawn, asking residents to evacuate as fast as possible.
Arbelaez Brown, who had worked as a disaster relief responder for the Red Cross, said she’d been trained to keep her wits about her amid crisis. But she said even she was shaken by how fierce the fire was. She and her husband returned to their home after dropping their kids off with a family member who lives near Sacramento, away from the fire’s immediate path. “We wanted to grab a few more things and we could see – the fire was right there,” she told the Guardian. “It was like, a five-minute walk away – in the hills where my kids and I normally go biking.”
Now she’s sheltering with family – and she’s not sure if her house will survive. “The fire was moving so fast – and it was engulfing everything around us,” she said. “My 14-year-old was freaking out, crying. But I explained to the kids we can replace things, we can rebuild the house. As long as we’re safe.”
Updated
LNU Lightning Complex fire north-east of San Francisco burns more than 45,000 acres
Residents of Vacaville, just north east of San Francisco, are in shock after a 46,225-acre fire ripped through their community overnight, forcing them out of their homes.
The blaze, called the LNU Lightning Complex fire, is a cluster of 20 fires that has ravaged Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties in California’s wine country.
“I was running around in circles,” one resident, Danyel Conolley, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I couldn’t piece together a rational thought. I forgot to pack a lot of things. I forgot my deodorant. I wish I remembered my deodorant.”
Further west, in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, a blaze dubbed the CZU August Lightning Complex, has already burned 10,000 acres and is 0% contained, according to Cal-Fire. Time lapse imagery shows the progression of the explosive fire.
#Timelapse: Sudden explosive development of the #CZUAugustLightningComplex #fire burning tonight in San Mateo & Santa Cruz Counties. @NWSBayArea @CALFIRECZU #CAwx pic.twitter.com/pADZ3B4Trk
— Jeff Boyce (@Negative_Tilt) August 19, 2020
– Mario Koran
Updated
Officials urge residents to conserve power
With temperatures soaring and millions of Californians attempting to work from home, power officials are asking residents to conserve power in hopes of avoiding further power outages.
The California Independent System Operator, which runs the electric grid for most of the state, is asking people to set air conditioners at 78 degrees, avoid fans and appliances, and unplug unused devices between the hours of 2pm to 9pm.
Last night, Cal-ISO cancelled planned power outages, crediting power conservation efforts across the state. Today, it’s asking residents to match yesterday’s efforts.
The heat and rolling blackouts will impact communities unevenly. Asked by a reporter what support he can offer low-income residents threatened by Covid, heat and outages at once, Newsom said officials are moving fast to establish cooling centers where residents can find reprieve from the heat.
- Mario Koran
#FlexAlert has started. #Conservation prevented outages two days in a row. Let's do it again, CA. #EveryWattCounts from 2-9 pm today. https://t.co/Z9VKmW4fSf
— California ISO (@California_ISO) August 19, 2020
Updated
Officials expand evacuation orders as fires burn out of control
Three wildfires and more than 10,000 acres are currently burning out of control around the San Francisco Bay Area, prompting officials to issue evacuation orders for residents living near the blazes.
Gavin Newsom, the state governor, said today that he has asked three states – Arizona, Nevada and Texas – to provide hundreds of fire engines to help contain the flames.
Evacuation orders are also coming down for residents in Glenn and Tehama counties, north of the Bay Area. – Mario Koran
Evacuation Order expanded to include all areas west of County Road 306 west to Mendocino County line. Full length of County from Tehama County line south to Colusa County line. #GlennCounty #AugustComplex pic.twitter.com/AlAizoPraM
— Glenn County OES (@GlennCountyOES) August 19, 2020
#LNULightningComplex - New evacuation orders for the Green Valley area in Solano Co, everything west of Suisun Valley Rd & north of Rockville Rd, to the county line. #Fairfield #Vacaville #HennesseyFire pic.twitter.com/eT9Krot7mD
— CA Fire Scanner (@CAFireScanner) August 19, 2020
Updated
Bay Area has worst air quality in the world
Wildfires in northern California have made the air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area the worst in the world.
As fires blaze through eight of the nine counties surrounding San Francisco, smoke is drifting across the region and light ash falls from the sky.
The American Lung Association is urging resident to take greater caution, saying the poor air quality could exacerbate breathing problems for people who at-risk of contracting Covid-19.
“The combination of uncontained wildfires and extreme heat has created conditions that put even healthy individuals at risk,” Afif El-Hasan, an association spokesman told the Los Angeles Times. “The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic only makes these potential effects more serious.”
Intense smoke and heat trigger coughing, wheezing, worsen lung function and lead to bronchitis or even death, he added.
Bandanas and most cloth masks may provide some protection against infection, but they don’t protect against particulate matter from the smoke, said Erin DeMerritt, the spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
- Mario Koran
It’s raining ash in California, forcing us to wear a different kind of mask than we wear for the pandemic when we go buy the generator we need for either rolling blackouts or preemptive outages so we can work from home if we haven’t been evacuated or our house hasn't burned down
— Demian Bulwa (@demianbulwa) August 19, 2020
What it’s like to live in California right now.
— Wldfyre (@TwitchWldfyre) August 19, 2020
My car was JUST washed and all of this is ash from the wildfires surround us. ITS LITERALLY RAINING ASHES!!!! pic.twitter.com/XB4iLaG9l5
Smoke and Ash in San Jose CA from fires in California pic.twitter.com/Vxqa2leEdL
— RyanPlanes (@RyanPlanes) August 19, 2020
Updated
Here’s a round-up of some of the most striking images so far as California battles numerous wildfires up and down the state.
Updated
As fires burn across the state, from Eureka to the outskirts of Los Angeles, Cal Fire has a simple and urgent message for Californians: pack your bags and be ready to go.
“My recommendation is that all the citizens in California be ready to go if there is a wildfire,” the Cal Fire spokeswoman Lynnette Round told the Mercury News.
“Residents have to have their bags packed up with your nose facing out your driveway so you can leave quickly. Everybody should be ready to go, especially if you’re in a wildfire area.”
Californians understand too well that the urgency is not overstated. Almost two years ago, the Camp fire that broke out in northern California became the deadliest and most destructive fire on record. Roughly 153,000 acres were burned, 18,800 structures destroyed and 85 people killed in that case.
Terrifying scenes posted on social media provide just a glimpse of what it looks like to drive through areas within such a blaze.
New evacuation orders for parts of the city of #Vacaville. Police are going door to door. This fire is NOT A JOKE. Leave if you are told to leave.
— Katie Nielsen (@KatieKPIX) August 19, 2020
There are not enough firefighters to do structure protection. This is a live-saving event ONLY! #LNULightningComplex pic.twitter.com/lUJOaCPJ27
Driving through Steele Canyon Rd during the #HennesseyFire in Napa County #FireWx @CAL_FIRE pic.twitter.com/KbA4jwRL3P
— Ethan Swope (@EthanSwopePhoto) August 19, 2020
Updated
California battling 367 known fires, says governor
Of the 367 known fires burning across California, 23 of them are considered major fires, or “complexes” – multiple fires burning in the same location.
While so far fire damage has been limited, there have been roughly 2,000 more fires than there were last year at the same time. The situation has not been helped by a heat dome that’s trapped hot air atop California, nor by the thousands of lightning strikes, some of which sparked wildfires.
Asked by a reporter how he can respond to so many challenges at once, Newsom pointed out that the state has seen it all before.
“Many of these conditions, though they’re stacked on top of each other, are familiar, and there is long-term thinking about where to go and we’re not going to back off our commitment to make real a lot of things we’re promoting. The future happens here first.”
-Mario Koran
California has already experienced more than 2,000 more wildfires than this time last year, Newsom said, to a total 6,754 blazes. The governor said the "heat dome" hanging over the region and the lightning storms have helped cause the surge.
— Capitol Alert (@CapitolAlert) August 19, 2020
Updated
Gavin Newsom just wrapped a press conference on the state’s response to a multitude of crises unfolding at once: pandemic, some 360 fires blazing across California and a record-breaking heatwave.
“We are experiencing fires, the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” the governor said at Wednesday’s presser. The good news, he said, is that so far the concentration of fires, and resulting damage, is not as bad as past years.
The pandemic has complicated a response to fires. As cooling centers are established, and evacuated residents seek shelter, people still must be kept safe from Covid. The ranks of firefighters, filled in part by prison inmates, have been thinned as the virus keeps them from joining the fight.
-Mario Koran
CA has experienced 10,849 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours and WORLD RECORD heat temperatures.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 19, 2020
We’re currently battling 367 known fires.
Grateful for our firefighters, first responders, and everyone on the frontlines protecting Californians during this time.
"The future happens here first."
— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) August 19, 2020
How Gov. Gavin Newsom responded, per @MarioKoran, when asked at a press conference how he can respond to so many crises at once: a pandemic, 100s of fires blazing across California, a record-breaking heat wave, 10,849 lightning strikes...
Updated
The Bay Area is feeling the effects of fires in surrounding areas, with some of the worst air quality in the world on Wednesday. Residents have reported ash falling from the sky.
Bay Area dealing with some of the worst air quality in the world. #BAAQMD has some tips:
— Janelle Wang (@janellewang) August 19, 2020
- Avoid going outside
- Keep windows closed
- If you have AC, put it on circulate
- If it's too hot inside your house, find a cooling center.https://t.co/Z4yrsD1wz3@nbcbayarea #purpleair pic.twitter.com/1JDd5EpBiQ
Authorities are recommending Bay Area residents stay indoors and keep windows shut to mitigate the effects of poor air quality. The National Weather Service has noted that the smoke is causing increased temperatures in a number of Northern California cities including Sacramento, Yuba City, and Redding.
Air Quality in SF is currently ORANGE — Unhealthy/Sensitive Groups: Active youth, adults, and people with respiratory disease should reduce prolonged outdoor exertion. If you do go outside, make sure to wear a face covering & keep physical distance. Visit https://t.co/KEPzIeJQ7r. pic.twitter.com/85ceHYnRe8
— San Francisco Department of Emergency Management😷 (@SF_emergency) August 19, 2020
If you were not already wearing a mask due to Covid, you should now be wearing one for fires, the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management said. Unhealthy and sensitive groups should reduced prolonged outdoor exertion.
Updated
A map from Colorado research facility CIRA shows the number of fires burning in California simultaneously.
Stunning view on @CIRA_CSU of all the Bay Area wildfire heat signatures on the fire temp overlay. #HennesseyFire and #CZUAugustLightningComplex mountains in San Mateo County showing especially strong. Stay safe, heed local evacuation orders #CAwx #FireWx pic.twitter.com/4X0nKftdfi
— Rob Mayeda (@RobMayeda) August 19, 2020
Much of northern California is being affected, with the Bay Area surrounded by fires on all sides, if distantly.
Updated
Newsom said in the press conference there are 367 known fires burning in California as of now, including 23 major fires. He cited the ongoing heat wave in the state for increasing fire risk.
The state experienced a potential world record for heat this week after recording a temperature of 130F or 54.4C in Death Valley. There have been 10,849 lightning strikes in the last 72 hours, Newsom said.
“This is what this state does,” he said. “We’re quite familiar with these challenges. But there’s no question, while last year we experienced some acuity of fires, the total number of fires was substantially lower than what we’re experiencing this year. The last 72 hours has stretched resources.”
As governor Gavin Newsom gives his press conference, it was announced additional cities in California have been asked to evacuate due to the River fire.
#RiverFire UPDATE: Las Palmas Parkway, Ranchito Drive, Indian Springs Road, Berry Drive, Enos Drive, Redding Drive, and Belmont Circle are all being asked to EVACUATE. Stay safe!
— Megan Meier (@MeganMeierKION) August 19, 2020
According to the Monterey county Emergency Services, Highway 68 and River Road remain open for evacuations.
Updated
Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is holding a press conference about the massive state-wide fires, which has prompted him to declare a state emergency.
Newsom says there have been 6,754 fires this year, as of 18 August – an increase from 4,007 at the same time last year.
“This fire season has been very active,” he said, citing more lightning strikes than last year.
Updated
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said on Wednesday that resources in areas affected by the wildfires have been stretched thin.
The agency has requested assistance from neighboring states including 125 fire engines, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. At least 367 fires have broken out in California in the last 72 hours, most of them initiated by lightning strikes during recent extreme weather in the state.
Good afternoon, readers. Kari Paul here in the Guardian’s west coast bureau to walk you through the fire-related news of the day.
There are currently fires in dozens of cities across the state of California with effects being seen in even more locations, including ash falling and smoky air conditions in major cities like San Francisco. Stay tuned for updates.
Updated
Fires rage across the state
Maanvi Singh reports:
Dozens of fires are raging across California, forcing tens of thousands of residents – who were already facing rolling blackouts and the coronavirus pandemic – to flee their homes. The flames, sparked by lightning and stoked by a searing heatwave and ferocious winds, have been moving quickly, overwhelming the state’s firefighters and first responders.
“It’s kind of an overwhelming fire siege,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
A cluster of wildfires in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties now covers an estimated 46,225 acres, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency. The flames have destroyed at least 50 buildings and structures and remain largely uncontained, and come just three years after devastating fires killed 22 and destroyed many wineries in the region. At dawn on Wednesday, firefighters and police officers went door-to-door in Vacaville, in Solano county, rushing to evacuate residents. At least 50 structures were destroyed and four people were injured, according to officials. Television reporters and local residents shared images of roads, fully flanked by flames, blackened land and columns of smoke swirling through neighborhoods.
The ash and soot, which have permeated through the state are especially concerning amid the coronavirus pandemic – as evidence builds that air pollution makes people more susceptible to Covid-19.
Fires were burning in every Bay Area county but urban San Francisco. “So basically, everywhere there’s land to burn, there’s land burning in the Bay Area,” Swain said.
In southern California, the Lake fire north-east of Los Angeles has been raging for more than a week, has spread across more than 21,000 acres. The Dome fire has eaten through more than 43,000 acres including the Mojave national preserve near the California-Nevada border – scorching ancient Joshua trees.
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