SAN FRANCISCO _ A series of fast-moving fires in the Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California _ many caused by intense lightning storms _ exploded overnight, burning homes and causing thousands to flee.
The fires stretched from wine country to the Santa Cruz Mountains, moving with ferocious speed amid an intense heat wave that also has brought rolling blackouts. Smoke from the fires has caused terrible air quality across the region.
Many of the fires were believed to have been caused by lightning strikes. Northern and Central California began experiencing an unusually active sequence of largely dry lightning strikes Sunday morning, likely the most widespread and violent in recent memory in the Bay Area on one of the hottest nights in years, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Solano County was facing serious threat Wednesday morning after fire caused residents to flee overnight and burned homes and other structures.
Officials have ordered the evacuation of the western edge of Vacaville _ a city of 100,000 residents about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento _ in the area of Alamo Drive north of Interstate 5 and west of North Orchard Avenue, according to a Facebook post by Vacaville police. The Vacaville Fire District has also ordered evacuations of Pleasants Valley Road, which lies west of the city, and the English Hills area north of the city.
A KPIX-TV reporter on Pleasants Valley Road, with flames visible on hills in the background, described windy conditions and embers blowing toward the south. The reporter tweeted a video of a home burning off Pleasants Valley Road.
The blaze threatening Vacaville was among a number of fires constituting the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which has burned more than 32,000 acres in Napa, Sonoma and Solano counties. The largest blazes within the LNU Lightning Complex include the Hennessey and Gamble fires, which began in the mountains east of the northern Napa Valley and west of Lake Berryessa. At least three structures have been destroyed.
Another rapidly growing fire was burning in the mountains southwest of Silicon Valley, on the border of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. Evacuations were ordered around Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Ano Nuevo State Park, Butano State Park and Pescadero Creek County Park. The so-called CZU August Lightning Complex fire has burned at least 7,500 acres.
Additional evacuations were ordered early Wednesday in Santa Cruz County around Bonny Doon, including Pine Flat Road South. The Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville have been set up as an evacuation center.
Another group of 20 fires is also burning in five counties _ Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Joaquin _ generally in sparsely populated, mountainous terrain east of Silicon Valley and the East Bay and west of the Central Valley. This grouping, the SCU Lightning Complex fire, began early Sunday and has burned at least 35,000 acres.
The River fire in Monterey County has burned through more than 4,000 acres and has already destroyed six structures and damaged two others, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. More than 1,500 structures remain threatened by the blaze, which has prompted mandatory evacuations.
Firefighters are battling flames amid a heat wave that began late last week and has set record-high temperatures across California. On Sunday, the mercury in Death Valley reached 130 degrees _ possible the highest temperature reading on Earth. in almost 90 years.
Temperature records for the day were broken across California on Tuesday, with Woodland Hills hitting 112, breaking a record last set for Aug. 18 in 1949; Burbank reaching 109 degrees, shattering a record last set in 1986, when the mercury hit 100; and Santa Ana, which hit 106 degrees, breaking a record last set in 2010, when the high for the day was 95.
Death Valley also hit a record high for the date, reaching 126 degrees, breaking the high of 125 set in 2001.
Other spots that reached record temperatures for the day included Needles (118), Barstow (113), Paso Robles (111), Sacramento (109), Merced (107), Modesto (106), Anaheim (105), Gilroy (104), El Cajon (102), Long Beach (100), UCLA (97), Camarillo (95), Oxnard (90) and Newport Beach (87). Riverside hit 108, tying a record for the day last set in 1950.
