Northern California is facing catastrophic wildfires more typically seen in the south. Experts aren't sure why
ESPM professor Scott Stephens comments on the Tubbs Fire that was driven into northeastern Santa Rosa by hot, dry winds blowing a sustained 50 mph. Santa Rosa lost nearly 3,000 homes and many large buildings. “It hit the city like a bull’s-eye,” said Stephens. “[That] is probably the place that surprises us the most — it burned so many houses in the urban area.”
ESPM CE specialist Bill Stewart and Center for Fire Research and Outreach researcher Brandon Collins discuss the conditions that caused the Wine Country fires to be so deadly and destructive. With wilderness reclaiming Sonoma and Napa county land that was once agricultural, the region's "fuel loads" are high. “Hiring contractors to reduce fuels, owner by owner, is expensive and is rarely done,” Stewart said. Multiple ignitions and furious dry winds pushed trees into power lines, exploding transformers and igniting dry foliage into flames. “It is pretty overwhelming to have that much fire activity simultaneously — that many ignitions starting around the same time, covering a pretty large area,” Collins said.
ESPM CE Specialist Bill Stewart commented in this article on firefighter relief teams starting to rotate in for the original crews fighting the Napa and Sonoma fires. “They basically just keep putting more and more people on,” said Stewart, noting that fires started in eight different places and were fast-moving. “For everybody working on this, this is the biggest, most complicated fire we’ve had in Northern California,” Stewart said. There are thousands of residential parcels inside the fire perimeter, including people who live in houses scattered along rural roads, he said. The number of people who are still unaccounted for, he said, is “sobering.”