NEWS-FINANCE -QUOTE-EDUCATIONAL AND MOTIVATIONAL
Wildfires raging in northern California wine country and central Oregon have destroyed multiple homes and threatened thousands more as hot, dry weather created challenges for firefighters battles the blazes.
Ten structures – including four homes – have been destroyed in Oregon’s Deschutes County as of Monday, where a wildfire dubbed the Flat fire continues to burn.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of homes and personal property and extend our sympathy to those affected,” said the Deschutes county sheriff Ty Rupert in a Facebook post, who also thanked firefighters for saving “hundreds of homes”. About 4,000 homes in the area remain under evacuation notices.
Meanwhile in northern California’s Napa county, a wildfire dubbed the Pickett fire has charred more than 6,800 acres since breaking out late last week in remote territory amid a searing heatwave. The fire is burning in an area that is well known for its wineries and hot springs, and is threatening about 500 structures. About 150 people were ordered to leave their homes, while another 360 were under evacuation warnings near Aetna Springs and Pope Valley, located 80 miles (130km) north of San Francisco, according to Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay.
The Pickett fire is now 13% contained, and more than 1,230 firefighters have been dispatched to the scene, backed by 10 helicopters. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
“The fire is currently holding within its current footprint at 6,803 acres (2,753 hectares),” spokesperson Curtis Rhodes told the Associated Press on Monday morning. “With the weather over the last 48 hours, we’re seeing high temperatures, low humidity paired with some increasing wind in the late afternoon, which was giving our troops some additional work on the eastern side of this incident.”
Firefighting equipment has been put in place to protect vineyards, he added.
Wine production “is a driving force here in the community as far as income and revenue”, Rhodes said.
Flames spared the home and adjacent vineyards of Jayson Woodbridge of Hundred Acre wines, but he said it was a close call on Thursday when the fire broke out and raced along nearby slopes.
He and his son grabbed hoses and futilely began spraying down the steep hillsides. “The water was evaporating as fast as we were spraying it out there,” Woodbridge recalled on Monday. “It was just a hot funnel of air. Fire was just engulfing everything.”
Before long, crews with bulldozers and air support arrived to protect the property. Water-dropping helicopters continued their flights on Monday, keeping the flames contained to remote canyons about 80 miles (130km) north of San Francisco.
With about a month to go before harvest, Woodbridge said his grapes won’t be damaged because of the “pure luck” of wind direction.
“The smoke won’t affect the fruit because the wind’s coming in from the west, thankfully,” Woodbridge said. That wasn’t the case in 2020 when toxic smoke from an enormous wildfire called the Gl*** fire caused Woodbridge and other wineries to scrap much of that year’s crop.
There have been no reports of damage to any vineyards from the Pickett fire, said Michelle Novi with Napa Valley Vintners, a non-profit trade ***ociation.
Hot weather heightens fire risk
Residents of the western United States have been sweltering in a heatwave that hospitalized some people, with temperatures hitting dangerous levels throughout the weekend in Washington, Oregon, southern California, Nevada and Arizona.
Even after the heatwave subsides, the risks will remain. With minimal moisture in areas of California and the Pacific north-west, fire dangers are expected to climb through the next month and into October. Vegetation is dangerously dry and overgrown in parts of Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming.
The intense summer conditions have sparked multiple wildfires across the US west in recent weeks.
In southwest Montana, a firefighter died on Sunday afternoon after suffering a cardiac emergency while battling a blaze dubbed the Bivens Creek fire, which is burning in a remote area with thick timber and numerous dead trees.
The man, who was not immediately identified, was among more than 700 firefighters working on the lightning-caused fire in the Tobacco Root Mountains about 15 miles (24km) north of Virginia City, Montana.
The Pickett fire began in the same area as the much larger Gl*** fire, which crossed into Sonoma county and eventually burned about 105 square miles (272 sq km) and more than 1,500 structures.
The 2020 blaze was driven by wind, while the current conflagration is fueled mainly by dry vegetation on steep slopes – some of it dead and downed trees left over from the Gl*** fire and some of it gr*** and brush that grew back and then dried out again, said Clay.
Clay said the weather has moderated since the California fire began, with Sunday’s high at about 94F (34C). But humidity levels were expected to drop with increasing winds later in the day.
“That’s been a driving factor in the afternoons since we’ve seen the fire activity pick up for the last three days,” Clay said, adding that “support from all up and down California has been critical to our efforts.”
The area of the Oregon fire is in a high desert climate, where dried gr***es and juniper trees are burning and fire is racing through canyon areas where it is challenging to create containment lines, said Jason Carr, Deschutes county sheriff’s spokesperson.
The fire began on Thursday night and grew quickly amid hot, gusty conditions. Fire officials were keeping an eye on isolated thunderstorms in southern Oregon that could drift north on Sunday, a state fire marshals spokesperson, Chris Schimmer, said in a video posted to Facebook.
“If we get thunderstorms that roll through, it can … cause the fire to jump [containment] lines,” said Carr, adding the downdrafts can push fire in multiple directions.
Although it’s difficult to directly tie a single fire or weather event directly to climate change, scientists say human-caused warming from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas is causing more intense heatwaves and droughts, which in turn set the stage for more destructive wildfires.
