Fires in El Dorado County, Santa Cruz Mountains as extreme wind gusts hit California
Multiple wildfires burned Tuesday in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the foothills and other parts of Northern California amid heavy wind gusts, prompting at least one evacuation order, sheriff’s officials said.
Cal Fire responded to a fire in the Aptos area, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office tweeted around 10:40 am. Evacuations were ordered for Nunes and Gillette roads, sheriff’s officials said.
Cal Fire’s San Mateo-Santa Cruz unit wrote in an update around 11:30 a.m. that there are at least five notable fires burning actively in its jurisdiction, ranging from 5 to 15 acres, with two of the incidents prompting evacuations.
The Freedom Fire, burning on Freedom Road north of Watsonville, was first reported at 8 a.m. and led to the evacuations on Nunes and Gillette roads. It was 5 acres. The Panther Ridge Fire, west of Highway 9 in Boulder Creek, is also 5 acres and evacuations are underway. Both are reportedly 0% contained, Cal Fire says.
The largest incident, the Fanning Fire, is also burning west of Highway 9, along Fanning Grade Road. It is 30% contained with no evacuations reported.
The National Weather Service’s Bay Area office tweeted a brief video from a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. camera at Mt. Bielawski which showed three separate smoke plumes in the hills.
Minutes later, that camera — part of the AlertWildfire network — picked up a fourth plume in the distance.
Eldorado National Forest just after 11 a.m. said firefighters were responding to a 20-acre wildfire north of Union Valley Reservoir, about 20 miles from Placerville in El Dorado County. Forest Service officials said “high winds have made access difficult,” tweeting a photo of a large, downed tree blocking a two-lane roadway in the area. This fire is called the Union Incident.
Extreme winds Monday, overnight into Tuesday created fire-prone conditions in various swaths of Northern California and the greater Bay Area. The NWS has not, however, issued a red flag warning. Winds are expected to calm dramatically by Wednesday, forecasts show, and rain showers are possible later in the week.
“Moderate to strong NE winds are still being observed this morning over the Mountains/Foothills & are not expected to level off until later afternoon,” NWS Bay Area tweeted around 11:10 a.m.
The gusts have been strong enough to force the closure of Yosemite National Park. PG&E has imposed public safety power shutoffs for several thousand customers. Tens of thousands more have lost power in the Bay Area due to unplanned outages, likely caused by the wind, according to PG&E’s online outage map.
The NWS, California Highway Patrol, law enforcement and fire authorities have cautioned not only about fires but downed tree limbs and power lines.
NWS Bay Area tweeted that wind gusts reportedly approached 50 mph in San Francisco, ranged from 45 mph to 70 mph above the Big Sur Coast, and peaked near 100 mph in the Mayacmas Mountains northeast of Santa Rosa overnight.
