Glass Fire 78% Contained As Damage Assessments Completed

Maggie Fusek
Updated ·3 min read

NORTH BAY, CA — The Glass Fire is 78 percent contained, Cal Fire said in a Friday evening update.

The blaze, which started Sept. 27 in the Deer Park area of Napa County, then raced across the Mayacamas Mountains into Sonoma County, has burned 67,484 acres.

Cal Fire expects the fire to be fully contained Oct. 20, the update said.

Air tankers, 10 helicopters, and hundreds of fire engines, along with 1,437 firefighting personnel, are still working to completely throttle the blaze, which is "creeping and smoldering," it was reported Friday.

The wildfire has taken a heavy toll. In Napa County, where the fire forced the evacuations of wide swaths of populated areas, including Calistoga, at least 308 single-family homes were destroyed, the update said, and another 77 were damaged. There have been 343 commercial structures destroyed and 32 damaged, according to Cal Fire, which said damage assessments were completed as of Friday.

In Sonoma County, where the fire burned to Santa Rosa's eastern flank, 334 single-family homes were destroyed — most in the unincorporated areas of the county — and 80 were damaged, while four multi-unit residences were destroyed and four damaged.

At the fire's peak, more than 34,000 residents of Sonoma County and the city of Santa Rosa were under mandatory evacuation orders, while evacuation warnings were issued for thousands of others.

Some 2,560 structures overall remain threatened, the update said.

Most evacuation orders and warnings have been lifted in Sonoma County.

However, widespread evacuation notices were still in effect through much of northern Napa County, where at the fire's peak about 20,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders.

For St. Helena residents returning home, the city said those living east of Silverado Trail should be aware of hazards such as falling trees.

Because the fire burned quite extensively in this area, some of the tree roots and tree bases are still smoldering along Howell Mountain Road, Ridgeview, Sarah Way, Big Rock and Brittany Lane, City Manager Mark Prestwich said Thursday. Residents with concerns about trees on their property are encouraged to consult an arborist/tree service to inspect any damaged trees and remove trees considered a risk.

"As our community transitions to recovery from the Glass Fire, I want to thank our first responders and City staff for their tremendous work and persistence through this emergency," Prestwich said. "Every City department was involved in response activities and long employee hours were invested in firefighting, protecting neighborhoods, mitigating loss of City infrastructure, and supporting emergency response activities.

"Consistent with prior disasters, we will challenge ourselves to identify opportunities for improvement, and implement solutions that mitigate future disasters and enhance our emergency preparedness.

"As we move beyond the recent fires and emerge from the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, our St. Helena business community needs our collective support more than ever. Please generously patronize our local businesses and help write the next chapter of our community’s remarkable resilience."

Prestwich said the city will continue to maintain its Glass Fire Information web page, and messages related to recovery efforts will be shared as information becomes available.

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Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on the Napa Valley Patch