California wildfires: Glass Fire still active amid red-flag winds; Zogg victims identified

The Glass Fire continues to burn actively in Napa and Sonoma counties, destroying more homes Wednesday and forcing additional evacuation orders and warnings Thursday as more critical wildfire weather arrived.

Napa County issued new, urgent evacuation orders Thursday afternoon for all of Napa County north of the Calistoga city limits between Highway 29, Highway 128 and the Sonoma County line, as well as all of Highway 29 between Calistoga and the Lake County line.

Napa also ordered evacuations for the area between Bella Oaks and South Whitehall lanes, through west to the Sonoma County line, an area just south of St. Helena along Highway 29.

Crews are battling flames in steep, hilly terrain and trying to bolster containment lines that’ll be tested Thursday and Friday as gusty winds anticipated to reach 20 mph to 30 mph are forecast to hit the North Bay.

The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning, denoting critical wildfire weather conditions, for portions of the greater Bay Area along with the Santa Cruz mountains, which is in place 1 p.m. Thursday through 6 a.m. Saturday.

Reported by Cal Fire at 58,880 acres and 5% containment Thursday evening, the Glass Fire is a merged cluster of what started Sunday as three separate wildfire incidents in Sonoma and Napa counties.

More than 2,500 firefighters were working on the blaze as flames made intense runs. Fire sparks or embers were being carried up to a mile by wind and burning new spots, Cal Fire said.

Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit in a Thursday evening update reported the fire has destroyed 220 homes, with 153 lost in Napa County and 67 in Sonoma. Another 69 have been damaged in the two counties.

“Winds are blowing from the northwest, and the fire area is experiencing near-record temperatures and very low humidity,” Cal Fire officials said in the Thursday evening update.

Intense wind gusts Sunday and Monday, during an earlier red flag warning, led the Glass Fire to erupt in size and sprint quickly toward the eastern edge of Santa Rosa, prompting urgent evacuations there and in nearby cities and towns.

The fire burned “actively throughout the night,” Cal Fire said in a Thursday morning incident report, due to low nighttime humidity and above-average temperatures.

The wind beginning Thursday isn’t expected to be as strong as those from earlier this week, but the obvious disadvantage is that now there’s already a much larger, still minimally contained wildfire burning from the outset of the wind event.

Better visibility in the immediate Glass Fire area allowed for greater use of aircraft Wednesday. Cal Fire helicopters and airplanes captured stunning images of the fire’s heavy, deep-orange flames consuming hillsides and producing thick smoke plumes.

The Glass Fire has forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate, including neighborhoods on the eastern edge of Santa Rosa, along with the full evacuations of the city of Calistoga and town of Angwin a few miles to the east. Some of the orders in Santa Rosa city limits have been reduced to warnings, but most evacuations ordered throughout Sonoma and Napa counties have remained in place.

The latest orders issued Wednesday evening extended the evacuated area farther north in Napa County, past Angwin, and all recreation areas in or near Robert Louis Stevenson State Park along Highway 29 are closed.

Highway 29, which runs from Tubbs Lane on the north edge of Calistoga up through to Lake County, remains open to through traffic. All addresses on Highway 29 and all areas west of it within Napa County, though, are under an evacuation warning that extends to the Lake County line.

Gov. Gavin Newsom visited wine country on Thursday to survey the damage.

“Heartbreaking to see the devastation that this fire has caused,” the governor tweeted.

Some of the region’s storied and locally iconic wineries, along with the nationally renowned, three-Michelin-star Restaurant at Meadowood, have also been destroyed or damaged.

The wildfire is also to blame for rapidly worsening air quality conditions across Northern California, including air quality index levels that remain above AQI 150 in Sacramento early Thursday morning. Any AQI reading between 151 and 200 is considered unhealthy for the general population, who should avoid extended periods of outdoor activity.

Cal Fire and local emergency authorities have not reported any injuries or fatalities related to the Glass Fire. More than 2,100 firefighters were assigned to the wildfire incident as of Wednesday evening, Cal Fire said.

Listen to our daily briefing:

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Alexa | Google Assistant | More options

Zogg Fire

The Zogg Fire, which also erupted during Sunday’s high winds and grew quickly, has killed four people.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office released two of their names Thursday: Karin King, 79, who was found on the road where the fire started, and Kenneth Vossen, 52, who suffered serious burns and later died in a hospital. Both were from Igo, just south of Redding

The deadly blaze that spread to neighboring Tehama County has burned 55,803 acres (87 square miles) and destroyed 153 buildings, about half of them homes. It was 39% contained as of Thursday evening. More than 1,700 firefighters were battling the blaze.

The Glass and Zogg fires are among nearly 30 wildfires burning in California. Fire-related deaths in California this year total 30.

Climate change and California wildfires

Wildfires have always been part of life in California. The past four years have brought some of the most destructive and deadliest wildfires in the state’s modern history.

Nearly 180 people have lost their lives since 2017. More than 41,000 structures have been destroyed and nearly 7 million acres have burned – that’s roughly the size of Massachusetts.

So far this year, 30 people have died, according to Cal Fire.

Meanwhile, this year’s August was the hottest on record in California. A rare series of lightning storms sparked a series of fires, including the August Complex that has burned roughly 840,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire in California’s recorded history.

Our climate is becoming more severe.

The 2017 wildfire season occurred during the second hottest year on record in California and included a devastating string of fires in October that killed 44 people and destroyed nearly 9,000 buildings in Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte and Solano counties.

The following year was the most destructive and deadliest for wildfires in the state’s history. It included the Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people, and the enormous Mendocino Complex.

The Bee’s Rosalio Ahumada and The Associated Press contributed to this story.