Sonoma County Burns Oct2017

[Huntn]

Before and after photos of neighborhood destroyed by wildfire in Santa Rosa, California
http://abcnews.go.com/US/photos-nei...dfire-santa-rosa-california/story?id=50397309

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I lived in California, just North of San Diego back in the 1980s and remember when our house was threatened by a wild fire. In a neighborhood, you’d think that if everyone was standing by with hoses to wet down their roofs that what happened in the image above would be unlikely, but this looks like it could have been a fire storm.

I realize that the air quality in the immediate area and the heat, depending how close the wild foliage is to the houses might be so bad that people had to give up their houses or they evacuated early. My impression is that shake roofs are outlawed, I’m surprised that embers would light asphalt shingles on fire. Decades ago I remember seeing a neighborhood totally destroyed except for the one house that had clay shingles.

 

[Beachguy]

I used to live just south of Santa Rosa in Petaluma a few years ago. My friends in Santa Rosa were okay when I checked with them, but it still is hard to see this all.

 

[bradl]

Trust me when I say that it's bad up here.

I'm in Sacramento, putting me about 60 miles from Napa. The smoke was bad in Vallejo, and where my wife used to live in Fairfield, they were under the prepare-to-evacuate stage, where Vallejo and north towards Yountville, Mare Island, Scaggs Island and that area were nailed badly. Last count was 90,000 displaced, over $1.6 billion in losses, let alone damage...

... and the widow of Charles Shulz lost her home. Luckily, Charles' work was not there, as it is in their museum in Santa Rosa, which was not damaged.

.. Tragically, one of the victims of the shooting in Las Vegas lost her home up here.

We here in Sacramento were lucky that the wind was northerly for most of the time, despite that it at times reached the 40 - 50mph range, as it blew the smoke and fire towards the Bay area rather than northeast towards us. However, that caused a couple of those fires to merge, as there was the Atlas fire, the Santa Rosa fire, the Cherokee fire, and 2 others in the area.

Right now, there are at least 40 fatalities, with

Cross that with the Anaheim Hills fire, 20 miles east of Disneyland, and it gets even better, and they are going through the Santa Ana winds down there.

Oh.. and now Santa Cruz is on fire. So the highway between San Jose and Santa Cruz/Monterrey is closed, going through the Santa Cruz mountains. So no access to Felton, Redwood Heights, etc.

Updates for all of the NorCal fires are here:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article179255201.html

BL.

 

[0002378]

I'm actually not that far from Ventura/Ojai, where the Thomas fire is burning. 2nd largest fire in modern CA history, apparently.

 

[kohlson]

We were up in Sonoma a few weeks ago. Our friends told us that the high winds carried burning embers ultimately across many miles, igniting brush, trees and houses. It was a strange site, driving along the highway and seeing the occasional rubble: foundation, chimney, and perhaps a metal chair.

 

[DrewDaHilp1]

The rubble from Coffey Park is mostly cleared now. I’d imagine construction will start in the spring.