‘Every resource we have’: LNU Lightning Complex among 625 active California wildfires
Fire personnel braced for possible lightning and erratic wind gusts Monday in the greater Bay Area, but it appears the most severe threat has passed without any severe flare-ups to the region’s already-extreme wildfire activity, weather officials say.
Northern California made it through Monday’s early hours without any major incidents, and the National Weather Service canceled a red flag warning that had been in place through Monday evening for the Bay Area, including the North Bay, hours early due to an improving forecast.
However, there are still weak thunderstorm cells in the area, and the fire weather warning remains in place in the foothills and the northern reaches of the state through late Monday evening as the storm heads that way.
Improving weather in the Bay Area is welcome news for Cal Fire and other assisting crews who’ve been battling dozens of major fire incidents for more than a week.
The largest fire currently burning in the state, the LNU Lightning Complex, grew over the weekend to become the second-biggest wildfire in California’s recorded history, according to Cal Fire records. It increased a few thousand more acres to just over 350,000 — about 547 square miles — by Monday morning. The LNU Complex is burning in parts of Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Solano and Yolo counties, and has destroyed hundreds of homes and killed at least five people, according to Cal Fire’s 7 a.m. incident update.
Air resources like tankers “have been stretched thin” due to the volume of fires burning across the state, Cal Fire’s morning report said.
Including the LNU Complex, firefighters are currently battling 625 fires across the state. Ten new ones sparked overnight, Newsom said, and the state is conducting aerial surveillance to determine if there are more.
“We’re deploying every resource we have,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a midday news conference.
Numerous evacuation orders and road closures — taking up 10 pages of Monday morning’s 11-page incident report — remain in place in rural parts of Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties, with over 30,000 structures still considered threatened. Orders in Solano and Yolo counties have been lifted.
Residents should still be ready and on high alert, even if they’re not immediately impacted by an evacuation order or advisory, fire officials say.
“I can’t stress enough the importance of being prepared to leave,” LNU Cal Fire unit chief Shana Jones said Sunday.
The NWS Bay Area office in social media posts says the Bay Area and Monterey areas had a “close call” with lightning strikes overnight, including a few “cloud-to-ground strikes” that appear to have passed just east of the SCU Lightning Complex, another major wildfire burning in the East Bay area.
Dry thunderstorms mean lightning and wind with little to no rainfall, which can create dire wildfire risk. Lightning lit up the sky in Sacramento shortly after midnight.
Fire personnel made headway on the gigantic LNU Complex late last week and into the weekend amid calming weather conditions, after the complex exploded Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning, pushing into Solano County along the outskirts of Fairfield and Vacaville.
“Last night’s temperatures were much more favorable for firefighters,” fire analyst Daniel Berlant said in a Cal Fire video briefing posted Monday morning.
The two biggest fires within the complex are the Hennessey Fire, burning just over 293,000 acres in Napa and Lake Counties, now at 26% containment; and the 54,000-acre Walbridge Fire, west of Healdsburg in Sonoma County, which is 5% contained. The LNU Complex is collectively 22% contained, Cal Fire said Monday morning.
Even with that progress and growing containment numbers, Cal Fire’s Monday morning situation report warned of “extreme fire behavior” challenging the more than 1,850 personnel assigned to the blaze.
Newsom addresses state’s wildfire situation
California’s wildfire season flipped the switch from typical to historically massive in less than two weeks.
The LNU Complex sparked Aug. 17, when an intense thunderstorm system brought down thousands of lightning strikes, starting about two dozen major fires and hundreds of smaller ones across the Bay Area and Northern California. The fire complex has destroyed more than 870 structures and killed five people — three in Napa County and two in Solano County.
Only the 2018 Mendocino Complex, at 459,000 acres, has charred a larger area than the LNU fire. The ongoing SCU Lightning Complex isn’t far behind either of them; it has burned through over 347,000 acres in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties since starting Aug. 16 in the same series of storms as the LNU complex. It has destroyed two dozen buildings and is threatening over 20,000 more.
At this point last year, 4,292 fires had burned a combined 56,000 acres in California, Newsom said Monday. This year, 7,002 fires have burned 1.4 million acres.
At least seven people have died in the fires, Newsom said, including at least five in the LNU Complex. More than 1,200 structures have been reported burned throughout the state, with more likely to be reported as the smoke clears.
Lightning struck the state 289 times in the last 24 hours, Newsom said shortly after noon, and weather forecasts continue to be a source of concern in large portions of the state, even as the Bay Area may have evaded the brunt of the storm to start the week.
“This weekend we’ve got some wind conditions... that could make things more challenging,” Newsom said.
National Weather Service forecasters predict a storm system blowing in from the Pacific Northwest will bring little to no rain, but it could carry cooler air through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys this weekend, though temperatures are expected to stay in the high 90s or hotter.
The best case scenario is that fire crews make more progress on existing wildfires through the end of the week, no major new lightning-sparked incidents ignite and the weekend weather system stays mild while actually helping clear out some of the particulate matter pollution that’s been plaguing Northern California air quality.
In the worst case scenario, the weekend winds prove gusty and erratic, whipping up wildfires even more.
Most Californians who have been evacuated in the past week are not being sent to congregate shelters because of COVID-19 and related physical distancing protocols. About 1,500 evacuees are currently sheltered in hotel rooms instead, Newsom said.
Congregate shelters for evacuees are doing health screenings and putting some families in tents to help separate households. The shelters are also trying to get “as many air purifiers as we can,” Newsom said.
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 7:55 AM with the headline "‘Every resource we have’: LNU Lightning Complex among 625 active California wildfires."
