By David E. Hubler
Contributor, EDM Digest
At least four people have died as a result of wildfires fueled by a heat wave and a blitz of lightning strikes in the state’s northern areas, CNN reported Friday morning.
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Among the dead were “a pilot on a water-dropping mission whose helicopter crashed and a utility worker who was assisting at a fire in the Vacaville area,” The Guardian said.
“And as tens of thousands of people evacuate to shelters, they’re weighing the risk of coronavirus infections after California became first state to surpass 600,000 cases last week,” CNN added.
State Is Experiencing ‘Fires, the Likes of Which Haven’t Been Seen in Many, Many Years’
“We are experiencing fires, the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
Containment of the wildfires remained at 0% Thursday night, with more than 1,000 firefighters battling the blazes.
The wildfires so far have destroyed 175 structures, including homes, and are threatening 50,000 more, Daniel Berlant, an assistant deputy director with the state department of forestry and fire protection, told The Guardian. In all, 33 civilians and firefighters have been injured.
The 22 major blazes still burning have scorched a total of 660,000 acres across the state and destroyed or damaged 660 structures, Berlant added.
In addition to the wildfires, “awful air quality and the coronavirus pandemic are combining to strain public health resources stretched impossibly thin,” the San Francisco Chronicle noted. “The potential for respiratory catastrophe looms large of two fronts: Fires are ringing the nine counties and thick smoke blankets the region.”
Health Officials Are Urging Residents to Stay Indoors
Health officials are urging residents to stay indoors, warning that the combination of smoky air and COVID-19 make those with respiratory conditions doubly vulnerable.
The Chronicle reported that 64,000 residents have been evacuated from San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties as of Friday morning.
The LNU Lightning Complex Fire continued to surge through the North Bay area on Thursday after scorching more than 215,000 acres of Solano, Yolo, Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties.
UC Santa Cruz Orders All Employees and Students to Leave Campus for at Least Two Weeks
On Thursday, the chancellor of UC Santa Cruz issued a campus-wide evacuation: “ALL employees and students living in campus housing must evacuate. Everyone must immediately leave the UC Santa Cruz residential campus and be prepared to not return for at least two weeks. UC Santa Cruz Police Officers will be going door to door to evacuate those remaining on campus.
People will also not be allowed to enter UC Santa Cruz residential campus because of the mandatory evacuation. Access to the residential campus will be limited to first responders and those authorized by me or my designee.”
On Wednesday, a major wildfire roared through Solano County, forcing highway officials to close a five-mile stretch of freeway for several hours between Fairfield and Vacaville, prompting a partial evacuation of Travis Air Force Base, the Sacramento Bee reported.
The fire burned dozens of homes in the hills outside Fairfield and Vacaville, forcing some rural residents to flee in the early-morning dark as flames blew onto their homesteads.
Fire Kills More than 100 Animals on Yolo County Farm
Fire killed more than 100 animals that Christa Petrillo Haefner kept on her parents’ property in Winters in Yolo County — and nearly took her husband too. As she told CNN affiliate KCRA, “I lost seven goats, a lamb, about 75 chickens, 20 turkeys, five ducks and a mare — and a foal did not make it,” because fire swept onto the property early Thursday.
Her husband was on the tractor creating a fire break when a strong gust of wind “sent the fire up and over him,” she explained.
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