A swarm of fires supercharged by powerful winds ripped through Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino counties Monday, killing at least 10 people, injuring dozens of others, destroying more than 1,500 homes and businesses, and turning prominent wineries to ash.
Starting in the middle of the night, the fires hopscotched across neighborhoods, raced across fields and jumped freeways. Wind gusts up to 70 mph pushed walls of flames nearly 100 feet high, throwing embers ahead like hot fingers into strip malls and subdivisions. Many people who fled the surge had enough time to grab car keys, perhaps a pet, but not much more.
And some didn’t get out. Sonoma County sheriff’s officials said seven people had died in that county. Two people died in a blaze in Napa, state fire officials said. A 10th person was killed in Mendocino County.
I learned something in all the discussions on this:
When something like this happens if you can’t get your animals out, you spray paint your pet/horse and set them free. Then when things are over someone will hopefully find them and call you
In this type of situations, we find out that many homeowners are paying their premiums by the minimum mandated under the terms of their mortgage contract. They think their properties won’t get damaged by fire or floods.
It’s been on the news but if you text message 888777 with an zip code of an area your worried about, you will get alerts on evacuation status from the police. Petaluma is told to prepare. My family in Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sebastopol are still ok and holding strong and those homes are still safe.
I once was branding some cattle back home, when the cowboys came screaming very worried to get the hell out of there. A block away, the fire was coming, burning the grass, about 1 foot tall. Me and my brother in law laughed about the exaggerated claim from this cowboy but he kept telling us to believe him to get out of there. 30 seconds later we were suffocating from the smoke and really, really had to get the hell out of there.
Sometimes is not the fire that kills you, it’s the smoke.
I hope there are minimal casualties, people really didn’t see it coming that sudden.
