Dire Situation Unfolding In Northern California Wildfires Today

The Soda Rock Winery in Healdsburg, California in flames during
the Kincade fire this morning. Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images.

A lot of peoples worst fears are being realized in northern California today.

Wildfires, including the huge Kincade Fire, exploded overnight amid extreme Diablo winds gusting in some places past hurricane force, with relative humidities in the single digits. One wind gust of 91 mph was reported this morning near the Kincade fire.

This is about as extreme weather as you can get in wildfire situations, so it's sadly not surprising that things are falling apart quickly in northern California today.

The reporting from television station WPIX in the Bay Area early this morning is stunning.  Like this snippet of their reporting:

"By 3:30 a.m., a wall of fire ws rapidly approaching Windsor, triggering a frantic call from the Sonoma County Sheriff's department for residents - who had ignored a mandatory evacuation order Saturday, to flee now."

For some people, it might be too late to flee, which means I worry some people will die.  In the hard hit town of Geyserville, WPIX reported that high winds ahead of the fire toppled trees across roads, which would make a fast evacuation pretty much impossible. The WPIX reporter giving us this information was standing in front of the Soda Rock Winery, established in 1869 and during her report, fully engulfed in flames.

Seventy-nine structures, including 31 homes, have been confirmed destroyed, says KPIX. I'm sure that number will rise exponentially.

Evacuations ordered went out for a big chuck of Santa Rosa, Califoria, north of Highway 12 and west of Highway 101. By my reading of maps, that's roughly a quarter of the city of 175,000 people. The evacuations extend westward all the way westward to the Pacific Ocean, which makes me think officials think the out of control fire will race to the beach, too strong for anybody to stop it.

This Santa Rosa situation is particularly painful as that city was ravaged by a wildfire just two years ago that  killed 22 people and destroyed more than 4,600 homes.

People whose houses survived the 2017 Santa Rosa fire, or are just moving into rebuilt ones, are understandably traumatized, the Mercury News reports. 

In all, 90,000 people have been evacuated so far, and you can imagine the logistical nightmare that would entail

The Kincade fire started early this past week and was less than 15 percent contained when the winds whipped up this morning. It was breaking through those containment lines, with flames more than 100 feet tall torching trees on ridgetops.  Hot embers are flying in the wind well in advance of the main fire, causing spot fires that are rapidly growing.

Meanwhile, the fire risk, already high in southern California, will go to an extremely critical risk in some areas near Los Angeles tomorrow.  Extremely critical risk, like the one in northern California today, is the highest level of alert for wildfires. It's like a Category 5 hurricane, as compared to a Category 1 type. In other words, much, much worse.

Videos:

Terrifying video from the Los Angeles Times. Turn up the volume. Just the sound is incredible:


Here's the Soda Rock Winery in flames: