California Wildfires Grow to Second and Third Largest in State History
Firefighters haven’t yet contained the two massive blazes, as hundreds sparked by lightning strikes burn in Northern California
Two clusters of wildfires ringing the San Francisco Bay Area exploded in size Friday night to become the second and third largest in recorded state history, as firefighters struggled to contain them.
One complex of fires east of San Jose and another north of San Francisco have each spread to around 300,000 acres, fire officials said.
Across the state, a blitz of about 12,000 lightning strikes since Aug. 15 have sparked nearly two dozen major fires, scorching 915,000 acres—a territory about the size of Rhode Island.
The Trump administration on Saturday approved California’s request for a major disaster declaration, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, enabling federal assistance to state and local governments funding emergency response and recovery efforts. Mr. Newsom has already declared a statewide emergency.
More than 13,700 firefighters drawn from state, local and federal agencies are battling the blazes, which have caused at least five deaths and forced more than 115,000 people to evacuate their homes, according to state fire officials. They said at least 700 homes and other structures have been destroyed and an additional 90,000 are threatened.
Government forecasts call for warm and dry weather through the weekend in California. Remnants of Hurricane Genevieve could bring thunderstorms as early as Sunday and continue until Tuesday, according to Cal Fire spokesperson Sean McFadden, with winds of up to 65 mph that could ignite more fire activity.
The largest mass of fires are burning in Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties, a region rich in wine vineyards that has been hit with numerous wildfires in the past few years. Only 15% of the LNU Lightning Complex, as it’s called, has been contained.
The SCU Lightning Complex—another major hot spot comprising three big fires raging throughout the counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus—had torched 291,968 acres in three days as of Saturday morning. Fire officials said 10% of the complex has been contained.
The largest group of fires in California history was 2018’s Mendocino Complex, an inferno combining two blazes that burned more than 450,000 acres north of Napa County’s wine-growing region.
On Friday evening, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office staged a nighttime helicopter rescue operation to save two firefighters trapped on a ridgeline near the coastline in Marin County, less than 100 yards from the head of the advancing blaze. Both firefighters were flown to safety using a 100-foot-long line, according to the sheriff’s office.