Thursday, October 12th
Day 4. I rarely bring an electronic device into bed; I have enough marginal habits as it is. That all changed with the firestorm, where situations can and do change by the minute, and middle-of-the-night texts can mean life or death. I wake up at 5:45am and reach for my phone. It’s quiet and Nixle is quiet too. Curious. I call Erich, and he says the winds and potential new firestorm never came. They went elsewhere, but not right through Sonoma County as forecast. He’s tired, says he stayed up all night. Again.
Image: The love in the air is thicker than the smoke signs start popping up all over wine country, along with the hashtags #SonomaStrong #SonomaProud #NapaStrong #NapaProud and #CAWineStrong. This community is banding together like nothing we've ever seen.
If you work anywhere in the winemaking world, you are most likely into weather. Never before did I meet so many weather junkies than those working for wineries. At the core we’re farmers and weather matters. A lot. It drives hundreds of decisions per year, especially during harvest. It’s been a long time since I saw a forecast miss by this much, and never before has a missed forecast mattered so much. Take that, fire.
Erich says the peak gust anywhere in the hills above the Sonoma square was 6 mph. That said, he informs me that winds are forecast to blow from the Northeast on Friday night (in 1 1/2 days) at 30 to 50 mph. My first thought is we’ll see - although all of my major Internet weather sources are right in line with each other on their predictions. Erich notes the firefighters have two days with favorable weather conditions to get an upper hand before the warm, strong winds return – from the same direction as the first night firestorm.
Image: The ground and aerial attacks on these firestorms is like nothing we've ever seen. Over 11,000 firefighters on the front lines, not just from California, but from far away as Australia. The aerial deployment included 37 helicopters and 36 planes — both tankers and spotter planes — assigned to a complex of fires located largely in Sonoma and Napa counties, as well as Lake and Mendocino counties, Cal Fire officials said. The Press Democrat captured this photo of a plane working to dampen the Tubbs Fire.
Containment is still at 0% on any of the 17 fires. Or 21 fires, depending on who is doing the counting. Burned acres are added in the 20k to 30k range per day. There are now 8,000 firefighters, 700 fire trucks and nearly 100 aircraft. And 0% containment. It’s unfathomable that with that level of resources, NO measureable impact on containment has been made. Zip. Zero. The slow moving train wreck moves on. And on.
I’m out of Menlo Park as fast as I can dress. I grab a coffee and drive the 80 miles back to Sonoma. My suitcase never even made it out of my packed full truck, along with my toothbrush. It was the right call to evacuate last night, but I’m just not comfortable being out of Sonoma. I’m a local Sonoma business owner, and it’s where I belong. It’s where I can manage and monitor and help those who proactively stayed or didn’t have the option to leave.
Image: This is from the Cal Fire Instagram page. It shows one of their nearly 100 aircraft that are actively fighting these fires. We've seen the helicopters, we've seen the planes, and we've seen the fire, smoke and ash. This is surreal.
Back at the office and it’s very quiet in town. Smoky, but quiet, and the wind is dead calm. I’m the only one in the office, and it’s time to check in with all of my employees who are now scattered all over the Bay Area from Sacramento to Rio Vista to Inverness. At the winery we are still having access issues and the authorities are tightening the access points dramatically. Our wine team discovers a hole in the fence behind the facility, and Randy, Matt and Whitney continue the work on our wines until the sunset curfew kicks in.
Image: This is the Sojourn winemaking team's "access point" to stealthly get into the winery to check on our ferments, perform punchdowns and other necessary tasks to ensure that the 2017 vintage will be as spectacular as the past 5 years.
Friday, October 13th
Day 5. Friday is sortie day. The fires are coming closer to downtown Sonoma. CalFire, in charge of the overall disaster resource management decisions (planes, firetrucks, crews), has had enough and decides to move the cavalry into the hills surrounding town. Planes and helicopters start dropping fire retardant and water, bombarding the hills above our town and flying mission after mission. Maybe 60+. Or 100+. All day. Finally. DC-10’s and even the one 747 tanker take their turns at their targeted drop zones ahead of the forecasted high winds.
Image: Helicopters are a key part of the aerial attack in saving homes. This image taken by the San Jose Mercury News trying to put out fires in the heavily populated city of Santa Rosa.
As evening approaches, town is eerily calm. Empty. Kind of creepy and ominous.
Image: The Sonma town square as evening approaches. The mood is dark, quiet and somber. The streets are mostly empty. Image source: San Jose Mercury News.
I get together for an easy dinner at my friend Don’s house. We drink a 2001 village Dujac Morey and 2005 village Dugat Gevrey. They taste fine. It feels like it would be disrespectful to drink anything better given that we are under siege. Don’s wife advises us to put the wine opener away in case we need to evacuate in the middle of the night. It's probably good advice.
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