By Tom Roth
Chair, Chapter Conservation Committee
I awoke to flashing light and low rumbles early on the morning of Aug. 15. For a few moments I thought I was just imagining the trees flickering. But when I walked outside to my hilltop driveway, it quickly became clear that far south, down the coast, elemental forces were tearing at the night sky and striking the parched land below.
Through the trees I could see the rim of the ocean flash white-silver, but it seemed so far away, the thunder only an angry murmur. So I watched the show, wished the best for those souls beneath it, and went back to bed. A couple of hours later, lightning and thunder were upon us, and I ventured out to powerful gusts, a few rain drops, and this most weird summer storm.
According to Cal Fire, more than 14,000 lightning bolts landed across the state that early morning and the following day, setting hundreds of fires, some which smoldered and then ignited a day later. The storm was the result of two combative weather systems— the remains of a tropical storm from the south and a high-pressure ridge from the east—colliding in the heavens and exploding across the sky with little rain reaching the ground.
California has experienced four such storms since the late 1980s, but none of such magnitude, and none with such perfect conditions for conflagration: a drought made worse by a rainy season cut short in February and a records-setting heatwave in mid-August creating a vast dehydrated landscape.
It so happened that one of those thousands of lightning bolts struck below the ridge straddling Meyers Grade Road, whose southern drop to Highway 1 features a view of the mouth of the Russian River and Bodega Head and Point Reyes jutting out to sea.
On the morning of the 17th, flames and smoke suddenly appeared on the downhill ocean side of the road across from the home of Kay and John Barnes, Sierra Club members and longtime community stalwarts.
What followed was several days of harrowing, heroic firefighting. Volunteers from the Timber Cove FPD were the first to respond, later joined by the Fort Ross VFD, Cazadero VFD, and seven other volunteer crews, as well as several city fire departments from as far away as Cloverdale, and a unit from Oregon. Cal Fire managed the operation and provided helicopters to drop buckets of water and an air tanker releasing fire retardant.
“We really weren’t too nervous with all of this support, and fire engines parked in our driveway,” said Kay Barnes. But as the fire spread in all directions by erratic winds, the Barnes ultimately evacuated.
Four miles away, my family loaded our vehicles with essentials and family keepsakes, and headed out after an evacuation warning became an evacuation order. As we drove out, we could see the Meyers smoke lit bright orange by the sunset, and then from Fort Ross Road to the northeast, flaming ridgetops from the Walbridge fire. A fiery vise seemed a distinct possibility.
While the Meyers fire spread south and even dipped down to the ocean south of Fort Ross, fire fighters battled fierce flames to hold the line at the ridge. They were aided by local dozer operators, who roared past advancing flames and quickly cut a firebreak parallel to Meyers Grade Road and Little Fort Ross Road.
If the fire line had not held, the fire would have lit thick forests tangled with dead tan oaks and raced toward dozens of scattered homesteads and the town of Cazadero.
I was allowed to return home the following Saturday evening, and as I reached the top of Fort Ross Road I was greeted by a heartening sight: several members of the Fort Ross Road VFD spread out on an embankment, talking and laughing and surveying the smoky distance. This small crew with their antique fire trucks had fought heat and exhaustion and had triumphed.
I was proud of them, their fire-fighting allies, and the community that backed them with meals and encouragement.
But this was just a skirmish in a long battle with forces growing ever more powerful each year.
“Every year it gets hotter and hotter, and for more days at a time,” says Kay, who moved to the ridge more than 40 years ago.
Her statement is backed up by NOAA studies, which report that California’s average temperature has increased about 2 degrees since the beginning of the 20th Century, with most of the temperature rise occurring since the ‘70s.
While factors such as land use, aging energy infrastructure, and forest mismanagement contribute to wildfire growth, climate change appears to be the main driver. These heat events coupled by drought have been accompanied by ever more horrifying wildfires.
On Cal Fire’s pre-2020 list of top 20 wildfires, seven of the top ten have occurred since 2015. This year may shatter all wildfire records with more than 3 million acres burned in August and September and at least two months of anxious smoke watching ahead—if the rains arrive in November. Those August heat records? Already broken by the September heatwave.
Kay and John Barnes came to this place 43 years ago to escape the greyness of urban life, enjoy the sun and the sea, grow a garden, raise a family, build a community. They were lucky this time, their home was spared. My family has had to evacuate three times in the last four years, but count us lucky, too. Not so our friends whose house burned down two nights after their wedding. Not so thousands of others in this scorched state.
Our now annual infernos should teach us a lesson: climate change is no longer a blurry future, but an inescapable present danger we must deal with now.