Escape from the Napa Firestorms

Trip Leaders Build Expectations - On Sunday morning
everybody is looking forward to a great week!

October 10, 2017, San Francisco, CA. I need to record my experiences over the past 48 hours. This week I was supposed to be on a Backroads bicycle trip to Napa and Sonoma valleys. I got in one good day of bicycling and then the "roof caved in" on the vacation.

Some 20 of us began cycling Sunday morning at Yountville Park, at the corner of Lincoln Ave and Washington St. in Yountville – the heart of Napa Valley. It was a warm, calm day with temperatures drifting into the 80s but no significant wind. After a screaming downhill down the Silverado Trail in which the gathering winds were at our back, we began a climb up Buhman Road to the southwest of the town of Napa. A short visit to the Artesa Vineyard – mostly to take pictures of the Carneros viticultural area – was followed by a descent to lunch at the Etude Winery. After lunch we biked from Napa County to a much poorer Sonoma County (based on the distinctive drop in pavement quality).

Passing from Napa to Sonoma counties one encounters a
rapid increase in potholes and pavement cracks.

The view from Artesa Winery looking back at the foothills
of Carneros Valley. 24 hours later many of these hills
were in flames and the view was in smoke.

At the Ravenswood Tasting Room in Sonoma

The weather got much warmer as the afternoon wore on. I maintained a good enough pace to stop for an extended tasting at the Ravenswood tasting room, a mere four miles from our destination. I tasted and bought zinfandels from the maker famous for zinfandel, and two shirts. I also got a chance to circle the Sonoma Plaza, and visit the Old Barracks where the California Republic was declared. 

Our group filtered in to the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn during the late afternoon, and we enjoyed a delightful dinner Sunday evening. There was some discussion of the following day’s ride, which would bring us from the Sonoma valley to the coast through the town of Santa Rosa. We went to bed thinking Monday's biggest challenge would be the long, difficult climb up the Sonoma Mountain Road. 

By about 10PM, the wind really began to howl to the point of shaking the windows. In the morning, as I stepped outside, I immediately smelled wood smoke. Two people walking by said something about Sonoma and Napa being on fire. I grabbed my cell phone and searched for “Sonapa and Noma Wildfires”. I had just woken up, and I was a little disoriented. Tellingly, Google knew exactly what I meant.

As it turns out, the wind caused an explosion of wildfires throughout the territory north of San Francisco bay. One of the largest began just west of the town of Calistoga (where my rental car was parked). This was called the Tubbs Fire. Wildfires are given names based on a geographic feature near their point of origin – in this case a small side road called Tubbs Lane. The wind was from the Northeast, so the Tubbs Fire spread quickly through the remote mountains between Calistoga and Sonoma County. It was believed to have started around 10PM, but by midnight it had reached the northern suburbs of Santa Rosa. There, people woke each other up by banging on doors as the fire moved faster than people could run. There were many stories of people rushing to escape with just the clothes on their back. Two hospitals were forced to evacuate overnight, and there were pictures of patients being wheeled down the street in hospital beds. 

So much for having lunch in Santa Rosa on Tuesday.

The hotel was operating with about half its staff. Breakfast was late and there was no distinction between groups – everybody formed a line. The Backroads leaders were nowhere to be seen during the 7AM hour, but we were fairly certain they were communicating with corporate headquarters and assessing the situation. By text I made sure that we were not required to be packed and ready in accordance with our original schedule, which had the group cycling out of the hotel at 8:30. 

At about 8AM the leaders showed up to tell us that the trip was canceled. We would all be deployed to the places we were supposed to be on the last day. Several of us had cars at the Solage Resort in Calistoga. This seemed to be impossible -- the other side of the Tubbs fire -- but Google Maps indicated that the road to Calistoga (due north of us) was still open.

Not so much.

Route 12, the Sonoma Highway, was closed before Glen Ellen (at Madrona Road)

Our Backroads leader, Lauren, discusses evacuation options with local law enforcement
in the distance by the police car.

It turns out there were several fires to contend with. South of Sonoma, along the north shore of the bay, there was the “37 Fire” that burned the grassland around State Route 37. This closed that major connecting road and escape route to San Francisco. On our way north, long before we got to Calistoga Road (and the Tubbs Fire), we ran into closures due to the “Nuns Fire”. In fact, we ran into the Nuns Fire itself. Billowing smoke could be seen on the hillsides on either side of the road, and a emergency vehicles blocked the road. We were forced to turn around and return to the hotel.

Along Route 37 we encountered the devastation from the early morning "37 Fire"

This was mostly grassland, with some cattle and some burned-out structures.

Some areas were still smoldering.

About an hour later, the 37 Fire to the south had burned itself out. Backroads decided to take us all to San Francisco. Some fast phone calls booked us all at the Hotel Vitale (at a quoted price of $375 per night). The drive there was thankfully uneventful, and we said our goodbyes to the trip leader in front of the hotel.

My problem at this point was that I had travel paraphernalia all over northern California. My rental car was in Calistoga with my bike case. I had my luggage and my bike with me in SF. My reservations and return flights were from Sacramento on Wednesday morning. I had connected with United back in Sonoma and re-booked myself to return Wednesday instead of Saturday.

Backroads told us that those of us with rental cars in Calistoga were expected to wait in SF until the roads opened up. At that point, Backroads would shuttle us north to pick up our cars. I knew right away this would not work for me. I still held hope on Monday evening that the roads to Napa would open up Tuesday, but, I needed a “plan B”.

Plan B went like this: I would take my bike to a bike shop and have it packed and shipped home. I would book a flight late Tuesday from San Francisco to Sacramento. Then I would make use of my reservations for a hotel Tuesday night and flight Wednesday morning. As for the rental car and the case, I had a discussion with Enterprise Sacramento and they agreed that they would retrieve the car when the roads opened. And, when the car was retrieved, the case would be dropped at the desk at the resort where the car was parked. Backroads agreed to take care of shipping the case home.

By mid-morning Tuesday it was clear that the fire situation was getting worse, not better, in Napa Valley. Roads were closing and opening, and the entire situation was unstable. It appeared that the car was safe – the fires appear to be out in Calistoga at the northern end of Napa County. But, two other fires – the Patrick Fire and the Atlas Fire – were blocking the roads up the narrow valley. Plan B was executed without a hitch, and I was back home eating dinner with Robbie Wednesday evening.

Backroads has offered a complete refund, or a credit toward a future trip. Enterprise expects they will eventually recover the car and is likely to add a towing charge. Still, it cost me about $1000 to get myself and my equipment out of town and to get everything back in place.

Or course I view my personal expense and inconvenience in perspective. As we were checking out of the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, we encountered a couple who had just lost their brand new home in Glen Ellen to the “Nuns Fire”. They got a knock on the door and had to evacuate with the clothes on their back. According to the news there are over two dozen deaths and hundreds missing. The destruction in Santa Rosa is near-absolute. The pictures of burned out neighborhoods look like cities after a World War II bombing campaign. And, some thirty souls (probably more) did not get a chance to escape. If the winds had blown a few degrees further south, my outcome might have been much worse.

It’s difficult to convey the suddenness of this disaster. It was truly a “fire storm”.  Everyone turned out the lights Sunday night thinking Monday would be a normal Columbus Day holiday. The weather service did issue a “red flag” warning because of the high winds and low humidity, but that applied to all of Northern California. There were zero existing wildfires at 9PM on Sunday. By 2AM Monday, major portions of Wine Country were engulfed in flames or wallowing in smoke.

It’s also amazing that I experienced what may be the “last normal day” for much of Wine Country.

The "Last Normal Day" overlooking Carneros Valley
from the Artesa Winery -- now an "evacuation area".

Several of the fires closed roads that we rode on Sunday. The Ravenswood tasting room was closed Monday because of a loss of power, and it was surrounded by tendrils of the Nuns Fire on Monday evening. During the screaming downhill run along Silverado Trail, I remember seeing Chimney Rock and Stags Leap wineries. They are both in the area of the Atlas Fire, and possibly damaged or destroyed. On Wednesday Calistoga was evacuated, and Thursday afternoon the Sonoma Mission Inn closed down and evacuated.

The damage to this tourist mecca may be long lasting. Our evacuation van trip south from Sonoma went through a burned-out wasteland. Several fires are single-digit percent contained. Most wineries have survived the initial few days, but if the winds return and blow the wrong way for an extended time, vineyards, hotels, tasting facilities and other infrastructure will be destroyed.

Smoke from the fires reached San Francisco
on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

Everybody is hopeful that reinforcements arriving Tuesday and Wednesday will help ease the situation, but experienced firefighters say these things last a lot longer than expected. There is no rain or even cool weather in the forecast. It may take years to recover.

I should say thank you to the companies that have helped me through this. Hilton allowed me to make several changes to my reservations past the cancellation deadline. The Sonoma Mission Inn fed everybody Monday morning with a skeleton staff. They worked hard to update open and closed roads, and did what they could for the worst off. Enterprise Rental Car is not charging me for a "loss of use", and they are working hard to recover the car at minimal expense. United kept operating in the smoke at both SFO and SMF airports. And, Backroads made the right decisions at the right time (although a little more help with transportation around their home base would have been nice).