An unwelcome change in the weather, with higher winds, temperatures and lightning that threatens to spark new wildfires was coming to parched Northern California, where firefighters have for nearly a week battled three huge “complexes” of fires.
Ben Slaughter, a firefighter for the Boulder Creek Fire Department, walks along Highway 9 while monitoring flames from the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire, Saturday, Aug. 22, 2020, in Boulder Creek, Calif.
“There’s not a feeling of pure optimism, but a feeling of resolve, a feeling of we have resources backing us up,” Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore said. Overall, the fires have killed five people, torched nearly 700 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands from their houses. The storms predicted for Sunday were expected to aid those efforts by changing the direction of the wind.
The fire burning in California’s wine country, north of the San Francisco Bay, had only 1,400 firefighters assigned to battle the blaze. By comparison, the state had 5,000 firefighters assigned to the Mendocino Complex in 2018, which still holds the record as the largest fire in state history — for now.
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