About 250 fires broke out Oct. 8-9 in 2017. In total, 44 people died. More than 300 blazes broke out this week in California, but no one has been killed. Officials tell KQEDnews that communication has been better and evacuations happened earlier.
A woman walks threw the Sonoma County Fairgrounds evacuation center in Santa Rosa, California, October 11, 2017.With the smoke in the air and fire looming in the hills, it’s almost hard not to compare the 2019 Kincade Fire with the North Bay fires of October 2017.swept through the peaks and valleys of wine country and led to tens of thousands of people being evacuated from their homes.About 250 fires broke out on Oct. 8 and 9 of 2017; 21 became major fires, burning more than 245,000 acres.
Those fires, and 2018’s even deadlier deadly Camp Fire, pushed PG&E to begin shutting off power proactively to prevent fires during high-wind conditions. “It's difficult to live with our power now that we're so used to living in an electronic world,” she said. “It's challenging. The temperatures are going down to 31, 32 at night. And it's pretty chilly in the house without a furnace and without hot water.”Gorin said a major plus of the power shutoffs is that they spurred the county to open their emergency operations center early.
While many officials defended their decisions, saying the fire was moving too fast to get everyone out of harm’s way, Now, more people have signed up for the alerts and the county is experimenting with contacting people directly on their cellphones, Gorin said. This time the county is also trying to communicate with people early and often — and reserve 911 calls for true emergencies.
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