Hennessey Fire, Napa

Watching this one closely. 750 acres burned, 0% contained. Some heavy hitter wineries up in Pritchard Hill.

"Evacuation orders issued for Hennessey Fire
Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued due to the Hennessey Fire, for the following areas:

Hwy 128 from Lower Chiles to Monticello
Hwy 128 from Chiles Pope Valley Road to Lower Chiles Road
Chiles Pope Valley Road from 128 to Lower Chiles Road
All of Hennessey Ridge Road

Evacuation warnings are for the following areas:
Hwy 128 at Silverado Trail to Chiles Pope Valley Road, including the Pritchard Hills Area
Hwy 128 at Lower Chiles Road to Turtle Rock

Road closures in area include:
Chiles-Pope Valley Road
Sage Canyon Road
Highway 128"

That fire looks a lot bigger than 750 acres. I’m staring at the smoke plume above the mountains in between Sonoma and Napa, from a hillside on Sonoma Mtn near Kenwood/Glen Ellen and it looks pretty big. The video in the article you linked has an insane video. God help everyone over there, I hope they get the fire under control.
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Chappellet posted some pictures on their instagram story. Hope everyone is ok out that way

https://www.instagram.com/chappellet_winery/?hl=en

At about 6:30 this AM, my daughter and I were headed to our Semillon block in Yountville. From the truck, I saw some massive lightning strikes in the hills east of Yountville / Oakville and decided to make a breakfast pitstop to let the storm pass. By the time we were out of Oakville Grocery, smoke was rising from behind the Hennessey ridge.

When we were done sampling and headed up to St. Helena, flames were visible from 29 and the fire was clearly coming down the slope. It was moving very very fast.

Watching the local news now, and the fires look pretty close to a number of wineries and their vineyards. Growing rapidly at 2,400 acres already. Hope everyone stays safe.

This is horrible. Prayers to everyone near and far.

Any updates on the Hennessy Fire?..

2500 acres, 0% containment.

We can smell the smoke here in SMF

Here is the link to the Cal Fire website. As Glen mentioned, as of around an hour ago it was 2500 acres with 0% containment.

Ed

Note: Edited for acreage accuracy.

2,500 acres not 25K

And edited accordingly. Thanks for catching that. Watching hockey and typing did not work out too well here. :slight_smile:

Ed

No worries, a bad year getting worse.

My Step-son had to evacuate Stagecoach Vineyard this afternoon.

Chappellet posted that the wind, fire and smoke are headed away from Pritchard Hill. Hope the firefighters can get this one out quickly.

Seemingly 2500 acres burned and still 0% contained

If no changes in wind direction, the fire is heading into flat farm land but there are plenty of combustibles to the north and east. The area it has burned so far is rough terrain accessible only by air and down drafts caused by the fire have minimized the amount of aerial assaults. Fire personnel are spread thin since many No Cal FD’s sent units to fight major fires in northern and southern California.

That seems to be the refrain in the west in recent years. Resources spread thin. Lack of community resolve to have the wherewithal to nip a fire in the bud. It happens here, too. A ho-hum brush fire in the foothills of the Catalinas north of Tucson eventually grew to consume 120K acres, which is most of the Catalina range. The politicos here are afraid to spend money on things like this because, well, it means spending money (even if it saves tens/hundreds of millions in the long run). Preventative measures statewide would have cost a fraction of the $37 million (and counting) it took to contain this one fire. And that doesn’t begin to put a value on the loss of the burned forest land.

And this is just one of the big, costly fires in Arizona in 2020.

Preventative measures…like raking the mountains?.. [cheers.gif]

You combine the COVID-19 tax shortfall with the price increase on rakes due to tariffs and it’s no wonder this happened.