Napa/Sonoma Fires 2024 Edition

It’s probably smoke from the Point Fire, it’s blowing SE.

Yeah. The wind is super strong tonight.

Any updates this morning?

Cool down nicely overnight. It’s about 55° this morning with 58% humidity. Skies are clear but breeze starting to pick up so the humidity is gonna drop a rock. Fires just over 1000 acres with 20% containment.

From Eastside Rd looking North, the smell of smoke starts about here but will travel South with the wind.

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Weather forecast on NPR this morning said the wind is supposed to have gusts up to 40mph starting at 11:00 this morning. :grimacing:

Just like yesterday. Shades of 2017, it felt the same. :frowning:

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Agreed. I was getting major flashbacks as the helicopters were flying directly over my house yesterday.

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Less smoky here in Napa this morning, but still noticeable. Winds are calm but also supposed to pick up here again later today.

Stay safe

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Just saw this quote on California fires from a transcript of a PG&E quarterly earnings call. So interesting to see how AI is filtering down into all sorts of non-high-tech fields. This seems like something that could potentially make just a huge difference.

“I want to touch on AI to close. AI, a lot of buzz about AI, we have 1,000 wildfire cameras in the state of California, and of the 1,000, 600 of them exist in our footprint. AI was enabled on all 1,000 cameras last year and the results are tremendous. AI is picking up wildfire hits faster than the human. I can see them. Imagine sitting there and trying to monitor 600 cameras versus AI doing it. It’s so effective that CAL FIRE, the state fire department for California is actually dispatching their crews to fires off of AI hits. They’re not relying on a phone call. Hey, there’s a fire at this intersection or over here. They are actually dispatching right off of AI hits, and I will tell you, they have several examples where a call was never received and they’re knocking these fires down under an acre, 2 acres and if left unsuppressed and waiting for a phone call, this could have been more catastrophic. So that’s a very effective post-ignition layer of protection that we intend to move forward and install more cameras” - PG&E (PCG ) SVP of Wildfire & Emergency Operations Mark Quinlan

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There are many ways in which AI is going to be terrible for society but it’s great to be reminded that there are some unambiguously clear ways in which it is a force for good.

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The smoke has been blowing north of Mt St. Helena all day, so has not entered Napa. Starting about 5pm we can smell just a hint of it but it does not get smokey here. Even if it did I would not be worried. The scary time is during and after veraison. However even if what we had now was near harvest, this is simply not an issue. There is not enough of it and it is too far away for the heavy chemicals to travel this far. I will say, though, that it does feel like the risks are higher this year given this is the second one in a week.

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6:26 pm less smoke and acreage is holding.

from Watch Duty


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What about the wineries in Dry Creek?

Did the Point Fire really go from about 100 acres to over 4K acres in a single day? That’s crazy.

No reports yet - waiting on this morning’s update from CalFire.

No - that’s the Aero fire that started yesterday afternoon. It went from 0 to over 5,000 acres in about 8 hours. Aero fire is in Calaveras County which is south of Amador County.

From this morning’s briefing - good news as spread haa slowed and containment has increased. No update on winery impacts.

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Will AI also tell PG&E management that they should fire themselves and find literally anyone else off the street to do a better job?

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Was it burning towards the Zakin’s vineyard on Howell Mountain? That’s the vineyard you can see from the back of Mending Wall.

I hope the frogs are OK.