Fire Burning Toward Mt Eden Vineyards

Right now. Hope they get that out. The houses below are OK with wind blowing the fire up the hill. But the vineyards are in it’s path.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/268503877-story

The news story says it’s burning toward Mountain Winery, which it kind of is… but it’s really aiming toward the vineyards of Mt Eden Winery.

Very scary. I am hoping for the best for Jeffrey and Ellie.

Yikes. I can never understand why there aren’t 20 planes dropping retardant and water to snuff these kinds of fires out right away.

Damn that’s too close to home. I hope they get a handle on this quick and hope there is not a concert at the Mountain Winery tonight (not likely). It would be a disaster if the area caught fire during a concert as there is no way to get a full house of people out of there.

I read that high tension power lines in the area were limiting their ability to drop retardant.

I’ve got tickets to 2cellos at the mountain winery on Thursday night. I’m assuming it’ll be under control by then. As of this evening it was 40% contained. They also mentioned that the vineyard makes a great fire break…helpful for the fire fighters, not so great for Mt. Eden Winery!

-Joe

Latest report I see is that the fire is 40% contained, so that’s good news. Fortunately there’s not much wind today.
Wildfire near Mountain Winery 40 percent contained

FWIW, a Google Earth view I did for a Grape-Nutz story on Mount Eden and Ridge a few years ago that shows the area:

Thinking about it you wouldn’t want to drop fire retardant as it would almost certainly land on the vines at MEV. Now helicopters dropping water from nearby Stevens Creek reservoir or Lexington reservoir could be helpful granted the problem of power lines.

This seems to be trending positively - Grass fire burns near Mount Eden Winery in Saratoga - ABC7 San Francisco

Kevin, that was from last night. hard to get updated info this morning. I found one twitter post from a reporter this morning saying it’s 40% contained, still about 10 acres. Overcast and high humidity, so hopefully they get this completely contained today. One fire fighter interviewed on TV said the vineyard was a nice fire break. I’m afraid the fire dept’s priorities are controlling the fire, not protecting the vineyard, which is understandable.

https://twitter.com/mattbigler740

I heard it was closest to Peter Martin Ray Vyd., which received some retardant.

The other news item was a retardant dropping plane had to turn around after having a close call with some jackass’ drone, which the sheriffs were able to capture.