Is this mowing towards Ridge & Mount Eden? Or, staying mainly west along the coast?
It has been moving generally south-west towards Santa Cruz and the ocean.
Paul
Hopefully someone closer to the scene will reply, but from the fire maps I’ve seen, it hasn’t yet crossed Skyline anywhere. Rhys winery is right on skyline, though a bit farther north than the current extent so far, I believe. Ridge and Mt Eden are on the next ridge of mountains inland, separated by a fairly deep canyon. I would hope the fire service would make a serious stand along skyline, but resources are incredibly thin everywhere.
We have evacuees from Scotts Valley staying at our house now.
Thanks Al and Alan for the explanation / education!
Don’t know about Ridge. I’m not scheduled to work there this weekend so I won’t be able to tell first-hand. However, they have a note on their website saying they’re not open for tasting today because of the fires and poor air quality. That doesn’t bode well.
No, but there’s a good chance there won’t be a 2020 Monte Bello due to smoke taint. We’ll see. We got Chard from near Mount Eden yesterday that was fine (unobtainium stuff, less ripe than they’d normally pick, perfect for what my friend aims for). Will likely be getting something else right around Mount Eden in a few days.
There’s fire up near Fogarty and Rhys, and heavy smoke, so might not be usable fruit from that area of Skyline. I’ve heard there’s a lot of smoke in Corralitos, but could easily not be all of the area.
I live in Corralitos, the smoke has been bad for the last few days
For the last day or so the wind has been coming in from the north and pushing the smoke and fire down to the South toward the city of Santa Cruz. The only place they have even been able to see the fire because of the smoke has been up on the northern edge of the fire in San Mateo county. The winds could shift this weekend and that would push the fire back north through the San Lorenzo valley and could push smoke up into the other side of the mountains. For now I would imagine that any wine coming from vineyards in the Bonny Doon and San Lorenzo Valley areas will be ruined by smoke taint, if they survive the fire. I live in the city of Santa Cruz and the smoke here has been horrific. It’s even worse up in the mountains. Big Basin Vineyards has been posting pretty regular updates but it sounds like they are having trouble getting information at this point.
We have a bit of a no win situation.
Rain = plant growth, as mentioned, including lots of underbrush to get dry and burn.
Lack of rain = plants dry out and are at high fire risk.
Either way, it’s always high fire risk.
(I was not trying to be silly, just that I keep living through fire seasons caused by ‘too much rain’ or ‘too little rain.’)
Cal Fire has said that in this case there are parts of the forest that haven’t burned in at least 50 years, longer in many areas. In addition there are areas that are completely inaccessible. So that is making this that much worse right now.
I suspect the thing many people don’t get, particularly back east and Midwest where they typically get rain even in summer, is that here in California it just doesn’t rain from June through September, on average. People like to think a wetter rainy season is somehow “good”, but aside from driving a bit more growth, it’s not like that makes any difference during the summer. Everything dries out regardless of how much winter rain there was. It will make a difference to the mountain snowpack, and aquifers, and thus water supply, but it doesn’t change the fire risk.
While we normally get rain, this summer (June to now) we have had under 1 inch in my town. It’s dry as dust.
We can understand when it’s dry. Really. Those weather maps cover the whole country. 
Point taken, was only making the point that for you it’s out of the norm, but for us it’s typical.
I thought this would be a lower fire risk year - the wet years 2017-19 giving ample (deeper) water to trees and the dryness in 2020 keeping the grasses down. Massive lightning storms changes that calculation!
Paul
Well, a freakish once in 50 years summer lightning storm is a killer. But I maintain that it really doesn’t matter how wet the winter is in most of California. Everything dries out enough by July that it will burn easily once a fire starts. Having lived in California all my life, and seen bad fires almost every year around the state, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a better or worse fire year, unless we have really late, or really early rains. The weather can play a part, separately from lightning storms, but even then the forest will burn if set ablaze.
It appears that most of what has been burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains is underbrush, scrub trees, and buildings. The former two accumulate when there hasn’t been a fire for decades. As has been mentioned in other years, i’s a challenge of living in a wooded area, can’t do controlled burns but very vulnerable to uncontrolled fires. The wet rainy season in the SCM makes it worse, and the terrain makes it difficult to defend. I don’t think it’s the same type of inferno that hit Santa Rosa a few years back, but still difficult to defend, especially when there are so many fires.
-Al
On the northern end of the fire, Pescadero creek is lined with redwoods which seem to be serving as a fire break below Alpine and Horseshoe vineyards. The VIIRS map update this morning was very encouraging.
I am very concerned about Boulder Creek, Felton and Ben Lomond. It does seem that Cal Fire is concentrating what resources they have to defend those communities.
Dry as stones this year in the East.
But a high rainy season IS good for California as it restores the Sierra snowpack which is needed for your water throughout the rest of the year and adds to your hydro electric generation. So take your pick: fire vs drought. Not an easy choice.
Sickening.
Santa Cruz deputies arrest five looters caught on security footage.
Santa Cruz deputies arrest five looters caught on security footage.