Thousands of homes and a hospital have been evacuated in California’s wine country as a fast-spreading wildfire has exploded in size Monday with another day of dangerous fire conditions in a badly scorched state.
Cal Fire said the blazes, dubbed the Glass Incident, have now grown to at least 11,000 acres and remains 0% contained as it threatens neighborhoods and vineyards in Napa and Sonoma Counties, located about 75 miles north of San Francisco. The blaze started early Sunday.
“Two additional fires have started overnight and been merged with the Glass Incident,” the agency said Monday morning.
WILDFIRE ERUPTS IN CALIFORNIA’S NAPA COUNTY, EMERGENCY EVACUATIONS OVER ‘DANGEROUS RATE OF SPREAD’
The wildfire began as the Glass Fire north of St. Helena before moving at a “dangerous rate of spread.”
A firetruck travels on the Silverado Trail as a hillside goes up in flames during the Glass Fire in St. Helena, Calif., on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020.
(Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group via AP)
“We woke up in the middle of the night and saw flames,” Jan Zakin of St. Helena told KGO-TV. “I was in my underwear, there was a car on fire blocking access out, my dog ran away, I still haven’t found her, we left with nothing, just literally with nothing. We’re so lucky to be alive.”
No injuries have been reported yet, but over,8,500 structures are threatened, according to Cal Fire.
Flames from the Glass Fire lick up a tree in St. Helena, Calif., Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020.
(AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Flames reached within a mile of the Adventist Health St. Helena hospital, where all 55 patients were safely evacuated by ambulance and helicopter over a five-hour period starting at 7 a.m. Sunday.
“We had ambulances lined up from all over the Bay area,” hospital