Picture of the week

Fire damage above Lake Berryessa

An aerial view of the burned out area in the mountainous terrain surrounding Lake Berryessa in Northern California.  Damaged by the recent wildfires that raged through this area last August through October in the form of the LNU Complex and Glass Fires.  In the image above this year's fires did the damage on the left (south) side of the lake, while the area to the right was burned a couple of years earlier.  The insert image here to the right was the last one captured by one of PG&E's webcams on the top of Mt. Vaca that is in this same general area just southeast of Lake Berryessa. 

This week I traveled through the Putah Creek canyon and then dropped into Napa and Sonoma Valleys, exploring the impact of these fires by motorcycle and with the help of a drone. While the rugged terrain in the Lake Berryessa region got more cleanly wiped out, it is also more sparsely populated.  The Glass Fire damage in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys was more random, with some structures spared next to other structures that survived.  Those up on the ridges within or on the edges of the forests saw the most damage. Most of the structures down on the valley floor were spared given their further distance from more dense vegetation and the surrounding vineyards that don't seem as combustible.

Although it may seem that there will be a lower probability of future fires doing as much damage as these based on the assumption of what has already been burned, I am still seeing quite a few areas still unscathed and covered in dense vegetation within Sonoma and Napa counties.  Upcoming years are likely to continue to be a game of Russian Roulette for those living within these wildland boundaries.