More than 83,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.
Emergency responders expanded a mandatory evacuation zone west to the Pacific Ocean on Saturday night, more than doubling the number of residents who have been told to flee the Kincade fire north of San Francisco. Firefighters have been struggling to contain the blaze, driven by winds of up to 80 miles an hour and fed by dry conditions. The expanded evacuation zone now covers more than 83,000 people.
The Kincade fire, which began late Wednesday night, has spread to 25,955 acres, and was 11 percent contained as of early Sunday morning. The authorities said the fire had destroyed 77 buildings, including 31 homes. No serious injuries have been reported.
About 90 to 95 percent of people in the mandatory evacuation zones are fleeing, said Sgt. Spencer Crum of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. He said deputies would not force people out of their homes or arrest them if they refused to follow the order, but that “they will be on their own in the event of an emergency.”
Public safety officials pleaded with residents to comply, recalling a 2017 fire in the area that killed 22 people.
“I’m seeing people reporting that they’re going to stay and fight this fire,” Mark Essick, Sonoma County’s sheriff, said during a news conference Saturday night. “Fire is not something you can stay and fight.”
The blaze’s advance through the hilly rural areas of the county has made conditions difficult for the nearly 3,000 firefighters who are battling the blaze, the authorities said.
Power shut-offs have begun that could affect millions.
Just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, Marin County began to go dark on Saturday night as PG&E cut power to parts of the Bay Area.
Beginning in the northern part of the county, the shut-offs in Marin were part of a wave of planned power blackouts that could ultimately affect 940,000 homes and businesses across Northern California, which would leave as many as 2.7 million people without power. It would be the largest planned blackout to prevent wildfires in California’s history.
In Marin County, about 99 percent of residents could ultimately be affected, the sheriff’s office said. The authorities implored residents not to call 911 when they lost power, saying that the county’s emergency dispatch system was already flooded with calls.
Public safety officials warned residents that it could take up to five days to restore power in Marin County and that cellular phone service could be affected by the shutdown.
“Though the weather event will end Monday, power restoration could take several days,” the sheriff’s office said.
