Miles Teller was on Jimmy Fallon tonight talking about his new movie, Only The Brave, about Hot Shots. Sounds really good but very sobering given the reality right now. Can’t imagine folks in California rushing out to see it when they need a mental escape from it all.
Rain is seasonal in the area. Drought refers to low rainfall (snowfall in the mountains) during the rain season, particularly over several years’ of rain seasons.
It is not rain season now.
My favorite uncle and aunt’s granddaughter and H have lost their house.
My cousin once removed.
My kids second cousin.
They lived in a gouping of 12 houses that all completely gone.
In the pictures you cannot even make out their cars as they are burned and gone.
@consolation, California has a long dry summer every year before the rains start. That’s normal. They got more rain than usual last winter and spring which spurred the growth of grasses everywhere. Those grasses are now dry and going dormant and they make a perfect fodder for the fires.
Also, the long drought of many years, plus the invasion on a certain beetle have killed thousands of trees. Last winter’s rains, great as they were, weren’t enough to bring those trees back and they are fueling the fires too.
That story of a couple surviving in a swimming pool is just incredible.
Wow… a boiling river of wine captured by a photographer:
http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/winery-fire-damaged-boiling-wine-Paradise-Ridge-CA-12273836.php
It looks like the giant LOVE sculpture survived, but others might have perished. So sad that this historic winery is lost to flames. It had beautiful grounds. The houses surrounding it are gone.,
There are many well known wineries, and smaller family owned wineries that have been damaged or lost:
http://www.sfgate.com/wine/article/wine-country-fire-wineries-damaged-wildfire-napa-12271427.php Ch. St Jean, Gundlach Bundschu, Stag’s Leap, Frey, William Hill. And Paradise Ridge is just … gone.
We had actually kicked around the idea of buying a place in Napa, renting it out in high season and staying in low season to visit with our s’s and their families who live/work in the SF area. This makes me so profoundly sad.
The news stories seem to concentrate on the loss of buildings, but I keep thinking about the vines. It takes years for them to produce. And then the mature vines produce a more concentrated wine. Or so I have read.
You have read that correctly. There are some Zinfandel varieties that are many decades old. They produce superior fruit. Nothing can replicate that. 
Mr. B and I also toyed with the idea of having a small vineyard near Santa Rosa.
The first photo is of raisins on the vine 
http://www.businessinsider.com/napa-sonoma-wineries-that-burned-in-the-fires-2017-10
We’ve got some Stag’s Leap in the basement, it’s been aging so long it’s probably gone to vinegar - we bought it before I decided a 30-50% chance of a migraine the next day was too high a price to pay for good Cabernet. Maybe we’ll break it out this weekend and toast what was. And keep the Imitrex handy, just in case.
I have great memories of that area from my childhood. A good friend of my parents lived in Napa just off the Silverado Trail and they had a boy my age. We would ride our bikes up Silverado, fish for stripers in the Napa River, go to the parks. We have stayed close to the family over the years. My friend moved away from the area 10 years ago, but the younger sister had to evacuate from her home in Santa Rosa and is with her mother in Napa. From the maps, her place is probably gone. The mother is mid-70s and on oxygen so the air can’t be good for her. Thankfully, it looks like the wind has dropped and will help get things under control.
I fear with hotter, drier summers on the West Coast there is more to come. My folks are in a wooded area of Butte County and the trees are dying.
Wine is not more important than people, animals, the family home . But wine is also special…our California wines are a matter of pride in a way. This is so sad.
Almost all the known victims last I heard, 30+ people, are older people. Sadly, some older people were unable to evacuate in time, because they had limited mobility, or limited transportation options, or some other reason. Scary.
Another story of survival, this time, with a sad ending. The wife did not make it.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/13/us/california-fires-couple-hides-in-pool/index.html
http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-sonoma-fire-20171012-htmlstory.html
This couple survived by spending six hours in their neighbor’s pool. They both survived. I heard on the radio that this is not recommended unless it’s the last place left to go because the pool water can turn boiling hot.
Practically the last thing that my neighbors and I are talking about is the loss of vineyards. We are reeling from the loss of whole neighborhoods, loved ones, and a sense of normalcy.
I woke up to better air on the SF Peninsula, but new fires and mandatory evacuations in Santa Rosa and Sonoma…It’s absolutely heartbreaking. I so wish the first fall rain predicted for late next week would arrive early.
Let me clarify that when I refer to “buildings,” I am talking about WINERY buildings, not people’s houses.
The winds are picking up down here. How about in Norcal? The stories of the elderly not being able to get out fast enough are heart breaking. The widow of Charles Shultz (“Peanuts” creator) got out but her home burned to the ground.
The vineyards are not an immediate concern now, but loss of such could be a medium to long term economic problem due to the wine industry and associated tourism being a substantial portion of the area’s economy.