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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM

KINCADE FIRE » WHAT’S CHANGED IN SONOMA COUNTY Cellular

Lessons from 2017 towers
failed
blunt blaze’s impact in crisis
Unreliable network in
county exposes safety
gaps, spurs calls for laws
By WILL SCHMITT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A quarter of the cellphone

towers in Sonoma County lost
power Monday, reducing the
reach of a critical communi-
cations tool during a rapidly
evolving crisis triggered by the
Kincade fire, a massive PG&E
blackout and the largest evacu-
ation in county history.
The degradation of the re-
gion’s cellphone network ex-
posed gaps in carriers’ plans to
preserve service during PG&E
shut-offs and triggered calls for
legislation requiring carriers
to provide backup power at cell
sites.
More than 100 of the approx-
imately 430 cell sites in Sonoma
County were knocked out of ser-
vice because of a loss of power
Monday, the peak day for cell-
phone network outages during
the 11-day period since the Kin-
cade fire erupted on Oct. 23, ac-
cording to Federal Communica-
tions Commission records.
The problem was worse in
Marin County, where nearly
60% of cell sites were down,
while outages also were elevat-
ed in Lake (25.5%) and Napa
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
(19.2%) counties, according to
Firefighter Rick Blakemore protects a structure Oct. 27 along Highway 128, south of Pine Flat Road, northeast of Healdsburg, during the Kincade FCC records. Almost all were
fire. New tactics put into place after the 2017 wildfires in Sonoma County have played a central role in firefighting efforts for this year’s disaster. caused by loss of power.
Sonoma County Supervisor

Public safety officials, residents keenly aware of potential for destruction Lynda Hopkins, whose district
includes west county evacuees
allowed to return Monday, said
By JULIE JOHNSON INSIDE many people didn’t come home
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT ■ Windsor’s at first on account of PG&E’s

W
Foothill and power and gas shut-offs — and
hen the Kincade fire burst to life Shiloh Ranch
in the rugged Mayacamas Moun- parks shut for TURN TO CELLULAR » PAGE A13
tains in north Sonoma County and repairs / A3
began destroying people’s homes, the in-
delible marks of earlier fires that wreaked ■ Memorial
Hospital in SR
havoc here were everywhere.
became hub
‘ENDLESS WARS’
Two years ago, au-

US shift
SCOPE OF thorities were caught for care in
KINCADE FIRE flat-footed by the scale county / A3

on conflicts
of a growing disaster ■ Spread of
77,758 when people began wildfire kept
Acres burned as of frantically calling 911 in check with
Saturday evening

74%
to report fires igniting
across the region on
containment
growing / A5 appealing
to some vets
a night of battering ■ Fiery toll
Containment as of winds. County officials on harvest
Saturday evening had no plan to warn in Alexander
the sleeping public Valley, Chalk By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
372 about fast-moving
blazes despite danger-
Traffic backs up on Highway 101 at Shiloh Road in Windsor as residents follow Hill areas / E1 NEW YORK TIMES
Total structures evacuation orders for the Kincade fire on Oct. 26.
ous weather predicted WASHINGTON — Tyler Wade
reported destroyed
days in advance. They The wind controlled so much of what went was awarded the Purple Heart
couldn’t muster a big enough firefighting wrong with the Kincade fire. Dry Diablo while serving in Afghanistan,
force to both get people out of harm’s way winds from the northeast hit the region the and says he is “proud of every-
and combat the flames. night the fire started Oct. 23, and then rose thing” he did during his service.
But the playbook for wildfires in Sonoma up again and again, assaults that came days He also believes the conflicts
County was rewritten after the 2017 Octo- in Iraq and Afghanistan were a
ber firestorm. TURN TO LESSONS » PAGE A12 mistake, as do a growing number
of veterans — from retired gen-
VIEW A CHRONOLOGY ON THE WILDFIRE AT PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM/KINCADETIMELINE erals to those who served across
the enlisted ranks, from support-
ers of President Donald Trump

Trump stalls state’s climate efforts

to “resistance” Democrats.
“All in all, it is a lot of wasted
lives and money and time and
effort spent to accomplish a goal
we never accomplished,” said
Wade, 31, who was deployed to
POLITICAL CLASH » Quest by combat climate change.
But this past week, as wildfires
strung to take actions to fight it.
“We’re waging war against the most
Iraq and Afghanistan during his
five years in the Marines and is
president to undo policies at burned across the state — fires that destructive fires in our state’s history, now a nursing student in Las Ve-
odds with fires’ increasing toll scientists said have been made worse
by a changing climate — and as at
and Trump is conducting a full-on as-
sault against the antidote,” Gov. Gavin
gas.
Nearly two decades after the
By THOMAS FULLER least five large carmakers sided with Newsom said in an interview. attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, polls
AND CORAL DAVENPORT President Donald Trump’s plan to Trump has taken broad aim at ef- show that a majority of all vet-
NEW YORK TIMES roll back California’s climate pollu- forts to fight global warming since his erans have grown disenchanted
Gavin tion standards, the state’s status as first days in office. He has mocked the with the continuing wars, even if
Newsom For the past three years, countries the vanguard of environmental policy established science of human-caused the national security elite in both
Governor says and companies around the world have seemed at the very least diminished. warming as a hoax, turned his pledge parties continue to press for an
president presents looked to California as a counter- The state’s leaders found them- to pull the United States out of the U.S. military presence in Syria,
contradictions in weight to the Trump administration’s selves both witnessing firsthand the
wake of wildfires. aggressive dismantling of efforts to effects of climate change and ham- TURN TO CLIMATE » PAGE A2 TURN TO CONFLICTS » PAGE A11

Barber C1 Community B8 Lotto A2 Sonoma Life D1 DID YOU REMEMBER? Daylight SANTA ROSA ©2019
Business E1 Crossword T7 Movies D6 Smith A3 saving time has ended, so clocks High 79, Low 37 The Press
Democrat
Classified E4 Forum B9 Obituaries B4 Towns T1 should be set back one hour. THE WEATHER, C8
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019 A3

The North Coast

Crab season facing possible delay
Commercial start may
get pushed back 8 days
to aid migrating whales
By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
California’s state fish and
wildlife chief is poised to delay
this fall’s commercial Dunge-
ness crab season for eight days
under a legal settlement requir-
ing him to exercise greater con-
trol over deployment of com-
mercial crab gear in an effort
to mitigate the risk of whale
entanglements.
Fish and Wildlife Direc-
tor Chuck Bonham could still
change his mind, in theory. He’s
accepting comment on the pro-
posal through Monday.
But in his first act under a
new risk assessment protocol
required in the settlement with
a conservation group called the
Center for Biological Diversity,
Bonham announced late Friday
that he was inclined to postpone
the Nov. 15 season start in areas
south of the Mendocino County
line to give migrating whales ex-
tra time to swim south — away
from water that will be filled
with thousands of crab pots,
buoys and vertical lines once
the legal crab pot soak period
begins.
At the same time, the proposed
Nov. 23 start would preserve the
ability of the commercial fleet to
provide crab for Thanksgiving
tables, “an important cultural
and economic opportunity for
the state of California,” Bon-
ham said.
Kristen Monsell, senior attor-
ney at the Center for Biological
Diversity, said she’s still appre-
hensive about the status of the
whales and whether they will
be clear of commercial crabbing
grounds once Nov. 23 arrives.
But she declared Bonham’s
decision overall satisfying, say-
ing, “This is good. It’s an exam-
ple of the process working how
it’s supposed to, in that it is a
management measure driven by
science.”
The announcement predict-
ably drew criticism from some
TURN TO CRAB » PAGE A5

SANTA ROSA MEMORIAL » HANDLING PATIENT INFLUX WINDSOR

Parks
a buffer
from
flames
Trails likely slowed
Kincade fire, allowed
crews to set small burns
By MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Residents in northeast Wind-

sor love Foothill Regional Park
for a lot of reasons. Namely, the
211-acre wilderness space with
nearly 7 miles of trails, three
fishing ponds and stunning
views of nature offers a respite
from the daily grind.
Now there’s another reason.
In last week’s firefight that
kept the Kincade fire from burn-
ing nearby Windsor homes, the
PHOTOS BY ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT park played an important role.
Emergency department charge nurse Todd Axberg waits for a patient to arrive Friday at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa. While Park officials and staff say
other Sonoma County hospitals had to close because of the Kincade fire, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital remained open. Foothill’s trails may have

Round-the-clock care
slowed the pace of the fire, but
more importantly its geography
offered firefighters strategic
opportunities to lay down con-
trolled burns that eliminated
fuel for the fire before it reached
homes.
“Foothill and other parks,
where they buffer communities,

Hospital was only one in city that remained open during Kincade fire are very important to commu-
nity safety,” said Hattie Brown,
natural resource manager for
By YOUSEF BAIG “It’s been scary, especially as a first- Sonoma County Regional Parks.
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT time mom, but overall it was worth all “They provide firefighters an op-

Keely Kilber strokes her newborn daughter
Stella’s hair Friday at Santa Rosa Memorial
Hospital. Stella was born Oct. 27.
T
he whirlwind accompanying
Stella York’s entry into the world
matched the gusting forces that
helped the Kincade fire almost double in
size in barely 12 hours.
Stella was born Sunday at Santa
Rosa Memorial Hospital, more than a
month before her due date. Her mother,
Keely Kilber, 20, of Lake County had a
late-pregnancy liver complication and
was transferred from her local Sutter
hospital to Santa Rosa while she was in
labor.
the scariness and trouble,” Kilber said portunity to fight the fire before
as she rubbed her daughter’s rosy right it reaches the community — and
cheek. that was definitely the case at
Born just under 6 pounds, Stella will Foothill.”
remain in the newborn intensive care Regional Parks Director Bert
unit until she gets on track and can Whitaker agreed.
maintain her body temperature outside “It’s one of the multiple ben-
an incubator, Kilber said. efits of having the open spaces
As her mother looked down at her, adjacent to our communities,”
sharing her own warmth through en- Whitaker said.
dearing stares and a tight embrace, they Work also is being done on
had achieved a rare bit of solace in a Shiloh Ranch Regional Park. Al-
though the Kincade fire did not
TURN TO HOSPITAL » PAGE A4
TURN TO PARKS » PAGE A5

Now there’s a story behind the Healdsburg painting

J CHRIS SMITH
ust before the Kincade fire
went wild, a nice couple
from Virginia — in Cali-
fornia for the first time —
stopped into the Upstairs Art
Gallery on the plaza in Healds-
burg.
They bought two landscapes
from a show by artist Karen
Miller called “Quiet Places:
Sonoma County in Pastels.”
Days later, flames swept the
hillside just southeast of
Healdsburg that appeared in
one of the pieces.
Miller shipped both paint-
ings to Virginia. Then she
returned to where she’d
painted the landscape and shot
a post-Kincade photograph of
the vineyard-and-hills scene.
She sent the photo to the cou-
ple, along with an update
on the historic firestorm
they’d just missed on their
visit.
The art buyers thanked
Miller in an email, noting, “we
always love having stories to go
along with the pieces we buy.”
The couple promised that
their near miss with the
firestorm will be taped forever
to the backside of her “Ridge to
the East.”
NOT A COSTUME: In
Penngrove on Halloween night,
Patrick Lundquist opened his
door to the sight of two pre-
cious, witch-costumed little
girls and their parents. Dad to kids who have at least one
wore firefighting turnouts and a parent working for the Sonoma
look suggestive of exhaustion. County Sheriff’s Office.
Doling the treats, Lundquist For those SCSO families
suspected he knew the answer that live in Windsor or Healds-
when he asked the gentleman if burg, the odds of some fun on
that was a costume or his work Halloween night seemed even
gear. The firefighter replied that more dim.
he’d just been released from Then up stepped the Sonoma
duty. County Deputy Sheriffs’ Depu-
What a good dad, the Penn- ties Association.
grovian thought. What a good For the week leading up to
man. Halloween, members of the
association had been preparing
NO HALLOWEEN for 2019
seemed a horrifying possibility TURN TO SMITH » PAGE A4

- Today’s nonprofit is sponsored by -

TE COM
RA A proud Celebrate
MU
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A4
Fire damages
vacant house
in Petaluma
By MARTIN ESPINOZA
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Petaluma fire officials are in-
vestigating a structure fire in a
vacant home in the 100 block of
Galland Street early Saturday
morning.
The fire, reported shortly af-
ter 4:30 a.m., sent firefighters
from several local agencies to
the house north of Washing-
ton Street. When firefighters
arrived, they found flames
coming through the roof in the
back of the house.
The fire was extinguished
with two fire hoses, and fire-
fighters kept the blaze from
spreading to homes on either
side of the burning structure.
The Petaluma fire marshal
and officials from the city build-
ing department determined
that the unoccupied home was
uninhabitable as a result of fire
damage, which was estimated at
more than $45,000.
No civilians, firefighters or
animals were injured during
the fire, officials said. The
cause is under investigation.
Firefighters from Rancho
Adobe Fire, Cal Fire, Lakeville
Fire, Wilmar Fire and Sonoma
Fire responded.
Kaiser Hospital
reopens in SR
By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Kaiser Permanente hos-
pital in north Santa Rosa,
evacuated and closed by the
threat of the massive Kin-
cade fire that still burns
near Mount St. Helena, has
reopened and is accepting
patients.
Kaiser and Sutter Santa
Rosa Medical Center were
both affected by large-scale
evacuations that put more
than a third of Sonoma
County residents under or-
ders to leave homes in the
path of the 121-square-mile
fire during hurricane-force
winds.
The Kaiser facility at Men-
docino Avenue and Bicen-
tennial Way had to relocate
250 patients.
Hospitals face strict envi-
ronmental and state licens-
ing standards before they’re
allowed to reopen after a
fire, in large part because
of smoke that infiltrates the
building.
Tarek Salaway, senior vice
president and area manag-
er for Kaiser Permanente’s
Marin and Sonoma service
area, reported last week that
his staff had begun the work,
and a spokesman late Satur-
day said the medical center
had passed inspection and
was now open.
Sutter Santa Rosa Region-
al Hospital remains closed.
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HOSPITAL
CONTINUED FROM A3
hospital that has seen twice its
daily intake after three other
area hospitals were ordered to
evacuate hundreds of patients
in a matter of hours.
“It’s a huge change with fires
and natural disasters (every
year),” Kilber said. “It’s even
scarier now with a little one in
the world because now it’s like,
‘What do we do? Where do we
go?’ ”
The answer from the tireless
workforce at Memorial Hospi-
tal? Right here.
Despite the challenges of
sheltering a staff displaced by
the largest evacuation order
in Sonoma County history,
caregivers worked longer shifts
over consecutive days to meet
the demands of a community
with only one open hospital.
Sutter Santa Rosa Regional
Hospital, Kaiser Permanente
Santa Rosa Medical Center
and the Healdsburg District
Hospital were closed for a week
or more since a historic wind-
storm put much of the county
in the path of the Kincade fire.
Kaiser reopened late Saturday,
while the others remained
shut.
As a result, a new battle
emerged for this branch of first
responders.
According to chief medical
officer Chad Krilich, the emer-
gency room treated a week-
high of 221 patients Thursday,
or about 100 more than its daily
average.
“Our staff has been incredi-
bly resilient through this whole
experience, and they continue
to rally and step forward,” said
Todd Axberg, a lead nurse in
the emergency room.
Axberg lost his home in the
Mark West area during the
Tubbs fire and last weekend
had to evacuate the home he
rebuilt, taking refuge in his
car at the Petaluma Veterans
Building with his bulldog,
Huckleberry. He worked long
hours for four days straight,
managing a staff that has
added roughly six workers to
its usual baseline of 24 care-
givers.
“Physicians have been ab-
solutely incredible working in
really difficult situations, and
we don’t turn anyone away,”
Axberg said. “They keep com-
ing, and we’ll keep taking care
of them. As long as we’re the
only hospital functioning in
Santa Rosa, that’s going to be
our plan.”
Amid the dedication, there
was an intensity to the work.
To meet the spiking demand,
SMITH
CONTINUED FROM A3
at their union hall in north-
west Santa Rosa four meals a
day, around the clock, for law
officers from about 90 agencies
who came to patrol around the
Kincade fire.
Thursday evening, the associ-
ation’s attention turned to sav-
Before
NORTH COAST / STATE THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019
PHOTOS BY ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Emergency department charge nurse Todd Axberg, left, talks with lead nurse Chad Davis on Friday at the
emergency department nurses station in Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa.
“It’s very In the meantime, staff mem-
bers from the closed sites have
therapeutic — come to Memorial’s aid, work-
ing alongside their peers in the
personally, even health care community as the
regional demand for medical
— to see the services gets funneled into one
campus.
kind of care and When Gudrun Reiter-
Hiltebrand, a Kaiser neonatal
compassion that intensive care unit nurse who
helped deliver Stella, arrived
happens (in those for her regular night shift Oct.
26, evacuations were already
moments).” underway. She had spent
CALI SCRIVANICH, supervisor of
15 years at Memorial Hos-
clinical dietetics at Memorial Hos- pital, and quickly became a
pital on receiving support from bridge for Kaiser helpers and
community partners aides from Sutter that had to
use different tech and patient
Dr. Omar Ferrari said ER data systems in a unit that
physicians met with patients experienced a 60% increase in
in the waiting room, carrying a Supervisor of clinical dietetics and admissions.
stethoscope and laptop as they registered dietitian Cali Scrivanich Reiter-Hiltebrand said local
tried to accelerate cases. pauses at Santa Rosa Memorial health care workers have
A lack of humidity in oper- Hospital in Santa Rosa. experience to lean on after two
ating rooms meant the hospital major fires in a two-year span,
had to walk the tightrope of es such as feeding tubes. and it has been heartening to
safely adding moisture without “It’s very therapeutic — per- see the type of care that has
infecting the site. sonally, even — to see the kind been delivered.
Caseworkers had to identify of care and compassion that “As tough as it is to work
skilled nursing facilities that happens (in those moments),” under these circumstances, the
had power during a PG&E she said. “It goes without sense of support you get from
shut-off that spread across saying, almost. You just show being in a community that this
38 counties and affected up and you do what you can to happens to” makes this chal-
973,000 homes and businesses help.” lenge easier to work through,
so that elderly patients could Cleanup crews have been Reiter-Hiltebrand said. “People
be safely transferred. working around the clock to say ‘Sutter babies,’ ‘Kaiser ba-
Short on supplies, supervisor ready the evacuated facilities at bies,’ but these are community
of clinical dietetics at Memo- other hospitals since the Sher- babies.”
rial Hospital, Cali Scrivanich, iff’s Office allowed residents to
said they had to turn to their return home. Health officials You can reach Staff Writer
community partners when are hoping to expedite all the Yousef Baig at 707-521-5390 or
shipping companies were un- necessary approvals to reopen yousef.baig@pressdemocrat.com.
able to transport vital resourc- as quickly as possible. On Twitter @YousefBaig
ing Halloween for the families
of deputies who’d been working
hard and long through the fire.
During the Tubbs fire, En-
gelbert and other handlers of
human remains detection dogs
and searched 183 burned homes
for 251 sets of cremate ashes.
They found 214.
There was food for the kids discovered that the dogs could If you lost cremation ashes to
and there was pumpkin carving find cremation ashes among the Kincade fire and would like
and there was candy. house ashes. I watched in awe as a dog or dogs to search for them
Another fine save by our dep- the handlers, assisted by archae- without charge — donations are
uty sheriffs. ologists, recovered human ashes happily accepted — call Engel-
from one burned home after bert at 408-981-7831.
IF YOU HAD ASHES of another.
loved ones in your home and you Engelbert and other volun- You can reach Staff Writer Chris
lost it to the fire, you may want teers with Institute for Canine Smith at 707- 521-5211 or chris.
to speak with Lynne Engelbert. Forensics went to the Carr fire smith@pressdemocrat.com.
After
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019 NORTH COAST / STATE A5

Fewer than 1K still under evacuation

No Kincade fire growth
reported, but thousands
still battling flames
By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
With 4,000 people still assigned
Saturday to Sonoma County’s
sprawling Kincade fire, it might
not seem wholly appropriate to
think of the incident as “winding
down.”
Yet with more residents going
back home, containment going
up — it was 74% Saturday night
— the skies all but clear and the
force of firefighters diminishing
day by day from a peak of near-
ly 6,000, there’s a rising sense of
resolution across the region.
Fewer than 1,000 people re-
mained under mandatory evacu-
ation order.
The blaze, the largest in coun-
ty history, remained at 77,758
acres on Saturday, registering
zero growth since Thursday, de-
spite ongoing efforts to tame the
portions of the eastern flank,
where narrow roads and steep,
rugged terrain have made it extra
challenging to dig containment
lines, public safety officials said.
About 1,500 of those still work-
ing the fire are assigned in hand
crews, meaning they’re out in re-
mote, hillside areas using hand
tools to clear brush and create
earthen barriers between the
fire and unburned lands.
“There’s a variety of work that
still has to be done,” Cal Fire
spokesman Joe Amador said.
But even with 100% contain-
ment still several days away, “we
feel confident the edge of the
fire is not going to move,” Cal
Fire Battalion Chief Marshall
Turbeville said.
The wildfire started Oct. 23 in
the vicinity of a malfunctioning
PG&E transmission tower near
the Geysers geothermal plant
during the first of three extreme
windstorms over the past 10 days,
triggering the largest mandatory
evacuations in county history.
At one point, about 186,000 res-
idents — more than a third of the
county population — were under
mandatory evacuation.
By Saturday evening, that
number had dropped to just
more than 900, Amador said,
principally those in areas of Shi-
loh Ridge, Mark West Springs,
Franz Valley, Knights Valley and
Mount St. Helena.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s
Office also opened more burned
areas on Saturday, under care-
fully controlled conditions de-
signed to ensure only residents
and authorized personnel were
permitted in, and only with pro-
tective clothing,
These include areas north of
Windsor and west of Chalk Hill,
and around Pine Flat Road near
Alexander Valley.
The fire has destroyed
372 structures, including
175 homes and 11 commercial
buildings, according to Cal Fire.
By Saturday night, one week
after hurricane-force winds
threatened to drive the wildfire
into densely populated commu-
nities, including Windsor, during
the height of collective peril,
Amador reflected gratefully on
the reception he and his broth-
ers and sisters in the fire service
had received during what’s been
a tiring and difficult assignment
in Sonoma County.
A captain with the San Diego
Fire Department when he’s not
serving as a public information
officer for a large Cal Fire inci-
dent, Amador said he has been in
Sonoma County for nearly nine
days.
“Speaking for the firefighters
and all the first responders on
hand, we all appreciate all the lo-
cal support,” he said. “It’s really
made such a difference for all of
us who have come a long way and
who are such a long way from
our families.
“It’s really a special thing to
see the outpouring of love from
the community,” Amador said.
“They really inspired all of us to
keep going.”
Staff Writer Martin Espinoza
contributed to this report. You
can reach Staff Writer Mary Cal-
lahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.
callahan@pressdemocrat.com.
On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.

CRAB new regulatory frame-

CONTINUED FROM A3
in the fishing industry,
which for many is a hard-
scrabble life even with-
out unexpected interrup-
tions. But in the case of
commercial crabbers, the
entanglement settlement
reached last spring already
required them to pull
their gear from the ocean
2½ months early last sea-
son to avoid interfering
with the beginning of the
spring whale migration.
Related losses were signifi-
cant in some cases, so even
a minimal delay in restart-
ing this fall has taken on an
extra dimension.
What’s worse: The rec-
reational Dungeness crab
season started Saturday,
drawing thousands of peo-
ple to the coast to celebrate
an annual rite of feasting
on sweet, succulent crus-
taceans, many of them
caught in the very harbors
where commercial fisher-
men were processing news
of their own delay.
“This is crap,” said one
of them, veteran Bode-
ga Bay crabber and Spud
Point Crab Co. co-owner
Tony Anello. “It’s crap.
How come the recreation-
al fishery is exempt? They
have buoys. They have
lines from top to the bot-
tom, with buoys.
“We see all these guys out
here, tied up here. They’re
all happy and joyful, think-
ing they’ve got the whole
ocean to themselves until
the 23rd,” Anello said.
The notice also under-
scores the waning pre-
dictability of seasonal
traditions and rising com-
plexity of legal and regu-
latory intervention gov-
erning when, where and
how ocean harvests can
be conducted. Commercial
crabbers have for months
Tides Wharf dockworker Jesus Ruiz, left, motions for fishing
boat captain Dick Ogg to pilot the Karen Jeanne into dock so
they can offload Dungeness crab in Bodega Bay.
expressed rising apprehen-
sion about how the coming
season and all future years
would look, given the re-
cent settlement and new
mechanisms for stops and
starts based on the pres-
ence of whales and poten-
tial entanglements.
Bonham said his de-
cision was based in part
on federal aerial sur-
veys conducted between
Oct. 22 and 25 in which en-
dangered humpback and
blue whales, as well as
Leatherback sea turtles,
were observed off the Cali-
fornia coast. The surveyor
from the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Admin-
istration specifically cited
high concentrations of
humpbacks in waters be-
tween Bodega Head and
the south edge of Monte-
rey Bay, Bonham said in a
preliminary determination
made public Friday night.
Combining those find-
ings with other factors,
including an entangled
humpback whale that
beached Oct. 23 near Eure-
ka, led him to conclude that
the traditional Nov. 15 start
would put marine animals
at “significant risk” of en-
tanglement, Bonham said.
Bodega Bay fisherman
Dick Ogg said he appreci-
ated the unenviable spot
Bonham is in and the pres-
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT, 2018
sure he is under to avoid
taking chances with an en-
dangered species while po-
sitioned directly in the lens
of a microscope.
“You know, he tried to
make the best possible de-
cision he could make and
still give the fishermen the
opportunity to take advan-
tage of the Thanksgiving
market,” Ogg said. “It was
tough.”
The Nov. 1 assessment is
one of 12 required accord-
ing to a set schedule agreed
to in the settlement to be
made by Bonham in consul-
tation with the California
Dungeness Crab Fishing
Gear Working Group es-
tablished in 2015 to address
what was then a rising in-
cidence of whale entangle-
ments off the West Coast
during a period of anoma-
lous warm ocean tempera-
tures that redistributed
whale forage and drew the
mammoth beasts closer to
shore than usual, causing
record numbers to become
ensnared in fishing gear.
The group includes com-
mercial and recreational
fishermen, environmen-
tal stakeholders, marine
mammal disentanglement
experts, state and federal
personnel and others who
have worked on developing
best practices, testing new
technologies and creating
works to align with the set-
tlement conditions, among
other tasks.
From a peak of 71 en-
tanglements off the West
Coast in 2016, so far this
year there have been
18  confirmed cases and
one unconfirmed offshore
of California, Oregon and
Washington — evidence
the group is having an im-
pact, some say.
Ogg and Noah Oppen-
heim, executive director
of the Pacific Coast Feder-
ation of Fishermen’s Asso-
ciations, are both members
of the working group. Ogg
even went up for the aerial
survey twice.
Both said that after
substantial debate, a 14-
member majority of the
group evaluated the risk of
entanglement as moderate
trending toward low, based
on the return of normal,
chilly autumn ocean tem-
peratures, dispersed whale
distributions and normal
seasonal migration patterns.
But seven others gave
Bonham a minority opin-
ion putting the risk at a
higher level, and Bonham,
they said, appears to have
“split the difference.”
“This was kind of a happy
medium,” said Ogg. “Do I
like it? I’d rather be fishing
longer. I’d rather have the
opportunity to go. But is it
a workable situation? Yeah,
it’s workable. We gotta make
it work. We’re going to keep
finding ways to reduce our
interaction, but right now,
we’ve got to go fishing.”
Before making a final
decision, Bonham will con-
sider any new information
or recommendations sub-
mitted by 5 p.m. Monday to
whalesafefisheries@wild-
life.ca.gov.
You can reach Staff Writer
Mary Callahan at 707-521-
5249 or mary.callahan@
pressdemocrat.com.
PARKS
CONTINUED FROM A3
burn that park as much as
the Tubbs fire did in 2017,
Cal Fire crews cut fairly
large bulldozer firebreaks
this time around. That
park is also closed for the
time being.
On Saturday, Cal Fire
and county parks staff be-
gan the process of identi-
fying the steps needed to
repair the damage done
to the park both by the
fire and by the crews who
made their stand in the
park against the fire.
The Kincade fire
burned roughly 95% of
the Foothill park, leaving
unscathed only about 10
to 20 acres of the park’s
entrance area on Hem-
bree Lane. While that may
sound like a lot of dam-
age, park officials said the
fire mostly burned under-
brush and that many of
the trees, though charred,
will survive and recover.
“A wholly burned park
doesn’t mean a wholly
destroyed park,” said
Brown.
Brown said Foothill’s
natural environment is
“fire adaptive.” In con-
trast, she said, when fire
gets up into the canopies
of fir trees, the tree will
often die.
“Relatively soon, it’s
going to be hard to tell
that fire actually passed
through there,” she said.
Inside the park, the fire
damaged wooden sign-
posts, bridges and fencing
and other man-made infra-
structure. There were also
a number of bulldozer lines
that were cut through the
park by Cal Fire crews that
will need to be repaired.
The park is currently
closed to visitors and on
Saturday, regional parks
staff were stationed at the
Hembree Lane entrance
informing visitors that
they were working to re-
pair the damage to the
park and to make sure
that it was safe.
The work includes re-
moving fallen and cut
branches and identify-
ing any trees that are no
longer stable and could
pose a threat to visitors.
Damaged trees that are
far away from trails and
areas that visitors can
access will be left alone,
park officials said.
“We want to allow a
burned tree to recover
on its own,” Brown said.
“Dead wood becomes
really important habi-
tat. We’ve already seen a
swarm of bees move into
a dead tree. It’s really an
important component of
a forest — burned trees,
if they’re not a hazard to
people we don’t typically
remove them.”
Brown said a good deal
of work has been done in
the park to give firefighters
a better chance of stopping
wildfire. She said one strat-
egy is known as a shaded
fuel break, where tree cov-
er is thinned and underly-
ing brush is removed. The
breaks can more readily be
used for controlled burns.
“We are strategical-
ly putting shaded fuel
breaks in many parks
where they buffer up
communities,” she said.
Whitaker, the parks di-
rector, said he hopes peo-
ple understand the need
to have the parks closed
while work is being done
to make them safe.
“We’re excited to get
people back in there, but
it’s going to take a little bit
of work,” he said.
You can reach Staff Writer
Martin Espinoza at 707-
521-5213 or martin.espino-
za@pressdemocrat.com.
On Twitter @pressreno.

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A12
“It was a different fire, but a lot of the threats were the same. We had no civilian
fatalities — that’s remarkable for a fire that has burned close to 80,000 acres.”
MARK HEIN, Sonoma County Fire chief about the 2017 Tubbs and this year’s Kincade fires in Sonoma County
Flames engulf trees on a hillside Oct. 27 at Verite Winery, along Chalk Hill Road east of Windsor, during the Kincade fire. As of Saturday night, containment of the blaze was 74%.
LESSONS
CONTINUED FROM A1
apart, fueling the fire’s explosive
growth through bucolic forests
and farmlands and toward
Healdsburg and Windsor.
Gusts threatened to propel
embers west across Highway 101
into forested communities that
hadn’t had a significant wild-
fire in decades and were ripe to
burn.
New tactics put in place since
2017 in Sonoma County were
central to what has gone right
over the past week and a half,
giving people the chance to get
themselves out of harm’s way
and allowing firefighters the
space to save homes in emptied
neighborhoods and halt the
fire’s spread.
Even the controversial deci-
sion to evacuate a massive por-
tion of the county from the fire’s
origin in the eastern mountains
across 30 miles to the Sonoma
Coast was rooted squarely in the
dread that fire might deal such
a blow as it did in 2017 when 24
people died and thousands more
endured harrowing escapes.
“It was a different fire, but
a lot of the threats were the
same,” Sonoma County Fire
Chief Mark Heine said. But this
time, he said, “We had no civil-
ian fatalities — that’s remark-
able for a fire that has burned
close to 80,000 acres.”
But firefighters and public
officials were not the only people
who learned from the calamity
of 2017. With fresh memories of
the devastation two years ago,
Sonoma County residents were
keenly aware of the destruction
a fast-moving wildfire could
cause. They were vigilant when
the risks were greatest and
responded quickly and calmly
when ordered to evacuate.
“The community played a
major role,” Heine said. “They
prepared their homes. They
cleared defensible space. They
paid attention to what they
could do. They heeded our evac-
uation orders.”
The losses haven’t yet been
tallied from the Kincade fire,
which ripped through working
ranches and vineyards, de-
stroyed 175 homes and burned
across more than 120 square
miles. And it is not yet extin-
guished, though firefighters had
the fire about 74% contained
Sunday. Most of the area yet to
be contained lies on the fire’s
eastern front, which is sparsely
populated and rugged.
The economic impact for near-
ly 200,000 people forced to pack
up and leave, halting commerce
and shorting paychecks for the
better part of a week has yet to
be calculated. It is no doubt a
significant loss for many.
Sonoma County Sheriff Mark
Essick issued the first evacua-
tion order about an hour after
the fire started for the town of
Geyserville, and he would issue
a succession of evacuation or-
ders over the next several days
that would cover a vast swath of
the county. Essick said he made
those decisions collaboratively
with fire and county officials,
Sonoma County Fire District firefighters tune their radios and check their equipment at County Fire Station 1 in Windsor as they prepare to defend
the town from the Kincade fire on Oct. 27. Extra engine crews were standing guard throughout the county because of hazardous weather conditions.
Dean Smith of Windsor inspects his backyard after returning to his Valle Vista Court home Wednesday.
fire behavior experts and those
with eyes into the firefight on
the ground.
Complicating his decision:
PG&E had cut power for about
27,000 homes and businesses in
Sonoma County the night the fire
broke out. On the weekend when
residents in larger cities includ-
ing Santa Rosa, Windsor and
Healdsburg were evacuated, a
new shut-off affected about 93,000
PG&E customers in the county.
When the fire started, the util-
ity had not shut off its high-volt-
age transmission lines, includ-
ing one that malfunctioned in
the location where Cal Fire said
the fire started, according to a
report PG&E filed with state
regulators. Cal Fire is still inves-
tigating what caused the fire.
Communicating effectively to
thousands of residents without
electricity meant many might
not have charged cellphones or
working telephones and inter-
net.
Essick said that while he
doesn’t believe it was necessary
to evacuate all of those areas,
particularly Bodega Bay, public
officials did not have time to
make more precise orders while
the fire posed such an immedi-
ate threat to so many.
“I trusted Cal Fire and I still
think it was the right decision to
evacuate that area,” Essick said.
Going forward, he said his
office will develop evacuation
zones that will allow them to
quickly piece together strategic
portions of the county for emer-
gency orders and limit unneces-
sary impacts.
Much of Sonoma County Su-
pervisor Lynda Hopkins’ district
spanning from Forestville to the
coast was evacuated although
the Kincade’s flames never got
there. Hopkins stands by the
decision to get people out, saying
she too feared the wind could
send an ember into her district
where so many had no electric-
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019
BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
ity — or phone and Internet
service — because of a planned
power shutdown by PG&E and
may not receive public warn-
ings. Many live on one-way-out
roads.
“We were very fortunate, this
time, to have time,” Hopkins
said, adding that “our notifica-
tion system worked.”
Numbers tell part of the story.
The Tubbs fire was most
destructive in its first four hours
when it ignited near Calistoga
and burned through the Mark
West drainage and into Santa
Rosa, destroying about 4,650
homes and killing 22 people in
Sonoma County. It was just one
of about a half-dozen major
wildfires that broke out the
night of Oct. 8, 2017, across
Northern California, causing
widespread destruction and 38
additional deaths. Insured losses
nearly hit $9.5 billion.
The firefight didn’t begin that
first night because the mission
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
was to rescue people fleeing amid
flames. Sonoma County fire offi-
cials frantically requested addi-
tional resources through the state
Office of Emergency Services. But
the response was slow, hampered
by distance and demands from
other major fires in Napa, Lake,
Mendocino and Yolo counties.
Fewer than half of the 170
additional fire engines requested
arrived in the first 12 hours.
The night the Kincade fire
started had the makings of a
similar calamity. Forests were
still parched after years of
drought. Wind gusts were pre-
dicted to hit 60 mph. Significant
portions of Northern Califor-
nia’s electric infrastructure
remained in disrepair, posing
one of the greatest threats for
sparking fires. The winds picked
up at night when many were
asleep or getting ready for bed.
The first emergency dispatch
went out about 9:26 p.m. Fire
was burning in The Geysers, a
remote complex of geothermal
energy facilities in the moun-
tains between Sonoma and Lake
counties.
There already were 20 extra
engine crews standing guard
throughout the county, com-
pletely set apart from regular
firehouse duties and ready to
respond to a wildfire because of
the hazardous conditions.
In that first radio broadcast,
dispatchers asked 10 engines to
go, and more flooded into the
area as the fire burned out of
control and charged down the
steep slopes into the Alexander
Valley.
As the fire grew rapidly, a
network of wildfire cameras
installed in 2018 allowed anyone
with internet access to monitor
the conflagration live on their
computers and smartphones.
One hour after that first
report of flames, Essick ordered
the evacuation of Geyserville
TURN TO LESSONS » PAGE A13
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019
CELLULAR
CONTINUED FROM A1
spotty cellphone service, which
hampers the ability of local offi-
cials to warn residents during a
wildfire and other emergencies.
“That’s very scary,” she said.
“We need all of the forms of
communication. If telecom com-
panies aren’t stepping up, then
we’re in trouble.”
Cellphones have replaced
landline telephones in nearly
60% of households, according to
the National Center for Health
Statistics, evolving from a con-
venience to an essential part
of contemporary life. The cell-
phone network is used to deliv-
er emergency alerts, evacuation
notices, notifications of PG&E
power outages and other crucial
information during a disaster. It
also serves as a vital technolo-
gy used by the public to call for
help, locate family members and
friends, identify routes to safety,
access news and communicate
with others.
State bill proposed on towers
State Sen. Mike McGuire, a
Healdsburg Democrat whose dis-
trict was heavily affected by the
Kincade fire, the shut-offs and
the evacuations, has proposed
legislation that would require
cell towers in California’s high-
risk fire areas to have backup
power systems capable of sur-
viving at least 48 hours. Cell sites
outside those districts, predom-
inantly less populated rural ar-
eas, would not be subject to the
requirements.
His bill, SB 431, would create
a pathway to warn customers
when these power systems run
low on power. The measure is
important, McGuire said, be-
cause “our phones have become
our life.”
“It’s how we communicate
with the rest of the world, and
it’s also how we receive our
emergency alerts during times
of disaster,” he said. “This bill
isn’t about checking your latest
Facebook status. This bill is liter-
ally about life and death.”
A spokesman for Sonoma
County’s emergency operations
center acknowledged that cell
site outages constrain its ability
to deliver wireless alerts but said
the scope, duration and impact
were still being researched.
The FCC outage figures were
produced by a disaster data re-
porting system activated Oct. 24
before two PG&E power cuts to
prevent its equipment from start-
ing wildfires. The FCC relied on
several wireless companies that
participate in a voluntary indus-
try agreement, including major
providers like AT&T, Sprint,
T-Mobile and Verizon. Data are
not broken down by carrier, as
the FCC considers that informa-
tion confidential.
Cell site outages because of
loss of power in Sonoma Coun-
ty jumped to 67 last Sunday and
peaked at 109 Monday. On Tues-
day, the number of cell sites
without power dipped to 91, and
on Wednesday, 68. There were
still 24 sites out on Thursday
and by Friday, after PG&E made
strides to restore electricity ser-
vice across the county, only 10
sites remained without power.
Major cellphone companies,
who insisted last summer they
were well prepared for prolonged
PG&E power outages, now face
hard questions about their abil-
ity to maintain communications
during blackouts and public
emergencies.
In August, the nation’s larg-
LESSONS
CONTINUED FROM A12
and the north part of Alexander
Valley. About 15 minutes later,
he sent an emergency alert to all
cellphones in the area in English
and Spanish ordering people to
leave. His predecessor, Rob Gior-
dano, had far fewer tools to warn
the public two years ago, and the
county emergency managers
who did were out of town.
“We have the key to the sys-
tem now,” Essick said. “I don’t
have to wait for some other pub-
lic safety official and get caught
in bureaucracy. If I think the
county is threatened, I can push
that button and warn people.”
After daybreak, Cal Fire had
34 aircraft assigned to the fire,
dropping water and fire retar-
dant on the blaze, according to
Tom Swanson, air operation
branch director at Cal Fire’s air Cal Fire Moreno Valley Fire Capt. Karl Kolodzik douses a burning house Oct. 27 on Brooks Road North in Windsor out.
attack base on the north side
of Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma
County Airport. Swanson said
few other major fires were burn- swell to 3,000 bodies one week
ing at the time, so they had little ago Sunday morning when wind directions, sending flames into
competition for resources.
“All the aircraft we were
requesting we were getting,”
Swanson said “We were able
tactically to put the retardant
and the water drops at the right
place at the right time.”
A water tower is outfitted as a cellular phone tower on a property in northwest Santa Rosa. More than 100 of the approximately 430 cellular sites
located in Sonoma County went out of service because of a loss of power Monday, according to Federal Communications Commission records.
Mario Gonzalez works on a roof Aug. 15 within view of a utility tower
that doubles as a cellular phone tower in Larkfield. State Sen. Mike
McGuire has proposed a bill to install backup batteries on towers.
est wireless companies told
The Press Democrat they could
continue to power most or all
of their cellphone towers with
generators and batteries during
a planned PG&E outage as long
as their crews could access those
sites. That reporting helped
prompt the FCC in September
to ask cell companies for more
details about their contingency
plans, which they provided later
that month.
But despite the plans and
pledges to work to ensure contin-
ued service, networks faltered in
PG&E’s first preemptive black-
out in October. Those problems
continued last week during the
most recent wave of PG&E pow-
er shutdowns.
Carriers’ struggled in outage
In statements Tuesday, after
the cellphone outage peaked, cell
carriers generally emphasized
the relative strength of their net-
works. They also acknowledged
they couldn’t keep all of their
sites powered up, despite efforts
to prepare with generators and
batteries.
AT&T acknowledged the toll
during the Kincade fire, which approached the town from multiple directions because of strong winds.
The firefighting force would
gusts exceeded 90 mph, sending
the fire down again from the
mountains back into Alexander Highway 101 and into Foothill
Valley, burning through Chalk
Hill Road and into Windsor’s
outskirts
Propelled by strong winds
to its infrastructure from pro-
longed blackouts and fire. Before
last weekend’s blackout, AT&T
said it recharged batteries and
staged more generators and
“backup equipment” at its cell
sites.
“As a result of extended out-
age times and additional affect-
ed areas, as well as fire damage
to some of our facilities, service
for some customers may be af-
fected,” AT&T said. It pledged
to “continue to move quickly” to
keep customers connected “and
will continue to work to deploy
generators and restore service as
conditions allow.”
Sprint reported a “relatively
minimal impact” from intention-
al blackouts and major wildfires
in California.
“A number of sites may ex-
perience disruptions; however,
our teams are refueling genera-
tors that are in use as quickly as
possible, and thanks to extensive
roaming agreements in the area,
our customers will roam on com-
patible partner networks where
available,” Sprint said.
Verizon said more than 90%
of its cell sites in Sonoma and
that rose again, the fire came
at Windsor from multiple
properties along Los Alamos
Road to the immediate east of
Regional Park abutting a dense
neighborhood.
A massive firefighting force
pulled from across the region
Marin counties remained op-
erational during PG&E’s out-
age, while acknowledging that
planned blackouts exposed “dis-
crete areas of our network that
will experience service disrup-
tion or degradation.”
T-Mobile said it had sent gen-
erators to more than 260 sites by
Tuesday, was deploying a fleet of
wireless cells on trucks and was
“working on getting 400 more
generators out there as condi-
tions allow.” It was unclear how
many of these sites were in Sono-
ma County, though a spokesman
said “less than 7% of T-Mobile
sites are off the air” in the great-
er Bay Area.
The cell companies did step
up with various attempts to
mitigate their site failures. An
AT&T representative said the
company was donating $100,000
to the California Fire Founda-
tion and would issue credits and
waive charges for customers af-
fected by the Kincade fire. Ver-
izon donated another $100,000
to the same foundation and said
it provided communications
equipment to shelter operators.
A T-Mobile spokesman said the
company provided mobile trucks
and volunteers at evacuation
centers and sponsored a food
truck to feed attendees at a San-
ta Rosa City Schools Halloween
event. A Sprint website said cus-
tomers affected by the Kincade
fire also would receive unlimited
talk, text and data at no addition-
al cost for a week.
McGuire said telecommuni-
cations representatives gave
assurances in June that they’d
be able to keep their systems up
and running. The FCC’s outage
figures, he said, show “glaring
discrepancies between what tele-
com executives are saying, and
what the truth is.”
Hopkins noted the FCC had
regulatory power over telecom-
munications companies and
raised the prospect of advocating
in Washington, D.C., for backup
power requirements.
An FCC commissioner, Jessica
Rosenworcel, cited the conjunc-
tion of California wildfires and
lack of phone service in a Friday
morning Twitter post that said it
was “time for the @FCC to start
investigating.”
“When it does it needs to reck-
on with how rolling back regu-
lations and not requiring back-
ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT would have been on getting them
and led by a local contingent
kept the fire from spreading into and humans in the background
towns and cities, which would
have allowed the fire to get
hotter and spread more quickly
from home to home. And if the
fire had crossed the highway, it
would have entered forests that
haven’t burned in about four
decades, according to Cal Fire
A13
PHOTOS BY KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
up power have made it harder
to reach out in disaster,” said
Rosenworcel, an Obama nomi-
nee who has stayed on the com-
mission under the Trump ad-
ministration.
In a letter Thursday, U.S. Sen.
Kamala Harris, a California
Democrat running for president,
called on top telecommunica-
tions officials to report outages
not only to the FCC but to the
state Office of Emergency Ser-
vices.
“While companies like PG&E
must be held responsible for
years of neglected maintenance,
it is incumbent on cell service
providers to mitigate impacts
to communications equipment
during power shutoffs,” Harris
wrote.
PG&E to file outage reports
PG&E will soon file reports
about its most recent outages
with state regulators who over-
see investor-owned utilities.
In its post-mortem for Octo-
ber’s first blackout, PG&E told
the CPUC it would include cell
service availability as part of a
broader effort to address local
governments’ preferences for
where the utility sets up commu-
nity resource centers during out-
ages. The utility counted eight
telecom companies it directly
communicated with during the
Oct. 9 outage.
A PG&E spokeswoman de-
clined comment on McGuire’s
bill when asked whether the San
Francisco-based utility believed
telecommunications companies
should be required to provide
backup power to cell sites, given
the potential for future planned
outages.
“We understand and appreci-
ate that turning off power affects
first responders and the oper-
ation of critical facilities, com-
munications systems and much
more,” said spokeswoman Jenni-
fer Robison. “We will continue to
work with telecommunications
companies and other critical
service providers as we work to
keep customers and communi-
ties safe.”
Staff Writer Yousef Baig con-
tributed to this story. You can
reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt
at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@
pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter
@wsreports.
spokesman Jonathan Cox.
“I am so relieved to be where
we are with this fire today,”
Heine said. “In Windsor, stand-
ing out on the front lines at Ara-
ta Lane, I was not confident that
our firefighting efforts would be
able to hold it at the highway.”
But they did.
And they did it again Tuesday
when the third major windstorm
arrived again. More than 4,500
firefighters were involved in
battling the Kincade fire. On
the fire’s southwestern front, a
group of about 90 local fire-
fighters led the firefight when
the blaze headed toward the
Larkfield, Wikiup and Mark
West Springs Road area in north
Santa Rosa, neighborhoods still
rebuilding after the 2017 fires.
It was crucial for the fire-
fighters that the neighborhoods
had been evacuated. If people
had been home, their attention
“It’s a totally different expe-
rience when you don’t have the
voices and sounds of animals
as you’re facing down a fire,” Cal
Fire spokesman Jonathan Cox
said. “It allows firefighters to be
offensive instead of defensive and
focused solely on saving lives.”
You can reach Staff Writer Julie
Johnson at 707-521-5220.
A14
How to help those affected
by the Kincade fire.
If you would like to help those affected by
the Kincade fire, evacuations and PG&E
power shutoffs, here’s how you can volun-
teer and make donations. Please note that
needs will change in the days and weeks to
come. Please check http://pd2go.net/Kin-
cadeHelp for updates.
Do you know of a volunteer opportunity or
fundraising initiative not listed here? Send
an email to sofia.englund@pressdemocrat.
com.
DONATIONS & VOLUNTEERING
The Redwood Empire Food Bank (REFB)
The Redwood Empire Food Bank has de-
ployed its emergency response program,
Station 3990. These distributions are open to
anyone in need of food. Find food distribu-
tion sites on their website: https://refb.org/.
Donate food: The Redwood Empire Food
Bank is currently accepting food donations
at their main facility at 3990 Brickway Blvd
in Santa Rosa. They also have donation sites
throughout Sonoma County, listed on their
website: https://refb.org/.
Guidelines for food donations: No glass.
No perishable items. No open items. No
homemade items.
Most needed items include:
• Tuna and Canned Meat
• Peanut Butter
• Canned Soups, Stews, and Chili
• Rice and Dry Beans
• Cereal
• Canned Fruits and Vegetables
• High Protein Granola Bars
• Trail Mix or Nuts
To volunteer with the REFB — includes
helping out in the kitchen and with food
distribution — sign up for a shift on their
website: https://refb.org/. Or, you can make
a financial donation on their site as well.
Sonoma Family Meal
Founded by Press Democrat dining editor
Heather Irwin, Sonoma Family Meal has
served more than 200,000 meals to fire
survivors since 2017. The nonprofit is also
an emergency disaster response kitchen
and is now serving Kincade fire victims and
evacuees.
Volunteer: Sonoma Family Meal is currently
seeking trained chefs and kitchen helpers
as well as people who can move food and
pickup supplies and produce. Sign up to
volunteer at sonomafamilymeal.org/vol-
unteer. You can also make a donation at:
sonomafamilymeal.org
World Central Kitchen
The World Central Kitchen’s “Chef Relief
Team” provides meals to those in need in
disaster areas. Chef Tyler Florence’s Kincade
fire team served 6000 meals at the Sonoma
County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa on Sun-
day, October 27. On Thursday, October 31,
the team — now led by Guy Fieri — served
a special lunch in Santa Rosa for Kincade
fire first responders.
Those interested in volunteering or donat-
ing should register on wck.org.
Sponsored by:
Center for Volunteer & Nonprofit Lead-
ership (CVNL) and The Volunteer Center
of Sonoma County (VCSC)
The Center for Volunteer & Nonprofit Lead-
ership (CVNL) and The Volunteer Center of
Sonoma County (VCSC) coordinate volun-
teer efforts during a disaster.
To volunteer during this disaster and for
long-term recovery efforts, register online at
cvnl.org/volunteer-marin. Once registered,
individuals will be deployed or contacted
directly if and when they are needed for this
disaster and for future events.
To make a financial donation, visit cvnl.org/
donate (under “additional information,”
make sure to select “disaster-related work”).
Donations will be distributed directly to
local charities supporting evacuees in Sono-
ma, Marin, and Napa counties. Gift cards
can also be delivered to CVNL + VCSC
office locations. The organizations kindly ask
that people refrain from donating goods/
items to their Emergency Volunteer Centers
at this time.
Petaluma Peoples Services Center
Petaluma Peoples Services Center is a
collection of human services programs. The
nonprofit is now serving Kincade fire vic-
tims.
Those interested in making a donation serv-
ing Kincade fire victims can do this online at
petalumapeople.org/donate and the orga-
nization will make “targeted purchases.”
You can also bring a check made out to
the Petaluma People Services Center to
Kenilworth Teen Center, 150 Fairgrounds
Drive, Petaluma.
Those wanting to volunteer with the Pet-
aluma Peoples Services Center can fill out
an online application here: tinyurl.com/
PPSC-volunteer.
FINANCIAL DONATIONS
Russian River Alliance
The nonprofit Russian River Alliance is seek-
ing donations to help fund small emergency
cash grants to help cover lost wages and
evacuation costs for workers making $15 an
hour or less.
Organizer Jennifer Wertz notes that workers
were displaced just as rents were coming
due on the first of the month and residents
who lost power already were facing unex-
pected grocery bills. Grants of up to $300
may be available beginning Monday, No-
vember 4, to qualified applicants, who must
work at least 20 hours a week.
The effort is part of an ongoing workforce
fund started as a homeless prevention effort
that morphed to accommodate recovery
needs in the wake of the February 2019
floods.
Donations may be made online at russianri-
veralliance.org/Donate.html.
The Red Cross
To make a financial donation to victims
of the Kincade fire, visit redcross.org, call
How to help those affected by
the Kincade fire.
Mark Thomas Home will double your donation to
The Sonoma County Resilience Fund and Discount
your purchase by the same amount*
MARK THOMAS SANTA ROSA
707 5th St.| 707.542.1855
Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sun 12 p.m. - 5 p.m.
markthomashome.com
SONOMA STRONG | sonomaCF.org
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019
1-800-733-2767, or text REDCROSS to
90999 to make a $10 donation. You can
also send a check to American Red Cross,
5297 Aero Dr, Santa Rosa, CA 95403. The
check should be made out to “American
Red Cross” with “Kincade fire” noted on
the check.
Community Foundation of Sonoma County
The Community Foundation of Sonoma
County’s ongoing Resilience Fund continues
to accept donations to support the mid-
and long-term recovery needs of individ-
uals and families, with particular focus on
helping individuals impacted by the fires,
healing the long-term effects of trauma,
and addressing housing solutions within the
county. Make a donation https://cfs.fcsuite.
com/erp/donate/.
Latino Community Foundation
The Latino Community Foundation has
reactivated its NorCal Wildfire Relief Fund
in response to the Kincade fire. The fund
supports nonprofits that include Corazon
Healdsburg and Nuestra Comunidad, which
are providing essential sheltering and sup-
portive services to Latino immigrants and
farmworkers impacted by the fire. Make a
donation https://latinocf.org/
Rebuild NorthBay Foundation
Rebuild NorthBay Foundation (RNBF) is
committed to the long-term rebuilding of
Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino coun-
ties in the wake of wildfires. The foundation
was founded by Darius Anderson, CEO of
Kenwood Investments and managing part-
ner in Sonoma Media Investments, which
owns Sonoma Magazine. According to the
RNBF, all donations to Kincade fire survivors
and evacuees will go directly toward fire
relief without any administration fee taken
out by the foundation. Make a donation
https://rebuildnorthbay.org/donate/. (Put
“KINCADE” in the memo.)
United Way of the Wine Country
United Way has opened the Kincade Fire
Emergency Relief & Recovery Fund to help
in the relief and recovery efforts post fire.
Make a donation:
https://unitedwaywinecountry.org/comm/
SinglePageRegPledge.jsp
UndocuFund
The UndocuFund for Fire Relief in Sonoma
County, managed by Graton Day Labor
Center, North Bay Organizing Project, and
North Bay Jobs with Justice, is currently rais-
ing funds to assist the victims of the Kincade
fire. This fund is providing direct funding to
undocumented immigrants and their fami-
lies in Sonoma County to help with fire-relat-
ed expenses. Find more information about
how to support undocumented victims of
the Kincade fire, or make a donation at their
website: https://undocufund.org/
This information was complied by
Sofia Englund, Sonoma Magazine staff
Updates at: http://pd2go.net/KincadeHelp
Learn about the Resilience fund at:
 OUTDOORS » Fans of DINING OUT » In worrisome
bioluminescence gather at times, savor a source of
Tomales Bay to experience comforting Italian cuisine
spooky sights. D5 in Petaluma. D3

SonomaLife
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019 • THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SECTION D

KARNA ROA

This photo of stoic newlyweds Katie and Curtis Ferland at their wedding at Chateau St. Jean in Kenwood went viral when photographer Karna Roa posted it on Facebook. The photo was
taken in the late afternoon on Oct. 26, with smoke from the Kincade wildfire bearing down on Healdsburg and Windsor in the background, creating an orange sky around the sun and the
couple, who flew in from Chicago, wearing respirator masks.

Picture of wedding ceremony at Chateau St. Jean goes viral as a sign of the times

Wine Country Gothic

By MEG MCCONAHEY
from hundreds and hundreds she snapped that Saturday

I
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
t was to be the wedding Katie Ferland dreamed of for
more than a year — set to the backdrop of moun-
tains and vineyards on a picture perfect autumn day
in the California Wine Country.
And strangely, in its unexpected way, it was — al-
though the picture that would best capture the day was
not the expected portrait of a happy couple sharing a
first kiss in the Valley of the Moon.
Instead, the impeccably dressed newlyweds standing
in a vineyard looking stoically into the lens like an iter-
ation of Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting, but
without the pitchfork, and wearing face masks, became
the defining photo. And it wasn’t just for the young cou-
ple’s memory album.
Wedding photographer Karna Roa pulled out the shot
while smoke from the raging Kincade fire to the north
hung over the nuptials of Katie and Curtis Ferland at
Kenwood’s Chateau St. Jean Winery.
On Sunday, a day after the wedding, Roa, who lives in
Castro Valley but grew up in Sebastopol, was feeling phys-
ically and emotionally spent.
Her parents in Sebastopol were being evacuated, and
she had lost power at her own home, forcing her to find a
friend who still had electricity so she could download the
irreplaceable pictures on a hard drive.
Impulsively, she posted to social media the face mask
shot, snapped just after the ceremony. She wrote this un-
derstated description, figuring the photo spoke for itself:
KMRPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
“Beautiful wedding at Chateau St Jean yesterday. This
Photographer Karna Roa took the
viral wedding photograph. TURN TO WEDDING » PAGE D10

Science probes how fires start, spread, move

PREVENTING DISASTER » ‘Defensible
space’ beneficial around a home, but
dangerous embers can fly for miles
By STEPHEN NETT
Those are questions fire experts are busy
trying to answer, even as flames continue to burn
in thousands of acres nearby. As the scale of
California’s wildfires seem to be growing in se-
verity and intensity, such efforts are increasingly
important. Because what the fire watchers learn
can help keep us safe.

F
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
ire: it dances romantically on the tips of
candles, and casts a flickering warmth from
the fireplace. But for an entire week, fire
also upended the daily lives of most people living
in Sonoma County, and impacted hundreds of
thousands more beyond.
Everyone is familiar with fire, but what is it,
exactly? What sends it rampaging wildly? When
it’s set loose in the landscape, what makes it
move, and drives its roaring heart? What deter-
mines where it will go, and what makes it stop?
Down in its very microscopic core, fire is ac-
tually a fairly simple thing. It’s a basic chemical
reaction between oxygen in the air and molecules
that readily react with oxygen. The reactions are
called oxidation, and it’s what turns a cut apple
brown, or causes pieces of iron or silverware to
rust or tarnish.
Oxidation is also happening in fire, but with an
important difference. On apples, iron and silver,
oxidation is slow. But on materials that contain a ALVIN JORNADA / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Flames from the Kincade fire are seen burning in the trees off Geysers
TURN TO SCIENCE » PAGE D10 Road near Geyserville on Oct. 23.

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D10 THE PRESS DEMOCRAT • SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2019

WEDDING
CONTINUED FROM D1
lovely couple flew from Chica-
go for their gorgeous destina-
tion in the wine country.”
The irony of the blonde
bride in her elegantly fitted
strapless Berta gown with
her supposed-to-be radiant
face covered by a mask, was
not lost on anyone who saw
it. People began to share. And
share. And when Roa added
the hashtag #KincadeFire,
the photo began flying around
the Internet. By Monday, Roa
and the Ferlands were being
interviewed by most of the
major television networks and
the BBC.
Roa was taken by surprise
and feeling shaken by atten-
tion she never anticipated.
“It’s my responsibility to
take care of those images,
and I found a friend who had
power,” she said. “I went over
to her house and sat down and
while I was waiting for the
photos to copy I thought, ‘Why
don’t I find that one photo that
encapsulates the duress people
were under?’ The out-of-town-
ers who were there in the
middle of this. The air quality
was terrible, and the sun was
red. And that was what really
was happening.”
Ferland, a 32-year-old med-
ical care social worker from
Chicago, began planning her
wedding a year ago. But she
had really been fantasizing
about the Wine Country ever
since she visited in 2017 for
her 30th birthday, just a week
before the firestorms broke out.
They had luckily just missed
the terror and devastation
that ripped through the upper
Sonoma Valley from the Nun’s
Fire, burning homes and at
one point, bearing down on
Chateau St. Jean.
Being from the Midwest,
she and Curtis, who is in sales,
were worried more about
rain than fire, and California
seemed like a good bet for an
outdoor destination wedding in
October.
As for fire, she said, “I’d joke
and try to brush off worries
figuring hopefully it won’t
happen. And it’s exactly what
happened.”
She didn’t waste a minute
booking their venue at Chateau
St. Jean. With its century-old
architecture, formal gardens
inspired by the south of France
and vineyards flanked by the
Mayacamas mountains, it’s
a favorite high-end wedding
venue for Wine Country
weddings. The bridal website
and magazine The Knot staged
their live-streamed “Dream
Wedding” giveaway at Chateau
St. Jean in 2015. But the Nun’s
Fire had also come perilously
close, causing some minor
cosmetic damage to the winery
in 2017.
“We got engaged on Oct. 26,
2018. The following week, I had
known in my heart I wanted it
to be at Chateau St. Jean. I had
the venue booked 10 days after
Chicago newlyweds Katie and Curtis Ferland at their wedding at Chateau St. Jean in Kenwood, held Oct. 26 amid smoke from the Kincade
wildfire, which created an orange sky around the sun and the couple.
I got engaged,” Ferland said
from a hotel near San Fran-
cisco International Airport,
where the couple took refuge
after a frightening wedding
night spent in the dark at the
The Kenwood Inn and Spa.
Ferland said she kept her
cool most of the week, even as
guests began arriving and had
to relocate to a hotel in Santa
Rosa after their long-booked
Airbnb in Sonoma Valley lost
power.
“We woke up Thursday
morning with news the fire had
started, and that was when we
started getting a little anxious.
But we were still planning to
move forward and pray for the
best,” she said.
But at the rehearsal, when
she was told that most of their
outdoor wedding would have
to be moved inside the winery
because of the poor air quality,
she began to get emotional.
“I was heartbroken. Every-
thing I had planned for an en-
tire year was going to change. It
was not what I had envisioned.
I had a crying meltdown.”
But her mother and sister
talked her down and reminded
her of the real joy of a wedding
— pledging to share a life with
someone you love.
“I got my tears out on
Friday,” Ferland said. “But on
Saturday I thought, this is my
wedding day and I’m marrying
the man I want to spend my
future with, and I have so much
to be happy for. My friends and
family are here and I’m going
to have as much fun as I can for
the situation we were given.”
Hearing that power may be
shut off by noon in Kenwood,
the wedding party scurried to
get hair and makeup done first
thing.
And yet, the late afternoon,
she said, was beautiful. The
winds had yet to kick in. The
brief ceremony at 4:30 p.m. on
the lawn was still held outside
followed by a short cocktail
said. “Look at that glow, like
you’re in Hawaii. But the ven-
dors are looking at each other
sideways thinking, ‘This is sort
of apocalyptic. This is not the
tropics.’”
Roa snapped the family and
wedding party portraits as
quickly as she could, she said,
capturing the classic harvest
vineyard setting that makes
autumn, tinged with vivid yel-
lows, oranges and reds, one of
the most sought-after times of
year in the Napa/Sonoma wine
country.
But with wind and fire
KARNA ROA threatening to become the new
Katie and Curtis Ferland at their normal in California, it also
wedding at Chateau St. Jean means an autumn wedding in
without their respirator masks. Sonoma is increasingly subject
to last minute logistical scram-
hour in the courtyard. bles that turn wedding vendors
Their wedding planner Sara into superheroes to keep it all
Sugrue, who was herself was together.
evacuated, thought to provide Roa said throughout the
masks for wedding guests, evening she was stressed, torn
although only one person wore between her responsibility as
one. a photographer to make the
“It’s the wedding favor no best pictures possible for Katie
one wants,” Roa said wryly. But and Curtis and concern for her
the filtered sun was strangely parents, Harold and Linda Roa,
and eerily magical. who were on evacuation watch.
“The sun was so bright She kept running outside
and orange. We knew it was for better cell phone service to
because of the smoke. But it check with her mom.
overall was beautiful,” Ferland “Almost every vendor
said. involved in this wedding was
It was also Sugrue of being actively evacuated hours
Orchard Avenue Events, who before showing up for work.
has a love for gothic arts, who I was out of power. All of us
suggested taking a photo with were on edge. It took an entire
face masks for the memory. village giving all we had,”
The newlyweds at first hes- she added, “to put on a really
itated but then decided to roll strong smile to get through it
with it. all because there was so much
“She said, ‘When you guys tragedy going on in the back-
are ready to laugh again and ground.”
realize you don’t have to stress Roa, who has a 5-year-old
any more ... it will be a cool daughter, Zoe, is one of the
thing to look back on,’” Ferland more sought-after wedding
said she was told. photographers in the Bay Area
Roa said the guests seemed and is president of the Profes-
enchanted by the ochre sunset sional Photographers of the
the color of harvest and the Wine Country.
golden leaves of the vineyard. For all the undercurrents
“I heard the guests say the of stress, the wedding couple
sky looks so beautiful,” Roa remained cocooned in the
KARNA ROA
happiness of their day. The sit-
down dinner for 87, catered by
Elaine Bell, was served inside
in the barrel room, equipped
with a good filtration system
and back-up generators. The
space provided a romantic
Wine Country ambiance even
without the vines.
The bride wasn’t complain-
ing, even when the lights flick-
ered out, before the generator
kicked in, as everyone danced.
“The music was still play-
ing. We were still able to have
so much fun. My guests were
having a great time.”
They spent a nervous and
sleepless wedding night with
the wind howling outside at
The Kenwood Inn and Spa,
which had lost power. The inn
is offering the couple a free
night with a romantic couple’s
massage in their new spa for a
return visit in better weather.
There was another blow
when the bride’s father’s rental
car was broken into in San
Francisco, and expensive elec-
tronics and other items were
stolen.
The newlyweds had planned
to spend their honeymoon in
the Napa Valley but canceled
and instead spent several days
in San Francisco before flying
back to Chicago on Wednes-
day. Still, the newlyweds were
focusing on the positive.
“Through all the craziness,
I got to wear my dream dress
and I still had my dream wed-
ding,” Katie Ferland said.
As for that unconventional
wedding photo, seen round the
world, she has plans.
“We probably going to frame
it. It’s going to be on our thank-
you notes for our wedding, and
it probably will be the picture
that is on our Christmas cards.
It’s something our family and
friends will never forget.”
You can reach Staff Writer
Meg McConahey at meg.mcco-
nahey@pressdemocrat.com.

SCIENCE burn faster or hotter. Grass

growing on a hillside above a
fire will preheat, and can flash-
how they work, Blunck said, it’s
not a good idea to think that just
creating a green space around
CONTINUED FROM D1 burst into flame all at once. your home means you’re safe.
Shrubs and trees tend to slow Fire studies in East Coast labs
lot of stored energy, like wood, the flames’ speed of advance. have found that most homes are
grass or propane, the chemistry But wind can turn a fire, send it set ablaze by embers. We need
runs at extreme speed. If con- racing down or up a funneling research, he said, to tell us, what
ditions are right, the reaction draw or drainage. Wind can types of features make homes
turns runaway and self-sus- make it burn hotter, and move the most vulnerable, so they can
taining, releasing tremendous faster, even start new fires out be hardened.
amounts of radiant heat, light ahead, half a mile or more. “Embers can be transported
and superheated gases. On the ground, for their own for miles,” he explained, “so if
Those glowing gases are what safety and to fight the flames, they land on a cedar roof, or
we see as flame, with soot and the fire fighters must look at among leaves and debris in roof
ash mixed in. vegetation, topography, weather, gutters, or where needles gather
The heat can ignite nearby winds, humidity, air tempera- around ridge corners, or cracks
fuel, causing it to spread, mol- ture. in decks, studies show, they’ll
ecule by molecule, in a wildly In short, McLean said, the ignite.” Clearing such ignition
expanding chain reaction. And factors that shape a wildfire’s sources away is essential.
should it escape, fire will race behavior are complex, and ever KENT PORTER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Unfortunately, Blunck and
and leap across entire land- changing. Firefighter Alex DeLeon of South Lake Tahoe, bundles up against the cold McLean noted, another potent
scapes, and burn for weeks or Controlling fire — how to wind as a ridge between Sonoma and Lake counties burns. source of embers in wildfires
months, until it runs out of fuel, start, contain and harness it — today are burning houses and
or is put out. is something humans worked keep wildfire out of our homes shrub, bark and debris. They’re garages, filled with highly flam-
The images are shocking, and out at least a million years and communities, is that we’ve generated, Bluncksaid, as fire mable substances.
hard to forget: towering swirling ago, archaeological evidence decided to build flammable breaks down larger pieces of There’s no question, experts
flame among groves of trees and suggests. It was a providential houses where fires have always wood or other material, separat- said, California residents will be
homes, leaping bright orange discovery. Using fire to cook food roamed. The challenge now is to ing them into smaller sections. visited by fire again.
into the night sky. The crackle made it vastly more digestible, understand how they develop, Like barbecue charcoal, em- “We don’t get to choose
and roar, even at a safe distance, and made more of the nutrition- expand, and find ways to harden bers can stay burning hot a long between fire and no fire,” is
is alarmingly loud. al value of what we ate available, our dwellings and businesses time. And when pushed aloft how Monica Delmartini, a fire
Very few people react to the thereby altering the size of our against them. and spread away by wind, they Specialist at the Sonoma County
white heat and choking smoke brains and bodies. In multiple In a forest near Albany, will ignite anything flammable Agricultural Preservation and
of wildfire by driving toward ways, fire set the foundation for Oregon, armed with a recent they happen to land on – dry Open Space District put it.
it. Those that do, do so with civilization itself. $2.1 million grant from the U.S. grass, trees, decks, roofs. “The recent fires are really
respect, and hard-earned knowl- But fire was shaping life on Department of Defense, David Researchers like Blunck are just restoring a process that
edge about what wildfire is, and earth long before that, and Blunck has been running exper- still trying to understand what was unnaturally suppressed for
how it moves. particularly in the place we call iments to learn how wildfires conditions generate the most decades,” she said. That’s the
“We’re trained to look for California. spread. Blunck heads the Com- embers. It’s a critical topic, he perspective of all who work with
indications that tell us what it Fire has been a fixture here bustion, Ignition, said, “Because there’s no way to wildfires face to face.
might do,” Scott McLean said for so long, an amazing 54% Radiation and Energy Labora- stop them++.” With their help, and better
on the phone from Sacramento. of the state’s ecosystems now tory at Oregon State University, The danger from embers is understanding of this essential
McLean started fighting fires depend on fire to survive and but his interest is more than aca- especially high considering wild- force of nature, California’s
with Cal Fire in the early ’90’s. regenerate, and most of the rest demic. In 2017, he watched the fires generate their own power- communities may become better
He has three sons out on the have adapted ways of surviving giant Eagle Creek Fire, 43 miles ful updrafts and winds, sending prepared for living with it.
fire line, and he’s now Cal Fire’s its regular passage, according to west of downtown Portland, leap the firebrands thousands of feet
deputy chief of communica- Stephen Pyne, a fire historian at four miles across the flowing high and far down range. Stephen Nett is a Bodega
tions. Arizona State University. Columbia River, and start new Embers are also the main rea- Bay-based Certified California
They train, he said, to look: The reason we consider it blazes on the distant shore. son firefighters and emergency Naturalist, writer and speaker.
Look at the types of vegetation, so destructive, in the view of The culprits were embers, authorities dread high winds. Contact him at snett@californi-
to spot the plants that might those like McLean who fight to smoldering bits of branch, Having studied embers and asparks.com.