Windswept flames scorched rural northwest Gilroy Saturday night
threatening homes as a lightning-strike fire
– one of numerous fires that coincided with afternoon
thunderstorms – roared out of control.
video of the fire on Mount Madonna and an interactive map
locating the two fires.
Windswept flames scorched rural northwest Gilroy Saturday night threatening homes as a lightning-strike fire – one of numerous fires that coincided with afternoon thunderstorms – roared out of control.
Residents along the north side of Day Road watched and fled as flames sped down the hillside toward their homes. At 11:30 p.m. it was unclear if any homes had been lost.
Kathleen Peterson, a Day Road resident, wrapped up evacuating 35 horses just past 11:30 p.m. The fire is right across the street, she said by phone, about 50 feet away.
“I just hope it doesn’t take our old house and the barn,” she said as she prepared to flee.
The Hummingbird Fire had consumed more than 400 acres in the Hayes Valley area on the north side of the ridge and south of the ridge toward Day Road. The origin of the fire, Hummingbird Lane off Watsonville Road, leads to Clos La Chance Winery which is perched on a hill overlooking the Cordevalle Golf Resort.
All guests at Cordevalle were evacuated according to Adam Lopez, night manager at Cordevalle. The resort has 45 rooms.
Winding Day Road, which stretches between Santa Theresa Boulevard and Watsonville Road, became a chaotic maze as firefighters, competing with onlookers who drove to witness the blaze, tried to find driveways that would reach deep into the foothills.
The area is prime horse country with barns and riding arenas dotting the rolling hillsides. Trailers filled with the animals streamed from the area.
Residents forced from their homes can stay at an evacuation center set up by the American Red Cross at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, 1505 East Main Ave. American Red Cross Santa Clara Valley Chapter will be providing food, shelter and counseling until evacuated residents are allowed to return to their homes or until alternative housing is available.
Police officers from various agencies, including Gilroy and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office, began to restrict traffic around 10:15 p.m.
Flames could be seen for miles as the sky lit up and smoke billowed from the ridge line. Winds were swirling, but generally heading northeast away from the more populated Gilroy area known as the Northwest Quad.
Smoke enveloped the city, coming not only from the Hummingbird Fire but also from the Whitehurst Road fire on the south side of Hecker Pass.
In the afternoon, long lightning spears struck the ground sparking two fires in west Gilroy as thunder clapped continuously and rain fell intermittently in an unusual summer surprise delivered by Mother Nature.
Firefighters continue to battle the blaze in the vicinity of Whitehurst Road, south and west of Sprig Lake off Highway 152, which is closed to traffic.
Firefighters set up a command post at Mount Madonna Inn at the top of Hecker Pass shortly after 2 p.m. The steep terrain forced the battle to be fought mostly from the air. A helicopter could be seen dropping water on the fire. By 3 p.m., the fire had consumed more than three acres and was being fought solely from the air with helicopters and planes dropping water and fire retardant. Smoke could be seen against the eerie dark gray clouds from the city.
Daniel Howland, who has lived on Whitehurst Road for 20 years with his wife and son, said he saw the fire start.
“We were watching the lightning, then all of a sudden we saw a puff of smoke,” he said on the phone from his home. He called 911, then watched as the flames, about two miles from his home began to consume wildland.
“Whoa, there goes another one,” he added as another lightning strike hit. “We’re thinking about starting to pack stuff.”
Initially, firefighters thought they could get a quick grasp on the blaze and hoped that initial water drops would halt the fires spread.
“Drop some water … and maybe we can get ahead of this thing,” a firefighter said via radio.
Park rangers evacuated the campsite at Mount Madonna County Park at 3 p.m., and were searching for at least three unaccounted for hikers.
One of those was Louise Elliott’s husband Lance. The couple drove from San Jose to hike the Sprig Lake Trail about 2 p.m.
“We could smell the smoke, then we started hearing the thunder, then we saw the helicopters,” she said. She decided to turn around, but her husband continued “walking our dogs.”
All of the hikers were found and safely evacuated from the park.
Temperatures fluctuated wildly Saturday. The mercury quickly reached the century mark, then fell precipitously to 80 degrees as the clouds gathered and gusty winds coursed through South Valley. The lightning came in the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures hitting a high of 104 in Gilroy before the clouds arrived. The temperature was 86 degrees at 2:30 p.m., with wind gusts reaching 26 mph, as measured at St. Mary School.
A separate smaller fire, near the intersection of Uvas and Watsonville roads, was also presumed to be from a lightning strike.
An 11-year resident of Thousand Trails near the intersection of Watsonville and Uvas roads said as she returned home about 2 p.m. she could see flames in the hillside west of the park, but that it appeared out at 3:20 p.m.
“This one is way closer,” Nancy Walton said, referring to the Croy Road fire that burned 3,127 acres in the hills west of Morgan Hill in September 2002. A total of 34 homes were lost, six were damaged and more than 65 were saved in that blaze.
However, by 9 p.m., the fire had grown to 50 acres, and some residents were being evacuated, and homes were threatened.
Daniel Berlant, Calfire public information officer, said the Uvas/Watsonville fire was of greater concern than the Whitehurst fire because there are residents in the area. At Web posting time, he did not have information on how many residents had been evacuated or how many homes were threatened.
“It’s a swiftly moving brush fire, but we are fortunate in that we knew of the approaching weather system and moved our resources, so we have a number of engines on scene, a number of copters and planes to fight the fire,” he said.
According to the National Weather Service, an area of thunderstorms developed off the central California coast late Saturday morning and moved northeast, producing the lightning strikes. A dark mass of clouds crept over the south part of the city a little after 1 p.m. and thunder rang out soon after. Kids screeched in a south Gilroy neighborhood as the first bolts of lightning touched down about 1:30 p.m. However, even as the lighting struck, some sections of the city remained sunny with patchy clouds, while in others it was raining.
The National Weather Service issued a dry lightning warning, which remains in effect until 11 p.m. and covers the entire Bay Area and Santa Clara and San Benito counties.
Dry lightning refers to thunderstorms which produce no rain that reaches the ground. The term is a technical misnomer since lightning is obviously not wet in any instance, and also because the thunderstorms which are so named actually do produce precipitation, although it does not reach the ground.
Sarah Whitely, Web master and wine pourer at Fortino Winery, said the fire and weather did little to dampen the spirits of the Harley Davidson enthusiasts enjoying a “Ride the Vine” event at the winery on Hecker Pass Highway in west Gilroy five or 10 miles from the fire.
“It poured, but now it’s just drizzling,” she said about 2:40 p.m. “This is earthquake weather.”
Owner Gino Fortino, who Whitely said saw the strike that caused the fire, was busy serving a suckling pig and couldn’t come to the phone.
Jeannette Dickens, who has lived on Whitehurst Road for eight years, but owned the property for more than 60 years, said she feels relatively safe as the fire burns across the street from her home.
“We have things pretty well cleared,” she said. “We’ve been careful. I just hope what we’ve done is enough.”
Because of the dry conditions, the lightning could cause additional fires, the National Weather Service warned. However, no additional fires had been reported as of 3 p.m.
This most recent blaze comes on the heels of an already busy fire season. The Summit Fire, which began May 22 and took nearly a week to put out, charred more than 4,200 acres. In early June, the Martin Fire burned 520 acres and destroyed 11 buildings in the Bonny Doon community in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The so-called Trabing Fire is the third major blaze to hit Santa Cruz County in the past month. It broke out Friday and has burned about 630 acres in Watsonville near the airport and was 90 percent contained Saturday morning, and full containment was expected later in the day.
As many as 75 wildfires sparked by lightning storms are burning in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest near Redding, in far northern California.
Forest Service Spokesman Michael Odle says none of the fires are immediately threatening homes.
The fires began overnight Friday. They now range from less than an acre in size to more than 750 acres.
Strike teams moved in Saturday on the two largest fires. One is burning near Junction City, the other near LimeDyke Mountain.
More than 20 smokejumpers – firefighters that parachute into remote areas to battle wildfires – have been deployed.
Farther south along the coast, firefighters were battling a 50,000-acre wildfire burning in a remote part of the Los Padres National Forest in southern Monterey County. The Indians Fire, which started June 12 about 10 miles west of King City, was about 50 percent contained Saturday.
For up-to-date information on shelter locations, contact the American Red Cross Santa Clara Valley Chapter at (408) 577-1000.
Residents should contact CAL FIRE at (408) 779-0930 for information on whether their homes are in an evacuation area.
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