SANTA ROSA (KRON) — On day 11 of the Kincade Fire, KRON4’s Gayle Ong joined Public Information Officer Rhett Pratt to head out to the aftermath.
Right away, memories of previous devastation along 101 in Santa Rosa as we passed by where the Tubbs Fire swept through two years ago.
We then head to Chalk Hill Road near Windsor.
This area is still a mandatory evacuation zone as firefighters monitor hot spots and PG&E crews work to begin the recovery process.
“Preparing for rehabilitating the environment, falling dangerous trees,” Pratt said. “Making sure the residents can come home and do so safely and have what they need to go back to normal life.”
These ribbons indicate structure triage – firefighters did all they could to prevent the fires from reaching these homes.
But the wind-driven fire swept through and destroyed homes and vineyards along this road.
As of Sunday, the Kincade Fire has moved farther east of Highway 128.
Crews are in the mop up stages but working on a steep hillside with narrow roads.
The advantages of following evacuation orders.
At one point we were at a standstill so these PG&E workers can replace this pole.
While the winds subsided, there’s still a possibility of more fires.
We see signs of gratitude all over, but firefighters are calling meteorologists and weather fire analyst heroes as they provide data for firefighters to get in the fire and get people out of harm’s way.
“We didn’t lose any lives,” Pratt said. “We were able to get a lot of resources in here quickly to get in front of this fire and make the stops that we did.”