-Cut the grass. -The situation in California
is really the result of a really intense,
record-shattering heat wave
that has gripped the region for well over a week,
couple with a relatively dry stretch of weather.
I mean, they're in their dry season right now.
So you get the heat, which dries things out even more,
and then they had strong winds over the past couple of days.
Then, there was this other factor
which you don't normally see in Northern and Central California,
which is a barrage of thunderstorms.
There was lightning striking in San Francisco.
It was quite gorgeous,
but really unsettling for people who live there.
So, the big main fires are around
the San Francisco Bay area.
The Napa area is affected, Sonoma Valley is affected,
regions southwest of Sacramento, but it's not isolated.
This is really a Central and Northern California event.
Some fire activity has been going on
in Southern California, as well.
It's not, you know, one or two big fires.
We're talking about fire complexes.
The thing that this has in common with previous wildfires
that people may remember, such as the center of, say,
Napa Valley, Sonoma fires that turned deadly,
as well as the Paradise fire,
which was the deadliest in the state's history,
these fires have been fast-moving,
these fires have been explosively developing,
they have exhibited extreme fire behavior.
Firefighters have resorted to mostly trying
to get people out of the way,
rather than really beating the flames back.
When I say "extreme fire behavior,"
I mean, you know, everything from making their own weather
and causing thunderstorms on their own
to actually forming fire tornadoes --
and not just one fire tornado, but five -- around five of them.
So, nothing about these fires is tame,
but they're not necessarily, thankfully, so far,
causing the fatalities and injuries
that past fires have had, over the past couple years.
But they're also, you know, very dangerous and fast-moving.
-Coming the street, the first house was on fire,
and then my neighbor's house is on fire.
And it was gone, and I thought for sure mine was gone,
but it's not, and it's a "God bless."
-This is, obviously, like,
any disaster in the United States right now.
This is hitting during the time of the pandemic.
And California has been quite hard-hit by the pandemic
in the last couple months especially.
So emergency officials are having to take that
into account.
And there's some risks here because there are firefighters
now coming into California from all over the United States,
and they're obviously going to be fighting
these fires side-by-side.
You know, that is outdoors, which is a lower risk,
and they have protective equipment,
but it's still a concern.
And then, for people who are fleeing fires
at the last minute,
if they're going to shelters that are indoors,
they have to provide for social distancing
and giving out PPE, so masks and that sort of thing.
But a lot of the way that this is being done
is that people are going to staging areas,
away from the front line of flames,
and those are usually outdoors,
so that lowers the risk of some sort of COVID transmission.
I'm Andrew Freedman.
I'm the deputy weather editor
for the Capital Weather Gang at The Washington Post.
I cover climate change and extreme weather events.
And please go to washingtonpost.
com to see all of our continuing coverage of this event.