Evacuations widened in the San Francisco Bay Area overnight as wildfires ringing the region scorched hundreds of square miles of land, edged toward San Jose and produced perhaps the world's worst air quality.
In all, more than 349,000 acres have burned in Northern and Central California — the equivalent of 546 square miles, more than the land area of the entire city of Los Angeles. At least 134 structures have been destroyed, and the fire-fanning weather conditions that have brought record temperatures and thousands of lightning strikes in the past few days are not expected to abate soon.
The largest cluster of fires overnight was in wine country, the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which has blackened a combined 124,100 acres and triggered the evacuation of nonessential personnel from Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and patients from Adventist Health St. Helena hospital in Napa County.
In Sonoma County, the entire city of Healdsburg was under an evacuation warning early Thursday.
Fires were also prompting evacuation orders on the eastern edge of San Jose, a result of the SCU Lightning Complex fire, which has burned 102,000 acres in multiple locations generally east of Silicon Valley and the East Bay and west of the Central Valley. Flames were nearing the famed Lick Observatory, which serves astronomers from the University of California.
Additional evacuation orders were issued in the path of the CZU August Lightning Complex fire, which was raging in the remote mountainous area southwest of Silicon Valley, on the border of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. That fire has burned 25,000 acres and forced the evacuation of more than 22,000 people, officials said Wednesday night.
In San Mateo County, the CZU August Lightning Complex fire was threatening the communities of Pescadero and La Honda. In Santa Cruz County, structures have been lost in the Swanton Road area, and a Cal Fire station was under threat.
The evacuation zone for this fire has expanded rapidly and now includes the communities of Davenport, Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek.
The weather conditions for the next three days look grim, said Mark Brunton of Cal Fire.
"That makes that threat very direct and very real," he said. "We're doing everything we possibly can to protect life and property."
According to the website PurpleAir, the Bay Area was home to the world's worst air quality overnight Thursday. Air quality is especially bad in Silicon Valley, San Mateo County and Livermore Valley, according to local air quality management officials.
"Smoke can irritate the eyes and airways, causing coughing, a dry scratchy throat and irritated sinuses," the Bay Area Air Quality Management District said. "Elevated particulate matter in the air can trigger wheezing in those who suffer from asthma, emphysema" and other chronic respiratory ailments.
The National Weather Service office for the Bay Area warned that elevated fire weather would persist into Thursday morning, with possible gusty winds in the higher elevations.
"Very dry and warm conditions will persist across the interior and in the region`'s higher elevations," the weather service said. "Smoky and hazy conditions are likely to impact portions of the region through at least this upcoming weekend."
As of Wednesday afternoon, 367 major fires were burning statewide, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
"This fire season has been very active and, not surprisingly, that activity has taken shape in a number of counties up and down the state," he said during a news briefing.
At this time last year, crews had responded to a total of 4,007 fires throughout the state, Newsom said. They've already been dispatched to 6,754 this year.
The rapid outbreak of new blazes has stretched the state's firefighting resources to their limit.
Jeremy Rahn, the lead Cal Fire public information officer for the LNU Lightning Complex fire, said Wednesday that the state had already requested 375 additional fire engines as well as additional hand crews from out-of-state agencies, and hired "nearly all available private firefighting 'call when needed' aircraft in the Western United States."
"The size and complexity at which these incidents are burning is challenging all aspects of emergency response," he said during a media briefing. "Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite."
Newsom, however, expressed confidence that California is prepared to rise to the challenge and thanked the leaders of other states — including Arizona, Nevada and Texas — for their pledges to send additional resources.
California is "putting everything we have on these fires," he said, and "we're now getting the support of some of our partners in the Western United States, and for that, again, we're very grateful."
Lin reported from San Francisco and Miller, Money and Serna from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Anita Chabria, Taryn Luna, Susanne Rust and Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.
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