Amid Tragedy In Wine Country, Some Cause For Hope

ON SUNDAY, OCT. 8, I WAS HAVING DINner at the winery Ovid in Napa Valley with Jack Bittner and his wife Sara. It was a sort-of-business, sort-of-social get-together that’s characteristic of a life in wine: Jack runs the place, and I write about wine. The night was perfect— early October, harvest, the best time to be in Napa. But it was strangely windy.

- Ray Isle

Around 9, Sara took their daughter Lucinda down the hill to their home in St. Helena while Jack and I stayed to talk. The wind moaned and shuddered, an eerie Halloween gale that seemed about three weeks too early. At some point I said something like, “That wind is nuts.” We chatted a bit longer and then called it a night, because he had to be back at work at 4 a.m. to pick the last of their petit verdot. At least that was the plan.

Over the next few hours seven wildfires broke out in Northern California’s wine region. The “Diablo winds,” blowing 70 m.p.h. at times, spread the flames with terrifying speed. Add to that already high temperatures, humidity in the single digits and a wet winter that had produced abundant growth in the forested hills, and you had the perfect conditions for a disaster.

As of Oct. 18 the fires have burned across more than 210,000 acres, hitting Napa, Sonoma, Solano and Mendocino counties particularly hard. More than 5,700 homes and businesses have been destroyed, and over 40 people have died, a grim toll that is sure to rise. About 60 people remain missing. It is the most destructive fire here in decades.