Napa County hasn’t seen any major fires this year, but area residents know everything can change in a matter of minutes.
JR Shaffer vividly remembers walking into his backyard to look at what he thought was a strange noise nearby.
“It looked like the sun. It was crazy,” Shaffer said.
Deer Park residents are acutely aware of the amount of fuel near their homes and the dry conditions lately, especially after a devastating inferno ripped through Napa nearly four years ago.
Charred trees remind us how close the glass fire that tore through Deer Park came to devouring his home.
“I couldn’t believe it when it dawned on me: That’s a fire. It was as crazy as it could be,” Shaffer said.
Since that fire in late September 2020, Shaffer has installed a metal fence instead of wood to harden his home.
He clears any vegetation and dry curbs so cigarettes thrown from passing cars are less likely to ignite a fire.
“It’s just dry, the grass, everything is just dry,” Shaffer said.
Local residents are doing what they can to maintain defensible space and are closely monitoring fuel loads.
“It’s dry. The fire season where it burns out, burns out. But it’s back and ready to go again,” Marvin Asher said.
The National Weather Service has updated its red flag warning to now include inland Napa Valley. For residents like Shaffer, the wildfire season appears to be lasting longer and starting earlier.
“It seems like we’re doing that more and more every year,” Shaffer said.
He and his neighbors realize they can only control so much.
“You’re always on your toes when you live in the country,” Asher said.
“Maybe we’re just paying more attention to it than we used to,” Shaffer said.
They have seen how quickly and unexpectedly an inferno can engulf homes. Recently, Shaffer said a fire ignited not far from his home.
He said firefighters extinguished the 60-hectare fire fairly quickly. But since that fire four years ago, they have been prepared for anything, at any time.
Kenny Choi
