TRACY — June marked the start of fire season in a very real way when a massive grass fire ignited in a field near the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories Saturday afternoon. It raged across the Altamont Hills toward the town of Tracy and by the time it was contained Sunday it had burned about 14,000 acres and was the state’s largest wildfire of the year.
“Altamont Pass is known for being a windy place anyway, but what we experienced last night was much worse than the norm here,” said Josh Silveira, chief of the Cal Fire Battalion. “We were looking at sustained winds in the high 30s, low 40s, and gusts into the 60s. That made it difficult to even stand — just stand there — let alone trying to attack and fight the fire. Firefighters were faced with conditions where the fire broke out it was simply over.”
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Two firefighters even suffered burns when erratic winds changed direction and pushed the flames back toward them. They were transported to Bay Area hospitals with minor and moderate burns. Silveira said both are expected to recover.
“Seeing the grass burn like that was impressive,” he said. “It made sounds that you normally only hear in brush and wood. It was a very fast-moving and evolving fire.”
Adolfo Inguanzo owns property on the outskirts of Tracy that he allowed firefighters to use as a base camp. It is about five miles from Interstate 580, which they hoped would act as a natural fire break.
“We’ve started checking to see if it’s across the 580,” Inguanzo said. “And we just prayed for the best at that point, right? … Most of it is just praying that nothing will jump on this side.”
It worked. The flames stopped at 580, preventing a run into the town of Tracy, but on the fire side of the highway they weren’t so lucky. One neighborhood off Vernalis Road became the focus of the battle as firefighters struggled to protect homes. The residents had all been evacuated except Kirn Gill. He and his neighbor were left behind as the flames raced down the hills behind the houses.
“Everything was on fire,” Gill said. “It was intense. It was 200-foot flames, smoke everywhere. It was bad.”
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The fire burned into the backyards of most homes before dying out, but one on Bernard Road wasn’t so lucky. It was the only major structure lost in the fire, along with a number of vehicles parked on the site. The heat coming from the burning house caused even more problems for Gill, who lives across the street.
“All of a sudden, coal started coming onto our property,” he said. “So I was just hosing that stuff down because the last thing we needed was to burn down everyone’s house.
Then the power went out, destroying his water source and forcing him and his neighbor to get water from a pool.
“We were just throwing water on the fire. We were just taking whatever we had that could scoop up water – buckets, cans – whatever we could find,” Gill said. “I feel like if I hadn’t been there, everything would have burned down.”
By Sunday afternoon, the flames were gone and I-580 was reopened to traffic. The fire ended as abruptly as it started, but as firefighters patrolled the area looking for hot spots, they saw it as a wake-up call.
“We’ve had smaller fires across the state – a few hundred acres here and there,” Chief Silveira said. “But this is the first major incident where we’ve burned over a thousand acres, and it’s just a good reality check for us. You know, fire season is upon us.”
