The Sonoma County wildfire that broke out Wednesday night, possibly the result of a "malfunctioning" and live high-voltage transmission tower near Geyserville that belongs to PG&E, reached 5 percent containment as of 7 p.m. Thursday and remained at that level Friday morning. Meanwhile, meteorologists are warning of an "extreme wind event" starting Saturday night, the likes of which the Bay Area hasn't seen since the night that over a dozen wildfires were sparked across Northern California in October 2017.
The Kincade Fire grew to 16,000 acres Thursday and to 21,900 acres overnight, up from 10,000 acres early in the day, according to the CalFire incident report, and it has destroyed a total of 49 structures so far. Evacuation orders are in place for roads east of Highway 128 and road east of 101 in the Geyserville area, as well as  Cloverdale Geysers Road, Geysers Road, Red Winery Road, Alexander Mountain Road, and Pine Flat Road.
As the Chronicle reports, the fire has been kept at bay outside the city limits of Geyserville, and firefighters overnight were able to stop its westward momentum. The fire is primarily expanding to the north into more rugged terrain as of Friday morning.
A Planet Dove satellite captured the #KincadeFire burning today, October 24th. pic.twitter.com/JeteGkF1SG
— Planet (@planetlabs) October 25, 2019
1,300 firefighters are working the fire, and as the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reports, that number may grow to 2,000 by early Friday. So far, no injuries and no missing persons have been reported.
A wildfire is burning simultaneously in the canyons of northern Los Angeles County, dubbed the Tick Fire, which has forced the evacuation of 50,000 people. That fire has burned 4,300 acres, and it was burning close to residential neighborhoods in Santa Clarita Thursday evening, as the New York Times reports. That fire was being whipped up by the Santa Ana winds, similar to the Diablo winds that began Wednesday night in Northern California.
BREAKING: The #TickFire is dangerously close to the neighborhood of Canyon Country in Mint Canyon on the northeast side of Santa Clarita, #California.
— WeatherNation (@WeatherNation) October 25, 2019
Residents in the neighborhood were forced to evacuate.#CAwx
Video Credit: https://t.co/ZwJfdutIX8 & Caleb Lunetta/The Signal pic.twitter.com/VeEGyPz5ss
The National Weather Service is now predicting strong winds, in some cases upward of 75 miles per hour at higher elevations, in and around the Bay Area on Sunday. As we learned yesterday, this is likely to result in broad swaths of NorCal losing power in pre-emptive power shutoffs that could last into Monday. Wind gusts are expected to be between 45 and 55 miles per hour.
As KRON 4 reports, this is being called an "extreme wind event," and it's unlike anything we've had in Northern California since time of the Wine Country fires in 2017. Humidity is also expected to remain low, but hopefully the fire danger can be kept in check. The strong northeasterly winds are expected to begin late Saturday and continue through Monday.
Also, hopefully, the Kincade Fire has reached a higher level of containment by the time these winds kick up.
FIRE WEATHER WATCH Sat night through Mon morning.
— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) October 24, 2019
This event looks to be the strongest of this year and
since the 2017 wine country fires. Strong NE winds will slowly ease later Sun and persist right through Mon morning. This will be a long duration and extreme wind event. #cawx pic.twitter.com/UzK2HPou1N
Related: PG&E Tower 'Malfunctioned' Right Near Where Kincade Fire Started
This post has been updated throughout as of 8:25 a.m. Friday.
