The Pickett Fire in Napa County, which is still smoldering and stands at 93% contained after burning over 6,800 acres, may have been sparked on August 21 by discarded ashes from curing a new outdoor fireplace. But that has not been confirmed.

Local PR guy Sam Singer represents Hundred Acre Wine Group, and given Singer's experience with crisis PR in the Bay Area, that seems to be fortuitous after the winery has been implicated as a possible source for the cause of the Pickett Fire. NBC Bay Area first reported last week that Cal Fire investigators suspected that a contract worker at a local winery had improperly disposed of some ashes that he thought were safely cooled around the time that the blaze began on August 21.

At the time, via Singer, the station learned that the worker may have put the discarded ashes "on a pile of flammable material." And early radio dispatch traffic mentioned an "escaped controlled burn" as a possible cause of the fire.

A subsequent report suggested that an unsanctioned wedding had been planned at the winery that weekend, which was then moved to St. Helena when the fire began, and Singer characterized the event as just a "family gathering."

Now, NBC Bay Area has a follow-up report, clarifying that the worker at Hundred Acre Wine, a longtime handyman on the property, had been building an outdoor fireplace, and he built a "basketball-sized" fire in order to cure or "temper" the new hearth. After the fire was out, he says he put the ashes in a bucket and doused the ashes with water. He then disposed of the ashes, and Singer says, "He believed the ashes had been extinguished."

The Pickett Fire began not long after this activity occurred.

Cal Fire has made no conclusion about the cause of the fire, but they say this is one potential cause.

Shawn Zimmermaker, Cal Fire’s Northern Region deputy chief of law enforcement, tells NBC Bay Area that simply dousing ashes with water is not sufficient, and that they should be cool to the touch, or else they could potentially cause reignition.

Jayson Woodbridge, the winemaker at Hundred Acre and Fleming Vineyards, put out a statement the first morning after the fire through Singer, saying that he had been manning hoses at the property "and we stood guard all night."

"The forest is obviously burned and it’s a large fire. No damage to the winery, no damage to the house; you know hundreds and hundreds of firemen deployed doing a great job and you know no idea how the fire started except it was 105° yesterday and blowing about 15-20 mph," Woodbridge said.

The investigation into 2020's Glass Fire, a far more destructive wildfire which burned in much of the same remote area as the Pickett Fire before crossing over into Sonoma County and burning south toward St. Helena, never landed on a conclusive cause for the blaze. In the initial weeks after the fire began, rumors spread that electrical fencing at a vineyard might have been to blame, and investigators looked at burn patterns on several properties, but the cause remains "undetermined."

Previously: Pickett Fire May Have Ignited During Set-Up of Unauthorized Wedding at Napa Winery

Photo via Cal Fire