As 17 major wildfires continue to rage across California at a historic scale, once again the cannabis industry is feeling the heat close to its annual make-or-break harvest season. Worst case scenario, crops have been lost to the flames. But the problems trickle down to many other farmers close to the frontlines currently manned by 14,000 firefighters and 2,400 engines as they do their best to save the tens of thousands of structures currently at risk across the state.
This afternoon Gov. Gavin Newsom announced 91 engines from out-of-state have arrived with eight more en route from Montana. The state has requested the mutual aid support of 375 engines. One new factor adding a wrench to the mutual aid requests is two tropical weather systems barreling down on the gulf coast simultaneously. This has certainly left some officials wary of sending their first responders on a cross country road trip. Newsom said the mutual aid has left him mesmerized, especially when he was standing in Livermore the other day as a Santa Monica engine pulled up. At the end of these road trips, these firefighters likely face some of the largest infernos they’ve ever seen in their careers.
The LNU Lightning Complex in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo, and Solano counties is the largest of the fires. As of Monday morning, 350,030 acres had burned and it’s currently 22 percent contained. It’s now the second-largest fire in California in nearly 100 years after the Mendocino Complex Fire that torched just over 450,000 acres in the redwoods during the 2018 fire season. Sonoma County is the industrial heart of the Emerald Triangle despite being geographically south. A ton of cannabis gets processed in Santa Rosa, the last big city on Highway 101 until you hit the Oregon border 300+ miles later because it offers the manpower and commercial space to do it at scale.
Read more at laweekly.com