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The growing threat of fires has shaken the Napa valley wine industry, as fears of smoke-spoiled grapes and soaring insurance rates put vintners on edge

Elton Slone and his colleagues at the Robert Craig Winery in Napa valley had gathered for their annual pre-harvest company party last week – complete with copper pot carnitas and grape tacos – when one of his co-workers noticed an alert on her phone. The Pickett fire, a blaze that had started about 10 miles (16km) away near the town of Calistoga, was moving toward their vineyards on Howell Mountain.

Knowing that the Glass fire – a 2020 blaze that damaged numerous wineries and spoiled a year’s harvest – had burned along the same path, Slone hoped no fuel remained for this new fire. “But that was not the case,” he said. Within the week, the winery’s Candlestick Vineyard would become “a sacrificial lamb for the town of Angwin” when firefighters lit a controlled burn on their property to control the larger fire.

Vineyards can make excellent fire breaks because they are typically clear of burnable plant matter, and grape vines themselves are moist enough to be nonflammable. But heat damage and smoke can still destroy a crop.

The Robert Craig Winery lost the entire crop of their Candlestick Vineyard, which would have generated $4.5m in revenue. Slone estimates about 10% of the vines will need to be replanted – a process that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take a decade to see new bottles of wine ready for market. The team will test grapes on another one of their vineyards closer to harvest to see whether the smoke affected them.

The loss comes at the end of the growing season – after Slone’s vineyard had sunk nearly $1m into farming costs – and is made even more devastating because it’s happened before. The memories of the 2020 Glass fire and 2018 Camp fire, which burned farther east but still sent smoke to blanket Napa’s grapevines, are still fresh. “It’s financially a devastating situation,” said Slone.

The still-burning Pickett fire, which began on 21 August in northern Napa county, quickly burned through 6,800 acres (2,750 hectares), making it the San Francisco Bay Area’s largest wildfire this year. Preliminary estimates show that it caused $65m in agricultural losses, largely to wine grape growers, affecting about 1,500 acres (610 hectares) of agricultural land.

Although that damage is significantly less than that wrought by the Glass fire – which burned through 67,000 acres (27,000 hectares) and racked up $3.7bn in losses – the growing threat of wildfires in arid California has still shaken the wine industry.

“Northern California wine country is one of the treasures of the United States,” said Slone. “It’s something that I think all Americans should be concerned about because it’s a uniquely American thing.”

‘Tastes like a campfire’

Along the west coast, wine grape growers have implemented many strategies to prepare for wildfires – with the support of scientists at the US Department of Agriculture and local universities.

Ben Montpetit, chair of the University of California, Davis’s viticulture and enology department, said in an emailed statement that the industry has employed “barrier sprays to reduce smoke uptake, annual testing to establish baseline smoke marker levels in grapes, and small-lot fermentations after smoke events to assess potential wine impact”.

“Researchers are also investigating which grape cultivars are more sensitive or tolerant to smoke exposure,” he added.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in the preparedness realm,” said Natalie Collins, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, who noted the industry established a smoke exposure taskforce after the losses in 2018 to aid growers after wildfires.

The existence of that taskforce hints at a perennial problem for vineyards: though they can often keep wildfire off their acres, there’s little that can keep smoke at bay. And if smoke sits in an area for too long, it can leave grapes tasting ashy, like a campfire.

“Smoke taint issues are kind of fickle,” said Heather Griffin, a partner at Summit Lake Vineyards and Winery. “It depends on the varietal, depends on your ripeness level and depends on how long the exposure was.”

Griffin’s family’s vineyards were saved from the Pickett fire – “They stopped the fire at the end of our ridge up on Howell Mountain,” she said – but they’ll need to send grapes out for testing before harvest to be sure the smoke didn’t taint it.

Protecting the industry

For the first year ever, crop insurers are offering a new coverage option called the fire insurance protection smoke index endorsement, which would insure vineyards for losses due to smoke exposure.

But some growers say the cost of crop insurance has become unattainable after repeated wildfires.

“Our insurance went up so much after the fires of 2020. It literally went from $40,000 a year for really great coverage for all of our properties and inventory, and now it’s $300,000 a year and covers nothing,” said Slone.

For the 95% of Napa valley’s wineries that are family-owned, that cost can be “catastrophic”, he adds.

The wine industry has historically relied on federal funding to support USDA and university research into wildfire preparedness. Although those levels have remained steady despite widespread federal cuts, eight federal wine grape research scientists – including a smoke exposure specialist – were fired and then rehired early in the Trump administration’s Doge-era cuts.

“We want to make sure that an industry like ours continues to be protected,” said Collins, as “we continue to see the writing on the wall in California that wildfires likely will continue to be an issue here”.

It’s possible that some federal disaster relief funding may work its way to affected vineyards, but Griffin says buying wine from those wineries “helps everybody that’s up here”.

“Shoot them an email and buy some of their wine,” added Slone. “They will be the most appreciative people on the planet Earth.”

More than a week after the Pickett Fire started in California's Napa County, firefighters are making progress on the largest wildfire to burn in the Bay Area so far this year.

According to a Cal Fire update posted Friday night, the fire burning near the town of Calistoga has burned 6,803 acres and is 51% contained.

Five structures have been destroyed, while another 187 structures remain threatened. Firefighters did not provide specifics on the destroyed structures.

"Through the night, the fire perimeter has remained within the Glass Fire footprint," the agency said, noting a wildfire that burned through the same area in 2020.

Cal Fire said weather in the area is expected to be warmer and drier, with gusty winds in the afternoon.

"Firefighters continue to monitor areas of steep rugged terrain to ensure the fire remains within control lines. Resources continue to patrol and cool smoldering material deep into the perimeter of the fire," the agency added.

More than 2,400 fire personnel remain on scene, including 210 engines, 36 water tenders, eight helicopters, 45 dozers and 53 hand crews.

The Pickett Fire broke out on the afternoon of Aug. 21 in the in the area of Pickett Road northeast of Kenefick Ranch Vineyard and Winery, outside Calistoga city limits. The fire quickly grew, prompting evacuations.

On Sunday, the Napa County Office of Emergency Services declared a local state of emergency.

As of Friday morning, evacuation orders remain in effect for the following areas:

Meanwhile, an evacuation warning is in effect for zone NPA-E120.

No injuries have been reported. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The fire, which is burning in the famed winegrowing region, is prompting concerns about this year's crop. Napa County's Agricultural Commissioner has issued an early estimate of the fire causing $65 million in damages, mostly impacting the wine industry.

Tim Fang

Tim Fang is a digital producer at CBS Bay Area. A Bay Area native, Tim has been a part of the CBS Bay Area newsroom for more than two decades and joined the digital staff in 2006.

California fire investigators appear to be investigating what role, if any, a prestigious Napa Valley winery played in the start of the almost 7,000-acre Pickett fire, which is still threatening hundreds of buildings and dozens of wineries.

A spokesperson for Hundred Acre, a popular Calistoga-based winery, confirmed Thursday that company representatives had recently spoken with fire investigators who are trying to figure out what started the region’s largest fire this year.

“They are working cooperatively with the investigation into the Pickett fire,” said Sam Singer, a spokesperson for One True Vine, a company that includes Hundred Acre wines. The San Francisco Chronicle has described Hundred Acre as a “cult Cabernet” winemaker.

While the cause of the fire remains under investigation, a source with knowledge of the discussions at Hundred Acre told The Times that the investigators were looking into the possibility that discarded ashes from the vineyard had sparked the major fire.

The Pickett fire ignited Aug. 21 at 2343 Pickett Road just outside of Calistoga, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. That address is part of the Hundred Acre property, Singer confirmed.

Singer declined to comment on reports about the discarded ashes. However, he made clear that there was no controlled burn on the property that might have gotten out of control.

Officials with Cal Fire, which is leading the fire investigation and response, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Pickett fire remained at just under 7,000 acres as of Thursday, with 33% containment, according to Cal Fire reports. It broke out amid a major heat wave, prompting evacuation orders and warnings, including many that remain in place.

The blaze has not grown in several days, but Cal Fire reported Thursday that “large fuels continue to smolder within the fire perimeter as firefighters work to construct control lines within steep, rugged terrain.”

While the extent of damage to vineyards and properties around the region hasn’t yet been assessed, no structures have been reported destroyed or damaged. Singer said Hundred Acre’s properties have had road and infrastructure damage, but no buildings or vineyards were affected.

There are more than 2,500 people assigned to the fire response, according to Cal Fire.

The Pickett Fire is still burning in Napa County, one week after igniting. But the outlook is positive: No structures have been confirmed as damaged or destroyed, and the containment percentage has risen to 33%. As it’s moved through more than 6,800 acres of this rural northeastern corner of the county, the flames have mostly consumed open land.

In fact, the fight against the Pickett Fire can already be considered a remarkable success — and the mood in Napa County reflects that.

“I’m not a firefighter, but I’m feeling good about it,” said Jeff Parady, a seventh-generation Pope Valley landowner and owner of Parady Family Wines. Cal Fire and local firefighters, he added, have “got this handled.”

The optimism is a far cry from the panic that surrounded the Glass Fire, which initially followed a similar path as this one five years ago. “The Glass Fire was scary and apocalyptic,” said Chris Jambois, owner of Black Sears Winery on Howell Mountain, who saw that 2020 fire destroy seven acres of his vines and damage his winery. “This felt like they had it under control.”

It’s no mystery why the firefighting effort has gone more smoothly this time around. When the Glass Fire erupted in late September 2020, there had been hundreds of wildfires throughout the state already in the season — it remains the most destructive wildfire year in California’s modern history — and resources were stretched thin. Wine Country had seen a cluster of wildfires only a month prior, following a siege of dry-lighting strikes.

When the Pickett Fire began last week, by contrast, “there weren’t a lot of areas in California depleting these resources,” said Cal Fire public information officer Caitlin Grace.

The resources applied to this incident on Wednesday alone were tremendous: 2,785 personnel (as opposed to 185 to the Glass Fire), 11 helicopters (zero to the Glass Fire), 251 engines (10 to the Glass Fire), 62 dozers (10 to the Glass Fire) and 35 water tenders (seven to the Glass Fire).

The Glass Fire ultimately burned over 67,000 acres, destroying over 1,500 structures and damaging an additional 282. It wrecked dozens of Napa Valley wineries, including Cain, Newton, Spring Mountain Vineyard, Hourglass and Burgess.

Ferocious winds spread the Glass Fire all across Napa Valley, from east to west, whereas the Pickett Fire has been constrained by less windy, less hot conditions. And the fact that this wildfire has spread through the Glass Fire’s burn scar also helped: There is only a few years’ worth of new vegetative growth.

“It is fundamentally a different kind of fire,” said Joe Nordlinger, CEO of the Napa Communities Firewise Foundation.

A game changer for the Pickett Fire has been the use of nighttime Fire Hawk helicopters, a relatively new technology. They allow crews to continue aerial firefighting throughout the night by dropping water and fire retardant and providing navigation for ground crews.

Another coup: Cal Fire Helitack crews carved out two helipads in some of the remote terrain where the Pickett Fire is burning. This allowed them to drop off hand crews who would have otherwise had to hike up to three miles, shaving hours off of their transportation time.

Finally, Grace said, the community’s extreme preparedness made a big difference. In the Aetna Springs area, where the Pickett Fire was threatening buildings, “those property owners had such good defensible space practices in place,” she said.

She noted that Napa Firewise’s fuel reduction projects had also helped mitigate the damage. One particular project in Dutch Henry Canyon, said Nordlinger, seems to have kept the blaze from creeping into a neighborhood.

The 33% containment figure might not sound like a lot, but “the low containment isn’t necessarily due to a large threat to the public,” Grace cautioned. “It’s more that we’re making absolutely sure that the fire will not cross those containment lines.” The west side of the fire is highly contained, she said, and the focus now is on strengthening the lines in the northeast, which is the steepest section of the fire.

This rugged corner of Napa County is a place where people have gotten used to taking care of themselves. For some vintners, the arrival of so many state resources has been almost jarring — in a good way.

In 2020, groups of residents in Pope Valley and Howell Mountain bulldozed their own containment lines to save homes in their communities. This time, the bulldozers came to them. On Saturday, Parady, who in addition to a winery also owns the auto repair shop Pope Valley Garage, loaded a dozer onto a trailer so that he could carve out a fire break around his home. When he arrived at his property, a Cal Fire crew was already there. They told Parady that six bulldozers were on their way.

Parady figured he’d better get out of their way. “It was like watching a symphony, each of those dozers cutting a line,” he said. “We got spoiled this time.”

Still, no one in these fire-prone districts is getting too comfortable. “We’ve got 90-plus days potentially of fire weather, potentially when there will be some other competing fires,” Nordlinger said. “While there’s a lot that appears to be positive about how this is unfolding, we need people to maintain their vigilance and preparedness.”

Esther Mobley joined the San Francisco Chronicle in 2015 to cover California wine, beer and spirits. She reports on the business of the state’s $55 billion wine industry; reviews Bay Area wineries, wines and bars; and writes about the effects of climate change on vineyards.

Previously Esther was an assistant editor at Wine Spectator magazine in New York. She has worked harvest seasons at wineries in Napa Valley and Argentina. She was the 2019 Feature Writer of the Year in the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards, and her work has been recognized by organizations including the California News Publishers Association, the Society for Features Journalism and the Association of Food Journalists.

The hot and dry weather in the West creates the perfect conditions for wildfires. One currently burning in central Oregon, the Flat Fire, is threatening nearly 4,000 homes — at least four have been destroyed, officials say. Another wildfire is threatening vineyards in Northern California.

The Pickett Fire, the largest wildfire in the San Francisco Bay Area this year, started on Thursday and has burned about 10 square miles. Even if flames don't reach the orchards, smoke will impact the economic lifeblood of Napa Valley.

More than 2,000 people have been dispatched to fight the fires, according to Cal Fire. They have so far managed to keep homes and businesses from burning, but winery owner Chris Jambois says he's concerned about how often wildfires appear to occur.

"It's obviously alarming to have to go through this so frequently," Jambois told CBS News.

He owns Black Sears Winery, where memories of the Glass Fire are still fresh. The 2020 wildfire destroyed several wineries and more than 1,500 structures in the area.

The Glass Fire covered more than 67,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma counties, about a two two-hour drive north of San Francisco. The Pickett Fire, while smaller at nearly 7,000 acres, has taken a similar path.

Jambois said he learned that even if vineyards are spared from the fire, smoke could still affect the grapes.

"We lost two vintages — 2018 and 2020 — to smoke," Jambois said, referring to the year the grapes were harvested. "Once we made it into wine, it was a bit of a disaster. We ended up having to dump it down the drain ... I mean, it tasted like licking an ashtray."

Meanwhile, much of the western parts of the United States are enduring a relentless heat wave, which contributes to fire activity.

The Flat Fire in Oregon's Jefferson County was at 5% containment as of Monday, according to fire officials. It sparked on Thursday and has burned nearly 22,000 acres, Central Oregon Fire Info said. The wildfire is one of 55 large fires burning across the country, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

A major concern in Napa Valley is how quickly the Pickett Fire grew. Jambois said he doesn't know whether he or his business can keep up.

"If we do end up losing this crop, it'll be three out of the last eight years ... We'll have some serious soul searching to do," he said.

Carter Evans

Carter Evans has served as a Los Angeles-based correspondent for CBS News since February 2013, reporting across all of the network's platforms. He joined CBS News with nearly 20 years of journalism experience, covering major national and international stories.