Live updates: 68 people still unaccounted for in Sonoma County wildfires

In early October 2017, wildfires devastated communities northern California, including Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties. See the faces of those we've lost >> In early October 2017, wildfires devastated communities northern California, including Napa, Lake and Sonoma counties. See the faces of those we've lost >> Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Live updates: 68 people still unaccounted for in Sonoma County wildfires 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

These are the developments in the North Bay fires as of 11:45 a.m. Monday. Click here to see the latest updates:

11:45 a.m. Number of open missing persons cases continue to drop in Sonoma County: The number of missing people still unaccounted for in Sonoma County has dropped to 65, according to the county Office of Emergency Services.

The majority of the reports stemmed from communication difficulties spawned by faulty cell service in the aftermath of the wildfires, and resolved themselves when evacuees reconnected with loved ones.

The nearly 5,000 firefighters in Sonoma County made headway Monday on the four fires burning in the region: the Tubbs, Pocket, Oakmont and Nuns fires.

The deadliest of the Northern California fires was the 36,432-acre Tubbs Fire, which killed at least 18 people and was 82 percent contained.

The Pocket Fire at 12,430 acres was 58 percent contained. The Sonoma County side of the Nuns Fire, which is also burning in Napa County, was at 33,369 acres and was 68 percent contained. And the 1,029-acre Oakmont Fire was 27 percent contained, according to Cal Fire estimates.

“We’re making good progress. We got a lot more areas that are contained,” said Dennis Rein, a fire information officer for the county. “Buttoning up the Oakmont Fire — that’s the priority for today.”

11:15 a.m. Boil water notices no longer in effect for Fountaingrove and White Oak in Santa Rosa: Residents in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove and White Oak neighborhoods are no longer required to boil water used for drinking and cooking, according to city officials. Water quality testing reportedly confirmed the liquids were safe after wildfires caused the water system to lose pressure.

The notice was not lifted for evacuated areas, where no one should have access to the neighborhood, city officials said.

10:30 a.m. More than 34,000 remain evacuated in Northern California wildfires: As weather improves and firefighters gain control of deadly wildfires in the region, some evacuees have been allowed to re-enter wildfire zones, but tens of thousands remain evacuated, according to a Tuesday morning Cal Fire report.

At least 12 large wildfires are burning across the state, including one that started Monday night in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Boulder Creek and had burned 152 acres and four structures by Tuesday morning.

Some of the big wildfires that started ignited during a wind storm on Oct. 8 in the Wine Country and elsewhere in Northern California, including Mendocino and Yuba counties, have consolidated or been contained. More than 245,000 acres have burned statewide, killing 41 people and destroying more than 5,700 structures, fire officials said.

“The weather today will be warm with low humidity, which will continue to challenge firefighters, but only light winds are forecast,” the Cal Fire statement read. “A chance of precipitation is expected to arrive later in the week, bringing relief from the dry conditions.”

9:35 a.m. Mendocino County Fires estimated containment is Nov. 1: The Redwood Valley and Sulphur fires in Mendocino County are expected to be contained — which means they will not be able to spread farther — by Nov. 1, according to a Tuesday morning Cal Fire estimate.

Containment on the deadly 35,800-acre Redwood Valley Fire reached 60 percent Tuesday morning, a day after all mandatory evacuation orders were lifted. Residents were allowed back to the area by 2 p.m. Monday, according to Cal Fire officials.

Authorities said an evacuation warning remains in place for the Van Arsdale community North of Stroh Ranch on both sides of the Eel River, including Van Arsdale Road, Oat Gap Road, Ridgewood Road, and all feeder roads in the area.

The 2,207-acre Sulphur Fire was 92 percent contained. All eight deaths in the county stemmed from the Redwood Valley Fire. The fires destroyed 436 homes and seven commercial buildings, according to Cal Fire.

8:45 a.m. Deadliest of Northern California wildfires more than 80 percent contained: The Tubbs Fire, the wildfire that produced the highest number of fatalities with at least 18 deaths recorded, was 36,432 acres and 82 percent contained, according to a Tuesday morning Cal Fire report.

Firefighters battling four Sonoma County fires, which accounted for 22 of the 41 deaths from the Northern California disaster, made considerable progress Tuesday morning. The Pocket Fire, measuring 12,430 acres, was 58 percent contained. The Sonoma County side of the Nuns Fire, which is also burning in Napa County, was at 33,369 acres and was 68 percent contained. And the 1,029-acre Oakmont Fire was 27 percent contained, according to Cal Fire estimates.

7:45 a.m. Sonoma County hospital reopens after being closed by fires: Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital reopened at 7 a.m. Tuesday after being closed for days due to deadly wildfires that swept through the region, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Motorists are asked to use Mark West Springs Road off of Highway 101 to access the hospital. “We are grateful to once again be able to serve our community,” the hospital announced on its website. Those in fire zones can access a list of Sutter’s open and closed medical clinics online.

7:05 a.m. Nuns Fire now largest of Northern California wildfires: The 51,064-acre Atlas Fire, once the largest of the destructive wildfires burning in the Wine Country, was 77 percent contained Tuesday morning and was now second in size to the Nuns Fire straddling Sonoma and Napa counties.

The Nuns fire merged with four other fires in the past week and was at least 51,512 acres Monday night and 53 percent contained. The containment number signifies how much control line firefighters have installed along the outer edges of the wildfire to stop its spread.

6:05 a.m. Light winds, cold front on the way: Winds were calm Tuesday morning in the areas where wildfires continued to burn in the North Bay and in the Santa Cruz mountains, the site of a new blaze that started Monday night, according to the National Weather Service.

Rapid gusts that aided the spread of deadly Northern California wildfires that started on Oct. 8 and prompted several Red Flag warnings last week and over the weekend have been replaced by winds of 3 to 5 mph, said Rick Canepa, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Winds in the North Bay are lighter and humidity was gradually increasing as low pressure moving into the area and dry warm air was moving out, Canepa said. As a cold front comes in and brings light rain Thursday, the area is transitioning from light offshore flow to light onshore flow winds.

“Variability in winds can add more questions marks as to how to tackle a fire,” Canepa said. “The good news is we’re not expecting a bunch of wind.”

The amount of precipitation expected Thursday has dropped down to a tenth of an inch, which is still considered a notable amount of “wetting rain.” Thunderstorms Monday morning brought a couple dozen lightning strikes about 200 miles southwest of the Bay Area, but none are likely to reach the region, Canepa said.

5:10 a.m. New fire breaks out in Santa Cruz Mountains, evacuations under way: A 125-acre wildfire that started off of Bear Creek Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains Tuesday morning prompted Cal Fire to issues evacuation orders.

The fire was burning southwest of San Jose and residents were being evacuated along Deer Creek Road, Rons Road, Dons Road, Lost Valley Road, Favre Ridge and Oak Ridge.

Monday

8:06 p.m. Progress made on containment: Cal Fire released new containment and acreage numbers for the fires burning in Northern California. The Tubbs fire is at 36,432 acres and 75 percent contained. The Nuns fire is 51,512 acres and 53 percent contained, while the Atlas fire is at 51,064 acres and 70 percent contained.

7:41 p.m. Suspect arrested for looting: Santa Rosa Police arrested a man suspected of looting from a closed group home in Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa on Monday.

Police say Douglas James Rosado, 49, of Santa Rosa, took appliances and televisions from a building that had been evacuated due to fires over the weekend.

Witnesses, who had been evacuated from the group home during the fires, told police that they saw a man with a pickup truck backed into the area of a building complex that housed stored items and laundry facilities when they returned on Sunday.

Police said the witnesses confronted the man, who sped off in a black pickup truck. They took a picture of truck's license plate before the man drove off, police said, and discovered that multiple washer and dryer units were moved while two flat screen televisions and a ShopVac were missing.

Police traced the truck to Rosado and conducted a probation search of his residence on Chairman Drive. The search led to the stolen items in addition to evidence that Rosado had been in possession of methamphetamine to sell, police said.

Rosado was booked into Sonoma County Jail.

6:08 p.m. More evacuations lifted in Sonoma County: Evacuation orders were lifted for Geyserville and Healdsburg, in the area of Highway 128 between River Rock Casino and Chalk Hill Road, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. Residents can also return the East of Windsor area east of Faught Road and East Shiloh Road outside the burn area.

The sheriff’s office also lifted the evacuation order for all of the city of Sonoma, as well as county areas north of East Napa Street to the burn area and west of Fourth Street East and Gehricke Road to Highway 12, including side the associated roads to the burn area.

5:32 p.m. Evacuation lifted in parts of Santa Rosa: The evacuation order for Bennett Valley and Annadel Heights was lifted at 5 p.m. Monday, Santa Rosa Police said.

4:44 p.m. Napa lifts another evacuation order: Napa County lifted the mandatory evacuation order for Circle Oaks and Wooden Valley Road. The area is accessible through Sage Canyon Road and Wooden Valley Road as it reopens. Wooden Valley is also accessible from Suisun Valley Road in Solano County.

4:21 p.m. Solano County Fairgrounds sheltering large animals: Volunteers are being sought to help care for more than 500 large animals, including horses and cows, that have been evacuated to the Solano County Fairgrounds, with more expected to arrive in coming days. The displaced animals have come from all over Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties. The Solano County Sheriff’s Office put out a call for volunteers with experience handling large animals and other livestock.

“This is going to be an ongoing process,” Solano County Sheriff Thomas Ferrara said. “I don’t expect that operation to shut down any time soon.”

Those interested in volunteering must be at least 18 years. Anyone interesting in helping can call (707) 551-2008 for more information.

3:15 p.m. Santa Rosa Memorial clinics open: Outpatient and elective surgery services have resumed at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. The emergency room, which did not close, has been been treating about twice the normal number of patients, primarily those suffering with respiratory ailments, hospital staff said Monday.

2:45 p.m. Napa Valley College to reopen next Monday: Napa Valley College will resume classes on Monday, October 23, the college announced. Its three campus evacuation shelters will close on Tuesday. Faculty and staff will meet on campus on Thursday and Friday.

2:30 p.m. Mandatory evacuation lifted in parts of Napa County: The Napa County Sheriff’s office lifted the mandatory evacuation in the Berryessa Highlands Community, along Highway 128 from Silverado Trail to the Napa County Line at the Monticello Dam. The evacuation order was lifted at 2 p.m. Monday. Residents can access the area through Sage Canyon Road or from the Winters area.

1:55 p.m. Number of missing keeps dropping in Sonoma County: The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said that the number of people missing has dropped to 88 on Monday afternoon, down from 99 reported earlier in the day.

1:30 p.m. Advisory for Portable Generators: Returning homeowners should use portable generators to power individual appliances and pieces of equipment, but should not use them to power their entire house. Doing so creates problems for Pacific Gas and Electric crews attempting to restore power in the affected areas, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

1:25 p.m. Kaiser Santa Rosa partially reopens: Medical buildings 1 and 2 and the pharmacy at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center at 401 Bicentennial Way, Santa Rosa, have reopened. The hospital and emergency room remain closed.

1:10 p.m. Smoke Advisory for North Bay and East Bay: Unhealthy air quality caused by wildfire smoke means that old and young people, and those with respiratory illnesses should stay indoors or move out of some parts of the North Bay and East Bay Unhealthy air was measured in Sebastopol on Monday and unhealthy air for sensitive persons was measured in Napa, Berkeley and Oakland.

12:10 p.m. More evacuation orders lifted in Sonoma County: Residents of Bennett Valley Road, of the area east of Petaluma Hill Road, and of parts of Kenwood, of Boyes Hot Springs, Glen Ellen and parts of the city of Sonoma may return home, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said.

11 a.m. Last missing person found in Yuba County: Everyone who evacuated the region ahead of the deadly Cascade Fire in Yuba County has been accounted for, county officials said Monday. The last missing person was confirmed safe over the weekend, said Russ Brown, a Yuba County spokesman. There were more than a hundred welfare checks performed in the aftermath of the wildfire but only four of those calls had escalated to missing persons cases, Brown said. Of those, three of them were fatalities.

The fourth case — resolved by Saturday— was someone who went out of town and lost contact with the person who called in the report, Brown said.

A total of four people died in the nearly 10,000-acre Cascade Fire that broke out on Cascade Way and Marysville Road north of Collins Lake about 11 p.m. Sunday, according to Cal Fire. The first person who died was not reported missing but was found after their car ran off the road and crashed, trapping the driver in the wildfire zone.

All evacuation orders for Yuba County residents had been lifted by 5 p.m. Friday. The fire, which was 96 percent contained on Monday, destroyed 143 homes, Brown said.

10:10 a.m. All boil water notices lifted in city of Napa: All routine water operations have resumed in Napa, city officials announced Monday morning. Advisories asking residents to boil potentially contaminated tap water when cooking or drinking are no longer in effect. The measure was put in place because infrastructure damage during the wildfires could have possibly tainted water. Anyone who has water-related issues should call (707) 257-9521.

9:30 a.m. More Mendocino County residents return home: Some residents in Redwood Valley and Willits in Mendocino County and in the Lake Pillsbury Basin of Lake County were allowed to return to their neighborhoods Monday morning, officials said.

In Redwood Valley, where eight people were killed in wildfires, residents in all areas of the Cave Creek subdivision can re-enter the neighborhood, including those along Scenic Drive, Appaloosa Way, Cave Creek Road and feeder roads into the area. An evacuation warning remains for the area.

All other areas of Redwood Valley are no longer under evacuation warning.

All Willits residents can re-enter their neighborhoods. While an evacuation warning is still in effect for the Pine Mountain Estates in Willits, residents there are allowed to return home, according to Mendocino County Sheriff’s officials.

In Lake County, all areas within the Lake Pillsbury Basin are no longer under an evacuation warning and is reopened to the public.

9 a.m. More than 40,000 remain evacuated in Northern California wildfires: As some evacuees are gradually given the green light to return home, more than 40,000 remain evacuated, according to a Monday morning Cal Fire report.

What was once more than 20 wildfires statewide have merged and consolidated to 14 large wildfires burning. Forty-one people, including a firefighter killed in a Napa County crash near the Nuns Fire Monday morning, have died in the fires.

An estimated 5,700 structures have been burned as wildfires blackened more than 200,000 acres of land.

8 a.m. Firefighter killed in tanker crash: A water tanker crashed on a winding Napa County road near where firefighters are battling the northern edge of the Nuns Fire, and the driver was killed, officials said.

The crash happened around 7 a.m. on Oakville Grade west of Highway 29 north of Yountville, California Highway Patrol officials said. The tanker was going downhill when it lost control, went down an embankment and overturned, the CHP said.

The driver was a contract firefighter, the CHP said. The firefighter’s name has not been released.

7:15 a.m. Firefighters making progress: The Atlas Fire is now 68 percent contained — up from 56 percent containment on Sunday. Over the past 24 hours, it grew in size by only 7 acres, to 51,064 acres.

“Firefighters continue to strengthen perimeter control lines, provide structure defense and engage in tactical patrol,” Cal Fire said in a statement. The Nuns / Adobe / Norbbom/ Pressley / Partrick Fires, at 48,627 acres, are now 50 percent contained, and the Tubbs Fire, at 36,390 acres, is 70 percent contained.

6:20 a.m. Missing persons reports down to double digits in Sonoma County: Of the nearly 2,000 missing persons reports stemming from deadly wildfires in Sonoma County, only 99 of those reports remain outstanding, officials said Monday.

The county received 1,853 missing persons reports since the fires broke out on Oct. 8, but the majority of those people have since been found safe. Many of the reports could be duplicates, in which several people call-in to report the same person missing. The bulk of the cases were resolved as cell service was restored and people reconnected with loved ones, said Deputy Brandon Jones of the county sheriff’s office.

But sheriff’s officials are meticulously investigating every report to ensure everyone is accounted for, he said. So far, 31 reports were sent to other jurisdictions, and 1,723 of the missing reports ended with the person being confirmed safe, Jones said.

“Some of these reports are like, ‘I haven’t talked to my aunt in five years and she lives in Santa Rosa,’” Jones said Monday. “Unfortunately, it’s a little bit of a misleading stat. But the way we’re doing it is the right way to do it.”

Sonoma County was the hardest hit by Northern California wildfires, accounting for 22 fatalities — the majority of the current death toll of 40.

5:50 a.m. School closures in Napa, Sonoma counties: Napa Valley Unified School District, which encompasses all public schools in the county, plans to reopen campuses for classes on Wednesday, according to a district statement.

“This date is based on a presumption that the fire situation and air quality will continue to improve and that the school buildings and staff are ready to serve students,” the statement reads. “If that is not the case, we will inform you of any changes to the plan through our established channels.”

In Sonoma County, various schools plan to reopen either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, or remain closed the whole week. A detailed list of school closures is available online.

5:30 a.m. Boil water notices still in effect for areas of Santa Rosa: Residents in parts of the Oakmont and Fountaingrove neighborhoods of Santa Rosa should continue boiling tap water before drinking or cooking, according to police.

Damaged infrastructure from deadly wildfires in the Sonoma County city possibly tainted water systems.

Fountaingrove residents who live east of Mendocino Avenue, north of Chanate Road, west of Fountaingrove Parkway, and south of Mark West Springs Road should continue the precautionary measure, authorities said.

The notice also applies to Oakmont residents who live on White Oak Drive south of Madelyne Court, including Madelyne Place, and on Oak Mesa Drive south of Starry Knoll Court, including Shooting Star Place.

5 a.m. Favorable firefighting weather, rain on the way

The winds have eased, red flag warnings have ceased and rain is on the way to regions of the North Bay devastated by deadly wildfires, according to the National Weather Service.

“The good news is winds are going to be relatively light — under 10 mph in both the valley locations and higher elevations,” Charles Bell, a meteorologist with the weather service, said Monday morning of Napa and Sonoma counties.

Conditions are a far cry from the past week when there were four days of Red Flag warnings for the North Bay — alerting the community that low humidity, gusts and higher temperatures could aid rapid spread of the region's destructive fires.

Temperatures remains unfavorable, however, with the North Bay set to record highs in the mid to upper 80s, about 10 degrees higher than normal for the season, Bell said. The air remains dry, too, with humidity in the North Bay ranging from 8 to 14 percent. The driest air around, in a desert, for instance, measures 1 percent humidity.

But the rain the region has been hoping for is on the way. The first winter storm of the season is coming from the Gulf of Alaska, and should land by late Thursday and continue overnight into Friday. Humidity should rise this week ahead of the rain, forecasters said.

Meteorologists expect two tenths of an inch of rainfall in the North Bay. One tenth of an inch — known as “wetting rain” — is significant, Bell said, so double that is “certainly welcome.”

“It’s a notable rain that can help to really tamp down fires,” Bell said. “It’s a slowing mechanism.”

Still, Bell said drivers, especially those commuting Thursday evening, should be cautious of slick roads that can cause spin-outs. Every year, car incidents abound when the first rain of the season hits.

Click here for earlier updates on the Northern California wildfires.

Jenna Lyons, Annie Ma and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com, ama@sfchronicle.com and srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno @anniema15 and @SteveRubeSF