The parking lot at Cloverdale Citrus Fairgrounds was never meant to be an evacuation shelter. Amid a widespread power outage, it was billed as a place to charge a phone and pick up a bottle of water.

But Kincade Fire evacuees arrived there by the hundreds over the past week — most among them migrant workers tasked with harvesting the county’s sprawling vineyards. They eschewed the brick-and-mortar accommodations and three squares offered at facilities to the south, opting instead for cold tents on pavement and hunger.

Some were out of gas. Others reasoned that the roads from Santa Rosa shelters to the vineyards had closed. If they were called back to work, they needed to work. By Wednesday there were as many as 300 gathered in the fairgrounds, uncertain whether there would be housing or work waiting for them once the fires subsided.

Sonoma County residents let out a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday evening, when most evacuees were allowed to return home. The Cloverdale camp cleared out quickly, but what happens next for the migrants wasn’t yet clear.

“I’ve been fielding a lot of calls and emails from vineyard owners who have lost farmworker housing, and are looking to find alternative housing for their workers,” said Ariel Kelley, chief executive officer at Corazon Healdsburg, a community nonprofit leading recovery efforts following the Kincade Fire. “I imagine that will continue to grow as we assess the damage.”

Held up against the Wine Country blazes from two years ago, the Kincade Fire was largely a story of survival. In 2017, the Tubbs Fire killed 22 people and destroyed more than 5,600 structures.

A combination of community preparation and heroic efforts by firefighters helped Sonoma County avoid a similarly tragic fate this time around. To date, the Kincade Fire has destroyed 282 structures, including 141 homes, but scores more survived.

Still, one of the areas hit hardest was the Alexander Valley, a premier wine-growing region and home to tasting rooms, ranches and agricultural worker housing. Several structures were destroyed there when the conflagration swept through over the weekend, but by Thursday the breakdown of housing and other structures remained unclear.

Sonoma County’s wine grape industry employs thousands, and includes a large immigrant population. Some live in Healdsburg or Geyserville with their families full time, while others, guest workers, come just for harvest season.

About 30% of these employees are housed permanently by their employers, said Tawny Tesconi, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau.

Tesconi said there were likely a few dozen workers displaced. If there was any silver lining to the fire, it was the timing, she said, because most of the harvest was complete. For this reason, many of the workers were already planning to return are returning to their home countries within days.

“The people who did lose their housing — other farmers are stepping up and offering their migrant worker housing facilities,” she said. “There is a huge network of farmers who work together.”

Tesconi said there are some hoops the farmers will need to jump through, regarding county regulations.

“We need some sort of exemption right now,” she said.

Several community organizations, including Corazon Healdsburg and California Human Development, are continuing to provide food, clothing and other resources to those affected by the fire.

“People are calling, and they’re trying to figure out what’s next,” said Anita Maldonado, CEO of California Human Development. The most immediate needs are short term, she said: restocking refrigerators and gas tanks, and looming rent payments.

“This is different from last time,” she said. “People ... didn’t lose their homes, they lost wages.”

About 8% of the grape harvest had yet to be completed when the Kincade Fire erupted in the evening of Oct. 23, according to officials at Sonoma County Vintners.

Many of the guest workers were already scheduled to return in early November, when their temporary visas expired. Of this group, some were flown back to their home countries early. Others, like Victor Manuel Garcia Trejo, were placed in motels after fleeing the flames.

Garcia Trejo, who works in the Alexander Valley at a large vineyard, said Wednesday he’d evacuated from the property’s housing a week earlier. In those frantic moments, he said, he and co-workers made it out with only the clothes on their backs and work permits.

By Wednesday afternoon he and about 15 co-workers still weren’t allowed back to the property.

“The biggest problem is that the farm where we were living got burned,” he said. “So we don’t even know if we have anything left, or is everything gone?”

Garcia Trejo said he was set to return to Mexico on Nov. 13 and was concerned about wages he had counted on for those remaining weeks.

“We feel bad because we are not working,” he said. “But it’s been good that we’ve been getting food because the stores are closed and there is no light.” Before volunteer services arrived, he said, “There was nothing to eat.”

Evacuation in the Alexander Valley on Wednesday evening was lowered from an order to a warning, meaning residents could return with caution.

Gregorio Alvarez de Jesus, who slept either under or inside his car from Sunday to Wednesday at the Cloverdale fairgrounds, said he was thankful for the volunteers who provided food, clothing and a little financial assistance.

Now that he’s back at home in a Healdsburg apartment, Alvarez de Jesus said his employers said it would be safe to return to work at the Asti Vineyards near Cloverdale on Monday.

“It’s the end of the month. … It’s time to make a lot of payments,” he said, adding that nobody made much money this week because they didn’t work. “I am worried right now.

Short on finances, Alvarez de Jesus said Thursday that he plans to return to the fairgrounds for food. He was worried he’d become sick from what was left in his refrigerator.

The vineyard workers are looking to meet with the vineyard’s owners to ask for help, he said.

“It’s not our fault,” he said. “We are in a country that isn’t ours.”

Chronicle staff writer Alejandro Serrano contributed to this report.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy