Heavy winds take down trees, knock out power, feed residential fire in Modesto
From feeding a fire to cracking or uprooting unhealthy trees and causing power outages, sustained winds that grew from 13 to 21 mph Sunday created or contributed to problems across Modesto.
The city’s public works crews received 121 wind-related calls for service, spokesman Thomas Reeves said Monday. Those included problems crews found as they drove the city, he said. “In other words, not all 121 locations were complaints called in from constituents,” Reeves said in an email.
Of the calls, 35 were categorized as “complete tree failures,” meaning entire trees cracked or came uprooted, as opposed to limbs falling. Just two of the 121 calls involved house or other structural damage, Reeves said, and 12 involved vehicle damage.
The Modesto Irrigation District reported scattered power failures, and Reeves said those led to traffic signals going dark for a period of time at 10 intersections. Early in the afternoon, a Facebook post by the Police Department reminded drivers to treated blacked-out intersections as four-way stops. “Completely stop at each intersection. Continue driving when the intersection is clear and other drivers have stopped.”
In his email to The Bee on Monday, Reeves said, “Everything has been restored to safety, though it will take a week or so to clean everything up.”
By far the biggest wind-related problem was a fire at a mobile home in north Modesto’s Homewood Village park. While the cause of the fire, reported at 10:50 a.m., remains under investigation, winds made Modesto and Stanislaus Consolidated firefighters’ work much harder.
“At the time of the call the winds were gusting over 25 mph from the northwest,” according to a Modesto Fire Department battalion chief’s report. “There were sustained winds of 15 to 20 mph. These winds contributed to the rapid growth of the fire.”
The first unit on scene at Homewood Village, off Mable Avenue, found a residence fully engulfed in flames and the homes on both sides threatened. The sole occupant of the burning home got out on his own, and police officers assisted in evacuating surrounding residents.
The incident went to two alarms when additional reports were received of smoke coming from the roof of a home just outside Homewood Village to the east, on Spring Oak Drive. Embers carried by the wind set the house’s shake roof on fire, according to Battalion Chief Andrew Hunter on Sunday. The fire was extinguished with minimal damage to the residence, the Fire Department reported.
Crews laid a large-diameter hose between the primary fire and the homes downwind. As additional companies got on scene, more lines were put in place to protect threatened structures and extinguish the main fire.
“Five homes suffered damaged as a result of the fire, including the primary fire building, which was a complete loss,” the battalion chief’s report states. “There were no injuries reported and only one occupant was displaced.”
