Wine Country Braving The Heat
For over a week, the attention of an entire nation has been focused on Northern California’s beautiful wine country, as those severe wildfires continue to rage out of control in Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and scorching over 200,000 acres.
To illustrate just how seriously these unprecedented fires have adversely affected this close-knit community, Dray Lopez, PD of Wine Country Radio Modern Alternative KSXY (The 101)/Santa Rosa, CA, told us, “Every single person in our building here at Wine Country Radio knows somebody who has lost their home.” Lopez added, “I’m much more fortunate than some of my family and friends — our Traffic Director/Human Resources/friend Amanda, her husband and kids lost everything. My aunt and uncle lost everything. My girlfriend’s best friend Anna and her husband Eric have two kids and are staying with us at our home which is one block outside of the mandatory evacuation zone. I personally know at least 15 people who have lost everything and the number is going up every day.”
Late last week, Lopez sent out the following update, accompanied by this dramatic photo from the Sonoma County Press-Democrat of a Cal Fire air tanker making a drop last Thursday on what has been dubbed the Pocket Fire. He said, “The transmitter site survived the night thanks to the Cal Fire crews. Close call doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s still a hot zone there, we are still at risk, but we know Cal Fire has resources in the area. Keeping fingers crossed for the next 24 hours or so.” Lopez added, “By the way… the tower on the right in the photo is ours.”
Lopez continued, “My staff, Ashlee Sleek and Natalie have been doing an amazing job of updating the community on news as it comes in on The 101. I also want to give thanks to our other sister stations in the building that are updating the people of Sonoma County — Amber Hoback and her staff have been incredible on updates for the [Triple A KRSH] Krush 95.9 audience, and Eric Dullart and his staff are getting critical info out on [KXTS] Exitos 98.7.”
