NAPA, Calif.: Will Abrams and his family packed their pickup truck with laptops, clothes, sleeping bags and a tent and quickly left their rental home in California’s wine country after seeing flames on a hill about a quarter-mile away Monday morning. It was their third hurried fire evacuation in as many years.
In 2017, Abrams woke up to find their Santa Rosa home on fire, clearing burning branches out of the driveway so he could get his wife, 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter to safety. Their home was destroyed. Then last year, the family evacuated as another wildfire bore down on Sonoma County. They were terrified to cross into the San Francisco Bay Area amid smaller grassland fires sparked by power lines falling in the midst of strong, hot winds.
This time we hurried up and packed up the car, and we were in gridlock traffic on (Highway) 12 while the flames were approaching…