Ulysses Torassa, Chronicle Staff Writer

Two homes were destroyed when a brushfire got out of control in Petaluma on Sunday – one of three grassfires in the Bay Area that kept firefighters busy.

Coincidentally, the fires all began within minutes of one another.

The first, reported at 2: 15 p.m. just north of Petaluma, was the worst.

The Petaluma blaze started in a grassy area on Liberty Road near Rainsville Road but quickly grew out of control, according to Sonoma County Fire Chief Vern Losh. " With the hot and high winds, it just blew through, jumped the road and took off through the field, '' Losh said.

It traveled in several different directions at once, and it burned eight structures – including two homes – and 30 acres before more than 100 firefighters from Sonoma and Marin counties contained it.

One firefighter was taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and two others were treated at the scene, Losh said.

Liberty Road resident Susan Montes lives about two acres from the fire and said it was the biggest one she's seen in the area in the 20 years she's lived there. One of the houses destroyed, she said, was a beautifully restored Victorian more than 100 years old.

 

" All that's left is the fireplace, '' she said.

No civilians were injured. A portion of Rainsville Road was closed for a time because of damage to power lines.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation

At 3 p.m., firefighters of the East Bay Regional Park District were alerted to a blaze along the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline in Richmond. About 45 firefighters worked to cut down that fire, which burned about 12 acres.

But some of those firefighters were soon called to battle an even fiercer fire in Contra Costa County. That fire was reported at 3: 20 p.m. in unincorporated grasslands off Highway 4 between Hercules and Martinez.

The fire scorched about 50 acres and threatened some homes – prompting an evacuation of some residents near McEwen Road, according to Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Capt. Dave George.

It took about 50 firefighters from Contra Costa and the California Department of Forestry to contain it.

Strong winds carried smoke from the blaze as far east as Bay Point, George said, but no injuries were reported and no structures were damaged. Officials had yet not pinpointed a cause for the fire Sunday.

 

(From San Francisco Chronicle)

 

Notes

county – 1) a political division of the UK or Ireland, forming the largest unit of local government (графство): Rutland used to be the smallest county in England, but in 1974 it became part of Leicestershire.

2) the largest political division of a state in the USA (округ): Texas is divided into 254 counties.

Capt. Dave George – an abbreviation for Captain