Northern California’s fierce wildfires have killed at least 13 people and destroyed nearly 2,000 buildings as of Tuesday afternoon and the devastating total is expected to grow.
According to California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, more than 20,000 residents are in the path of the treacherous fires. More than 100 people are unaccounted for. And roughly 115,000 acres have been charred by one of the area’s worst natural disasters.
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Related Story: What Has California’s Epic Wildfire Season Done To Marijuana
Clearly, the human toll has devastated the community and California Gov. Jerry Brown has declared an emergency in Napa and Sonoma counties. The economic impact will also be severe, especially for the area’s vineyard owners and marijuana growers.
As the San Francisco Chronicle‘s David Downs reported earlier this week:
There might be anywhere from 3,000 to 9,000 cannabis gardens in Sonoma County, according to county surveys. County revenues from cannabis are unknown but likely total in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The California Growers Association holds a conference call for the region every Monday morning, and today, 6 of 18 regional leaders were under evacuation orders or helping neighbors who were.
“We’re expecting some pretty significant property damage,” said CGA Executive Director Hezekiah Allen. “As damage numbers emerge, it’s going to be pretty stunning on all fronts, and certainly our membership has been directly impacted.”
It has already been a difficult harvest season for California’s marijuana growers and this year’s crop has added significance because it is the final season before legalization kicks in next year. Farmers, already struggling to convert their businesses from medical to recreational, now have the added burden of dealing with a natural disaster.
According to Allen, one acre of cannabis is worth an estimated $1.7 million. Sonoma County is in the nexus of California’s cannabis industry. It is about 80 miles north of San Francisco and it butts up against Mendocino County, the southernmost county of the famed Emerald Triangle. Humboldt and Trinity counties are just north of Mendocino.
The outdoor harvest season hit high gear just last week, so the fires could not have come at a more costly time. The harvesting of cannabis is labor intensive and many workers have either evacuated the area or are unable to get into the region.
Sonoma County is also home of to some of the world’s greatest vineyards. About 60,000 acres of Sonoma County land is dedicated to vineyards, worth nearly $600 million a year.
