Napa County 'Extreme Fire Danger' Alert Inadvertently Sent To Marin And Solano County Residents
NAPA COUNTY (CBS SF) -- Officials in Solano and Marin counties late Thursday morning advised residents that a wireless emergency alert advising of extreme fire danger had inadvertently been sent to those regions by Napa County.
The Solano County Office of Emergency Services tweeted about the alert at 11:21 a.m., assuring Solano county residents that there were "no active fires burning in Solano County."
A short time later, Marin County tweeted a similar message that officials had received word some Marin County residents had also gotten the emergency alert intended for Napa County residents.
In addition to clarifying that there were no fire evacuations in Marin County, officials also noted in a second tweet, "Some digital tools only know airwaves, not jurisdictional boundaries. Overreach can be an unintended bi-product of the system: clear messaging is key. In the spirit of erring on the side of reaching ALL Napa residents, we're not upset at our neighbors for using the technology."
The Napa County Office of Emergency Services also issued an additional Nixel alert to clarify what happened with its IPAWS alert system.
"The message you received earlier was an emergency alert warning system tool sent to mobile phones, called IPAWS. The message was intending to alert all Napa County of current fire danger in Northern Napa County. There are currently no new fires," the message read. "The Glass Fire is burning in areas surrounding Calistoga and St. Helena. The IPAWS was intended to alert anyone in the County of the current fire danger and impending red flag warning. Please Note: There are no new fires in the County and no new evacuation orders."
While there was no alert intended for Solano or Marin counties, the Bay Area office of the National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning that does cover some areas of both of those counties through Saturday morning. Possible high temperature records could be set in San Rafael, Vallejo and Fairfield.
