Cal Fire crews stopped the forward progress of a vegetation fire on Altamont Pass Road east of Livermore on Sunday after the blaze grew to about 80 acres in dry, windy weather. Firefighters first reached the fire just after noon, when it had burned less than 5 acres.
The fire, which Cal Fire called the Pass Fire, was about 30% contained by about 2 p.m. Crews from Cal Fire’s Santa Clara Unit and a Cal Fire helicopter were joined by ground crews from the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department as they worked the fire about 7.5 miles northeast of Livermore. California Highway Patrol said Altamont Pass Road was closed between Carroll and Grant Line Road.
The blaze broke out during a Red Flag Warning that ran Saturday through Monday, with forecasters calling for low humidity and winds of 20 to 30 mph. Altamont Pass Road is a mountainous east-west route just north of Interstate Highway 580, a corridor where fire can move fast once dry grass catches.
PG&E had already warned of possible Public Safety Power Shutoffs because of the elevated wildfire risk, and those shutoffs left pockets of dozens of customers in the Pass Fire area without electricity. Other customers in Solano County and eastern Napa County were also without power because of the precautionary outages.
Firefighters were expected to stay on scene through the day, strengthening containment lines and putting out hot spots. With the fire stopped before it could keep moving, the immediate question is not how much land it took, but how long crews will have to keep working before the Pass Fire is truly boxed in.
