Hot and Bothered : Brush Fire, Record Heat Test Northern California’s Mettle

Searing temperatures set records across Northern California for the third straight day Monday, and San Franciscans resorted to unusual methods--hosing down a superheated zoo eagle and slowing down the subway trains--in an effort to beat the unaccustomed heat.

Afternoon readings of 111 at Redding, 111 at Willow Creek and 109 at Gasquet all set records for the day. It was 88 in San Francisco, breaking the record of 83, and 81 in the normally fog-shrouded coastal community of Fortuna, where the record was 76. The overnight low in San Francisco was 68, 13 degrees above normal.

Sacramento had a high temperature of 103, 6 degrees short of the record but still hot enough to drive crowds to riverfront beaches in record numbers.

Near King City, high temperatures, gusting winds and low humidity hampered the efforts of 800 firefighters to control a 5,000-acre blaze touched off by a weed trimmer being used to cut brush in an effort to reduce the fire threat. No structures were in danger, but the fire burned out of control for more than a day; it was nearly contained late Monday.

In San Francisco, residents withered in a fourth day of sizzling heat but got some relief by late afternoon as a thick bank of fog began to roll in through the Golden Gate.

The hottest day of Northern California’s heat wave was Sunday, when temperatures shattered records all over the region. San Francisco’s Sunday high of 98 beat the previous record for the date by 10 degrees.

“It’s been just brutal,” said John Amirault, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, “but everybody can relax now because we’re cooling down a bit.”

Mark Twain once said the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, so city dwellers had a particularly tough time. Accustomed to cool, foggy summers, San Franciscans typically lack a tolerance for steamy weather.

A panhandler stationed with his panting dog near the foot of Pine Street summed it up aptly Monday with his cardboard sign that read: “Will work for air conditioning.”

“One more day of this and I’m outta here,” griped one heavily perspiring man waiting for an overdue trolley car on the Market Street line. “This place just isn’t set up for the heat.”

Commuters squeezed onto BART trains sweltered as overtaxed air conditioners gave way. The passengers had to endure service delays as operators slowed trains to guard against heat-triggered equipment glitches.

At San Francisco General Hospital, physicians warned parents to watch their toddlers carefully when opening windows to admit cooling breezes.

“Because we don’t have mosquitoes in San Francisco, people don’t have screens,” said Dr. Alan Gelb, the hospital’s director of emergency services. “When we get heat waves, people open their windows and kids tend to fall out.”

Compared to San Francisco, the Sacramento Valley took its siege of record-setting temperatures above 100 degrees in stride.

“I don’t want to say we get used to it,” said Tim Maybee, chief of medical services for the Sacramento County Fire District. “But it’s turning out to be a Sacramento summer.”

Although it has been hot--109 on Sunday and 105 on Monday--those highs fall short of the all-time record for any date of 114, set in 1925.

The heat wave created attendance records at riverfront beaches along the popular, 23-mile American River Parkway, park ranger superintendent Gary Kukkola said.

Emergency services and hospitals reported only a handful of heat-related illness.

The National Weather Service recorded even higher temperatures at the north end of the Sacramento Valley.

But hot as they were, the top readings in Redding of 111 on Monday and 113 on Sunday were still well below the all-time high of 118, set five years ago, and the reading of 121 in nearby Red Bluff in 1981.

On Monday afternoon, the wind-driven fire near King City continued through privately owned land in the rugged hill country on the west side of the Salinas Valley.

The fire was about 90% contained by late Monday, and firefighters expected full containment by this afternoon.

Full control of the fire was expected by Wednesday evening, said California Department of Forestry spokeswoman Jean King.

“We’re basically in a mop-up situation now,” King said.

Officials said the fire was ignited shortly before noon on Sunday by sparks from a homeowner’s weed trimmer.

In the San Fernando Valley, Department of Water and Power spokeswoman Dorothy Jensen said that a power outage that affected several hundred homes in Sherman Oaks Sunday night was not caused by the demand for air-conditioning power.

Although the DWP urged customers to set thermostats no lower than 78 in such heat waves, “the system is equipped to handle this sort of heavy demand,” she said.

The peak demand Sunday was 3,535 megawatts and Monday’s was expected to reach 4,774, she said, but the system had handled as much as 5,300 megawatts in the past.

Temperatures did not get quite as hot in the Valley Monday as expected because of a flow of cooler air from the ocean, said National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Entwistle.

“The marine layer snuck around us again,” he said, coming “through the back door” over Cahuenga Pass. “It was not thick enough to come over the mountains so it came around the mountains,” he said.

Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said California’s hot weather is the result of a massive high-pressure system that has settled over the Northwest.

The high temperature in Los Angeles on Monday was 87, following an overnight low of 68. Highs in the mid- to upper low to mid-80s are expected in the Los Angeles area today.

Times staff writer Paul Jacobs in Sacramento contributed to this story.