The hills above Napa are set to burn on purpose early this week, as CAL FIRE’s Sonoma‑Lake‑Napa Unit and the Napa County Fire Department carry out a 100‑acre prescribed fire at Castleview Ranch in the Wild Horse Valley community near the Napa–Solano county line. The burn is scheduled for today and tomorrow, with crews planning to start lighting around 9:00 AM and work through about 5:00 PM both days. Smoke is expected to be visible across eastern Napa during daylight hours as part of a fuel‑reduction push meant to dial down the intensity of future wildfires in the surrounding hills.
According to the CAL FIRE LNU, CAL FIRE and the Napa County Fire Department will lead the Castleview operation, which is part of the larger Castleview fuel‑reduction project. Local partners are backing the work, and officials say residents should expect visible smoke during both burn days.
🚨 Prescribed burn alert for Monday, June 22 and Tuesday, June 23 CAL FIRE and the Napa County Fire Department will be leading a 100-acre prescribed burn Monday and Tuesday on the Castleview Ranch, located within the Wild Horse Valley Community near the Napa County border with… pic.twitter.com/fQXO2m9ijm
— CAL FIRE LNU (@CALFIRELNU) June 21, 2026
Project Aims And Methods
The Castleview operation fits into a wider Wild Horse Valley fuel‑reduction plan that spans several hundred acres and relies on a mix of mechanical thinning, pile burning and broadcast burning to knock down both vertical and horizontal fuels. A Napa County planning memo that cleared the Castle View and Four Winds projects under CEQA lists “pile burning” and “broadcast burning” among the mitigation tools to be used. Detailed maps, project boundaries and the reasoning behind the treatments are laid out in Napa County documents…