North Bay hotels fully booked as residents, tourists flee from vicious Glass fires
North Bay hotels from Mill Valley to San Rafael are now totally booked.
MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- Many of those who had to evacuate their neighborhoods and homes in the last few days in Sonoma and Napa counties due to the Glass fires have ended up at hotels in Marin County.
PJ Fishwick and his fiancé came to wine country from Chicago and were staying at a Kenwood Airbnb Sunday night.
RELATED: Glass Fire grows to 42,560 acres in Napa, Sonoma counties
Fishwick said, "Our phones blew up, the TV started beeping, so we left as soon as we could and went to her parents' place in Santa Rosa."
But soon, it wasn't safe there either.
"The ash on our deck and our cars, the ash falling, it looks like hot snow, so no we're out of here," Robyn Chew-Gibbs said. "The whole thing is scary and we've been through it and been through it and been through it three years in a row."
North Bay hotels from Mill Valley to San Rafael are now totally booked. One manager said they went from 40% occupancy to 100% occupancy in 15 minutes as evacuees fled with their belongings.
VIDEO: Parts of famed Castello di Amorosa Winery destroyed in Glass Fire
Some hotels lowered their rates, allowing in pet cats, birds and dogs. The Pratt family lives in Santa Rosa's Montecito Heights neighborhood.
11-year-old Drew said, "We just looked on a hill and we saw flames and being out there, less than a minute my eye started to hurt."
His brother Will Pratt said he felt "very panicked and scared."
"The Tubbs fire was very close to our house again, but I didn't see flames last time and this time I saw flames and you get really scared," he said.
RELATED: Track wildfires across San Francisco Bay Area, other parts of California with this interactive map
Sirens blared in neighborhoods as people packed up.
"When you do evacuate, you think it's a once-in-a-lifetime event. You don't think it's going to happen to you twice," Santa Rosa resident Delores Burden said. "So there was no way to know when we had family dinner Sunday and said our goodbyes at 8 o'clock, there was no way to predict."
Sad and surreal is how those in the hotels describe fleeing their homes.
"If you don't think climate change is real you need to come to California because it's very real and there are very real consequences," Fishwick said.
Get the latest updates and videos on the Glass Incident here.
