Qualla: The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day

The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanEverett45, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nearly two years after the Butts Fire burned through Napa County, concrete workers driving along Butts Canyon Road noticed something in the scorched landscape that stopped them cold. Skeletal remains - two bodies, side by side, in the remote brush north of Pope Valley. It would take months to identify them as Mario and Florentino Avendano, brothers from Santa Rosa who had been reported missing in January 2015, more than seven months after the fire. Investigators believe the brothers died trying to flee during the fire's earliest hours, became trapped, and were consumed by the blaze. No one found them because no one knew to look. The Butts Fire had been contained, the damage tallied, the acreage counted - but the land still held its secrets.

Image: DanEverett45 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day: The First Night in Pope Valley

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanEverett45, CC BY-SA 4.0. The fire was reported on July 1, 2014, in the rural canyon country north of Pope Valley, about ten miles west of Lake Berryessa. Named for Butts Canyon, where it originated, the blaze started in the dry grass and oak woodland that characterizes this part of Napa County - a landsc...

Image: DanEverett45 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day: Across the County Line

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanEverett45, CC BY-SA 4.0. By Thursday, July 3, the fire had jumped from Napa County into Lake County, spreading through the largely rural terrain between the two jurisdictions. The country here is beautiful and unforgiving - volcanic hills, narrow roads, scattered homesteads separated by miles of grass an...

Image: DanEverett45 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day: Ten Days to Containment

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanEverett45, CC BY-SA 4.0. On July 10, nine days after the first report, the Butts Fire was declared fully contained at 4,300 acres. The cause remained under investigation. By the metrics that fire agencies use - acreage burned, structures lost, containment timeline - it was a moderately significant wildfi...

Image: DanEverett45 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day: The Brothers from Santa Rosa

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanEverett45, CC BY-SA 4.0. Mario and Florentino Avendano were brothers who lived in Santa Rosa, about forty miles west of the fire zone. Exactly why they were in Butts Canyon on the night of July 1, 2014, is unclear. They were not reported missing until January 2015, more than half a year later. When concr...

Image: DanEverett45 | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Canyon That Burned on Independence Day: What the Canyon Remembers

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanEverett45, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pope Valley remains much as it was before the fire: quiet, agricultural, lightly populated. Butts Canyon Road winds through the same terrain that funneled the blaze, past the same dry grass that will cure to gold every summer. The 2014 fire was neither the first nor the last to b...

Image: DanEverett45 | CC BY-SA 4.0