The priest asked for prayers, noting that the community was expecting more possible lightning storms this weekend, and that they had to be prepared to evacuate again.
"At a time like this, we see the importance of prayer, and so we ask all our brothers and sisters to keep in their daily prayers those affected by these fires across the entire state of California," he said.
Cynthia Shaw, director of communications for the Diocese of San Jose, said the diocese was surrounded by the wildfires.
Some parishioners were located in evacuation zones, and more could be evacuating in the coming days. Shaw said the diocese, in cooperation with Catholic Charities, St. Vincent de Paul, and local food banks, will continue to monitor the situation and will work to provide food and shelter and to keep people updated on evacuation zones and other resources.
She added that people are being asked to stay inside and wear masks now not only because of the coronavirus pandemic, but because of the poor air quality caused by smoke, which could also disrupt plans for outdoor Masses this weekend.
"We're just praying mightily also for the firefighters and the first responders. They have a great amount of work to do and we just pray that no one else loses their lives or gets injured in all of the fires," Shaw said.
Poor air quality was one of the biggest concerns for the Diocese of Stockton as well, Chandler Marquez, the director of communications for the diocese, told CNA.
"There's a lot of migrant farm workers and those farm workers are already heavily impacted by COVID-19," Marquez said. "So on top of that...it's harvest season for a lot of the crops out here and they're taking in these conditions (and) it's only going to make matters worse for them," he said.
Greg Kidder knows a little too well what it's like to survive a large wildfire - his home in Paradise, California was destroyed in the massive 2018 Camp Fire, which caused at least 85 deaths and destroyed most of his hometown. Kidder's parish, St. Thomas More in Paradise, also burned down - except for the sanctuary.
"Our sanctuary survived. But we did lose 50% of our buildings, mainly our social hall and rectory, and youth house," Kidder told CNA.
"But more importantly, we lost two-thirds of our parish. We had 733 families here. And then after the fire, we were down to about 150 people," he said.
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Most of those were evacuees who lost their homes and left the community, but four parishioners died due to the fires. Kidder estimated that another 20 to 30 died after the fire, due to the stress it caused, which exacerbated preexisting conditions.
"The church really consists of people, not so much buildings," Kidder said. "The human loss, in that respect, was pretty high, even for a little parish like ours."
After the initial fires, Kidder said the parish community was faced with the question: "What do we do now?"
He said recovery efforts first focused on people's safety and basic needs, like food and shelter. The community thought they'd rebuild within a month, Kidder said. But it's been a year and a half, and they're still rebuilding.
Coronavirus has made it harder, he added. Supply chains were disrupted; the cost of building supplies went up due to high demand. Kidder and his wife are planning on moving into their new home in November.
Paradise so far is not being burned by the current wildfires, but they can smell the smoke from a fire nearby, and the thought of another fire can trigger traumatic memories for some people, Kidder said.