As Wildfires Rage, Californians Fear the Virus at Shelters

“I’m not sure if tent fabric is preventive against Covid,” Ms. Bond said. “But again, just giving people that barrier, that kind of more shelter-in-place type situation rather than being in back-to-back-to-back cots.”

Evacuees further up the coast near Pescadero slept in trailers in parking lots or on the beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Others made desperate pleas to family members and friends to take them in, and local authorities said they preferred that people assimilate into so-called quarantine pods rather than brave the virus risks of an indoor shelter. Experts have said the risk of catching the coronavirus is much higher indoors, where still air and enclosed spaces can cause viral particles to concentrate and be inhaled.

Cenaida Perez said she smelled smoke from her house in Vacaville early Wednesday morning and ran outside with her 3-year-old daughter, Adriana. She is currently sheltering at a nearby library, but said she was worried about the coronavirus.

“Who isn’t going to be scared of that virus? It has killed so many,” Ms. Perez, 36, said in Spanish. “But also, I don’t want to die like this, burned to death.”

At the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville, another evacuation site, RV owners set up camp in parking lots, while others slept in their cars or pitched tents on grass fields amid the smoke. Rachel Muñoz said that she, her husband and two children took a chance and slept in a tent inside a fairground building after evacuating the town of Ben Lomond.

“If I get Covid, it’s probably going to be here,” she said.

But there was not much room to sleep in her pickup truck, which was already occupied by 16 chickens and the pine shavings they nest in.

“These are my babies,” said Ms. Muñoz, 51, while rigging netting to the back of her truck so she could leave the door open and give her hens some fresh air.