Napa County prosecutors charge winery worker with starting 2025 Pickett Fire

The Napa County District Attorney’s office has filed felony charges against a Calistoga-area winery worker accused of starting the Pickett Fire, which a year ago raced up the flanks of Howell Mountain east of Napa Valley, menacing rural homes for days and ruining some of the region’s prized grape crop.

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Prosecutors say Juan Luis Gutierrez Marfil, who was doing work for Hundred Acre Wines owner Jayson Woodbridge, according to a spokesperson for the company, disposed of hot ashes into a burn pile, which ignited the fire on Aug. 21, 2025.

The blaze burned 10 square miles over 17 days, forcing evacuations, and destroying one home and four outbuildings. A number of wine grape growers abandoned their vintages due to smoke-tainted fruit they blamed on the fire.

Gutierrez Marfil, 45, of Napa, was charged Wednesday, Aug. 26, with recklessly causing the fire of a structure or forest. The criminal complaint includes a special allegation of committing an offense that caused more than $6 million in losses.

Napa County has estimated the financial loss to the local wine industry due to the Pickett Fire at $56 million, plus $1.7 million for other agricultural commodities and farm structures.

Prosecutors said in the complaint that Gutierrez Marfil admitted to Cal Fire law enforcement of disposing hot ashes into a burn pile, sparking the fire. The origin point, according to Cal Fire, was located within properties owned by Hundred Acre Wines.

The Press Democrat was unable to reach Gutierrez Marfil for comment Thursday. It isn’t clear whether he has legal representation.

The Hundred Acre Wines spokesman, Sam Singer, said Marfil was a contractor working for Woodbridge and not a winery employee.

In March, Gutierrez Marfil was cited by a Cal Fire enforcement officer for two felonies and two misdemeanors related to the Pickett Fire. The DA’s office ultimately decided to bring a narrower range of charges.

Gutierrez Marfil is scheduled to be arraigned by Napa County Superior Court Judge Kecia Lind on Sept. 9.

The fire broke out at a time when Cal Fire had suspended residential burn permits — a common summertime move — unless property owners first obtained a formal exemption. Cal Fire, citing its open investigation, has declined to disclose any records indicating whether such an exemption existed in this case.

Woodbridge, two decades ago, in June 2005, was cited by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for conducting open burns in violation of district regulations. A Napa judge entered a judgment that August, compelling Woodbridge to pay $4,750 for the infraction.

The Pickett Fire sparked on the outskirts of Calistoga on a 100-plus-degree afternoon. Gusty winds swept the flames through rugged hillsides and canyons along the scar of the 2020 Glass Fire, forcing evacuations from Calistoga through the Palisades and Swartz canyons towards Pope Valley.

Some 2,700 emergency personnel spent 17 days containing the fire, which ultimately scorched more than 6,800 acres.

Responding to the news of criminal charges, Elton Slone, president and CEO of Robert Craig Winery in Napa Valley, which lost most of its 2025 crop, said he felt no “sense of justice whatsoever, just heaps of frustration.”

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Smoke damage from the Pickett Fire wiped out the winery’s entire Howell Mountain crop, Slone said. “That’s 70% of our revenue and our identity at Robert Craig,” he added.

The vines were just recovering from the 2020 Glass Fire. That fire, for which a cause was never determined, caused greater damage but the business had better insurance coverage at the time. Before 2020, “terrific coverage” cost $40,000, Slone said. Now the business pays $320,000, and the policy doesn’t cover fire damage.

There’s repercussions for the business’ loans and lines of credit, too.

“It’s been a huge burden on our business over the last year. There’s no describing what it’s like,” Slone said.

Earlier this month, a group of winemakers — not including Slone—  sued Woodbridge and his company over their ruined 2025 harvests, and a number of other Howell Mountain wine businesses are in settlement discussions with the vintner.

Woodbridge has described spending the first night of the fire fending off flames bearing down on his Pickett Road home and winery.

The ignition point for the Pickett Fire, originally identified by Cal Fire as 2343 Pickett Road, lies within adjoining properties owned by Woodbridge’s Hundred Acre Wines company.

State officials reportedly investigated a number of potential causes, including the disposal of ashes on Woodbridge’s vineyard.

Singer had previously said a contractor working on an outdoor fireplace was curing bricks the day of the fire and had thought the ashes had been properly extinguished. Attorneys for Hundred Acre Wines had also asked Cal Fire to consider a battery inside an on-site trailer as a possible ignition source.

“The Napa County Deputy DA has investigated the Pickett Fire and found no basis to file a criminal case against the Hundred Acre affiliates that own and operate the Pickett Road property,” Singer said in an email Thursday. “We agree with that assessment and are pleased we have been cleared by the DA’s office.”

The district attorney’s office declined to comment on Singer’s framing of the decision to charge Gutierrez Marfil.

“This doesn’t change our case at all,” said Daniel Reidy, a St. Helena attorney representing the winemakers suing Woodbridge and Hundred Acre Wines. “These charges affirm that the fire was started on Woodbridge’s property by one of his workers.”

Reidy noted that the district attorney’s findings do not relieve Woodbridge of potential civil liability.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or [email protected]. On X (Twitter) @Skinny_Post. You can reach senior reporter Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or [email protected]. On X @marisaendicott and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.

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