By JANIE HAR and BRIAN SKOLOFF , Associated Press UPPER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Just a month into the budget year, California has already spent more than one-quarter of its annual fire budget, at least $125 million, state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Mike Mohler said Wednesday. Following years of drought and a…
By JANIE HAR and BRIAN SKOLOFF , Associated Press UPPER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — A massive wildfire in Northern California has torched more than 1,000 homes in and around the city of Redding, authorities said Wednesday as some evacuees were allowed to return home and new blazes exploded in what has become an endless summer…
By JANIE HAR and BRIAN SKOLOFF , Associated Press UPPER LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Jessyca Lytle fled a fast-moving Northern California wildfire in 2015 that spared her property but destroyed her mother’s memorabilia-filled home in rural and rugged Lake County. Less than three years later, Lytle found herself listening to scanner traffic and fire-proofing her…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and SUDHIN THANAWALA , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — About 10,000 more people were ordered evacuated as two wildfires surged toward small lake towns in Northern California while the state’s largest and deadliest blaze of the year slowed slightly after days of explosive growth, authorities said. The twin fires in…
By MARTHA MENDOZA , Associated Press ANDERSON, California (AP) — Exhausted and hungry, some 12,000 firefighters are working 24-hour shifts battling deadly California wildfires and becoming resigned to fire seasons that start earlier, burn longer and unleash increasingly unpredictable blazes. “There’s a lot going on up here, endless fires, and they’re all characteristically pretty much…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and BRIAN MELLEY , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — The death count from a rapidly growing Northern California wildfire rose to five Saturday after two young children and their great-grandmother who had been unaccounted for were confirmed dead. “My babies are dead,” Sherry Bledsoe said through tears after she and…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and LORIN ELENI GILL , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — Only a handful of homes remain in the small northern California community of Keswick. The air chokes with the smell of smoke and chemicals, smoldering what’s left of people’s lives. The so-called Carr Fire roared through Shasta County, so thoroughly…
By JONATHAN J. COOPER and BRIAN MELLEY , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire that roared with little warning into a Northern California city claimed two lives as thousands of people scrambled to escape before the walls of flames descended from forested hills onto their neighborhoods, officials said Friday. Residents who gathered their…
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Wind-driven wildfires destroyed buildings and threatened hundreds of others Sunday as they raced across dry brush in rural Northern California. The Pawnee Fire that broke out Saturday near the community of Clearlake Oaks has destroyed 12 buildings and threatened an additional 600 as it burned out of control across about…
By ROBERT JABLON and CHRIS CARLSON, Associated Press MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) — Residents piled into cars and fled on Saturday, turning downtown Santa Barbara into “a ghost town” as surging winds drove one of the biggest fires in California’s history toward the city and the nearby wealthy enclave of Montecito. The mandatory evacuations around Montecito and…