Tag Archives: California

U.S. House panel approves $36.5 billion for hurricane, wildfire relief

The U.S. Capitol Building is lit at sunset in Washington, U.S., December 20, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee has approved $36.5 billion in emergency funding for relief and recovery from the recent devastating hurricanes and wildfires, a spokeswoman for the committee’s chairman said late on Tuesday.

The bill includes $7 billion more funding than the White House had sought last week, and included nearly $6 billion more for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) than the administration’s request.

The committee’s bill also includes $576.6 million for wildfire efforts, $16 billion for the National Flood Insurance program, and a provision enabling low-income Puerto Ricans to receive emergency nutrition assistance, said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, the committee chairman.

It was not immediately clear when the bill would move to the floor to be voted on by the entire House.

The United States has been battered by a series of hurricanes in the Caribbean, Texas and Florida and wildfires in California.

President Donald Trump has also asked Congress to approve a $4.9 billion government loan to help Puerto Rico pay some of its bills in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Wildfires kill 17 in California wine country

Wildfires kill 17 in California wine country

By Marc Vartabedian

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) – Firefighters battling wildfires in California’s wine country face the prospect of new outbreaks when dry, windy conditions return on Wednesday to an area where at least 17 people have been killed and 2,000 homes and businesses destroyed in blazes.

Gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kph) and 10 percent humidity are forecast for later on Wednesday and into Thursday for the region where 17 fires have forced 20,000 people to flee their homes, fire officials said.

“The potential for new fires that could grow exponentially as these fires did in such a short time period is there,” said Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The weather gave firefighters a reprieve on Tuesday as cooler temperatures, lower winds and coastal fog allowed them to make headway against the fires that had burned 115,000 acres.

Some evacuations in Nevada and Yuba counties in western California were lifted on Tuesday while other evacuations to the east in Sonoma and Napa counties, where more than 50,000 acres burned, were expanded, Tolmachoff said.

Some 155 people were still missing in Sonoma County, although 45 others had been found and some of those unaccounted for may be due to confusion surrounding evacuations.

The city of Santa Rosa was particularly hard hit by the so-called Tubbs Fire, which damaged a Hilton hotel and destroyed a mobile home park.

Irene Fonzeca and her husband Luis were spending their second night in shelter on Tuesday after the couple woke up to raging fire nearby that was being blown toward their home on Monday.

The sound of fiery trees crashing down was terrifying, Luis said.

“We have no idea what’s there or if there’s anything to go back to,” Irene Fonzeca said outside the shelter holding a breathing mask as smoke and light ash blanketed downtown Santa Rosa.

In the shelter, emotions were raw, Irene Fonzeca said.

“People are crying hugging helping each other. It’s devastating,” she said.

In Napa County, the dead included 100-year-old Charles Rippey and his wife, Sarah, 98, according to the county sheriff’s office. The couple were married for 75 years, a CBS affiliate in San Francisco reported, citing their son, Mike.

Charles Rippey’s body was found outside where her bedroom once stood, he said.

“He was trying to get from his room to her room,” Mike Rippey said. “He never made it. Even if he had gotten there, he wouldn’t have been able to get her out … And there is no way he would have left.”

Napa Valley Vintners, a trade group, said it was too early to assess the economic impact of the fires. At least four wineries had suffered “total or very significant losses,” and at least nine reported damage, the group said.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in several northern counties where fires where burning and in Orange County in Southern California, where the so-called Canyon Fire 2 destroyed 14 structures and damaged 22 and forced the evacuation of 5,000 people, fire spokesman Thanh Nguyen said.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Keith Coffman in Denver, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Fire crews battle California wildfires as death toll creeps up

Fire crews battle California wildfires as death toll creeps up

By Marc Vartabedian

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) – Firefighters battled 15 wildfires on Tuesday that have killed at least 11 people and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Northern California while raging through the state’s world-famous wine country.

Efforts to control the fires were helped by the wind dying down on Monday, Brad Alexander, a spokesman for the governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said.

However, the death toll could still rise, he said.

Schools and colleges near the wildfires canceled Tuesday’s classes and two hospitals in Sonoma County were forced to evacuate, state officials said.

About 1,500 homes and commercial buildings had been destroyed, Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said on Monday.

Much of the damage was in California’s wine country north of San Francisco. Sonoma County bore the brunt of the fatalities, with seven fire-related deaths confirmed there, according to the sheriff’s department. Two people died in Napa County and one in Mendocino County, officials said. An 11th death was reported in Yuba County, NBC News reported.

Some 20,000 people had been evacuated from their homes since Sunday, officials said, while CNN said more than 100 had been treated for fire-related injuries, including burns and smoke inhalation.

The 15 fires broke out during the weekend and were fanned by high temperatures and dry conditions. They spread across some 73,000 acres (29,542 hectares), fire officials said.

The largest fire, covering 42 square miles (109 square km) and 39 square miles (101 square km) respectively, struck in Napa and Sonoma counties. The status of the grape crop currently being harvested there was unclear.

In addition to potential damage to vineyards from fire itself, experts say sustained exposure to heavy smoke can taint unpicked grapes.

Fred Oliai, 47, owner of the Alta Napa Valley Winery, said winemakers were nervous.

“You can’t see anything,” he said in a telephone interview. “The smoke is very dense.” Oliai had not been able to get close enough to his vineyards to see if flames reached his 90-acre property. “We got our grapes in last week but others still have grapes hanging,” he said.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency Napa, Sonoma and five other counties.

That included Orange County in Southern California, where a wildfire on Monday destroyed at least a half dozen homes in the affluent Anaheim Hills neighborhood, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents, authorities said.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Keith Coffman in Denver, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Gina Cherelus, Jonathan Allen and Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by John Stonestreet and Bill Trott)

At least 10 killed by wildfires in California wine country

A DC-10 aircraft drops fire retardant on a wind driven wildfire in Orange, California, U.S., October 9, 2017.

By Marc Vartabedian

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (Reuters) – A spate of wildfires fanned by strong winds swept through northern California’s wine country on Monday, leaving at least 10 people dead, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and chasing some 20,000 people from their dwellings.

The deaths marked the first wildfire-related fatalities in California this year, according to state officials, and are believed to represent the largest loss of life from a single incident or cluster blazes in the state in about a decade.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties, encompassing some of the state’s prime wine-making areas, as the blazes raged unchecked and engulfed the region in thick, billowing smoke that drifted south into the San Francisco Bay area.

He later extended the declaration to include four more northern California counties and Orange County in Southern California.

An aerial photo of the devastation left behind from the North Bay wildfires north of San Francisco, California, October 9, 2017. California Highway

An aerial photo of the devastation left behind from the North Bay wildfires north of San Francisco, California, October 9, 2017. California Highway Patrol/Golden Gate Division/Handout via REUTERS

Sonoma County bore the brunt of the fatalities, with seven fire-related deaths confirmed there, according to the sheriff’s department. Two others died in Napa County and one more in Mendocino County, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

Details on the circumstances of those deaths were not immediately available from either CalFire or local officials. But KGO-TV in San Francisco, citing unnamed California Highway Patrol officials, described one of the victims as a blind, elderly woman found dead in the driveway of her home in Santa Rosa, a town in Sonoma County.

Two hospitals were forced to evacuate in Sonoma County, state officials said.

Thousands of firefighters battled wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) that have rapidly spread 15 separate wildfires across some 73,000 acres in northern California since erupting late Sunday night, according to CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant.

About 1,500 homes and commercial buildings have been destroyed throughout the region, Ken Pimlott, director of CalFire, said at a news conference.

A separate wildfire on Monday torched at least a half-dozen homes in the affluent Anaheim Hills neighborhood of Southern California’s Orange County, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents there, authorities said.

Firefighters work to put out hot spots on a fast moving wind driven wildfire in Orange, California, U.S., October 9, 2017.

Firefighters work to put out hot spots on a fast moving wind driven wildfire in Orange, California, U.S., October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

That blaze erupted along a freeway off-ramp and spread quickly in gusty winds to scorch at least 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) in a matter of hours, fire officials said.

Still, the fire in Orange County paled in comparison to one of the fiercer blazes in northern California, the so-called Tubbs fire, which by mid morning had scorched about 25,000 acres (10,117 hectares) in Napa and Sonoma counties, an area world-famous for its vineyards.

One evacuee, John Van Dyke, recalled standing in his pajamas near the 101 Freeway in Santa Rosa, watching a hillside in flames from the Tubbs Fire, when police pounded on his door in the mobile home park early on Monday, telling him to flee.

“When I got in the car to leave, a whole section of the mobile park was in flames,” he said. “It scared the hell out of me.” At least 5,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders in Santa Rosa alone, accounting for about a quarter of the region’s residents displaced by the fires.

San Francisco authorities issued an air quality alert due to smoke from the fires, which residents said they could smell since early in the morning.

“You can’t see anything, the smoke is very dense,” Fred Oliai, 47, owner of the Alta Napa Valley Winery, told Reuters by telephone. He said he has not been able to get close enough to his vineyards since he was evacuated to see if flames reached his 90-acre property.

In addition to potential damage to vineyards from fire itself, experts say sustained exposure to heavy smoke can taint unharvested grapes, and Oliai said wine makers in the area are nervous.

“We got our grapes in last week, but others still have grapes hanging,” he said.

The region threatened by fires overlaps an area accounting for roughly 12 percent of California’s overall wine production by volume but also where its most highly valued grapes are grown, said Anita Oberholster, a professor of viticulture and enology at the University of California at Davis.

So far this year, some 7,700 wildfires in California have burned about 780,000 acres statewide as of Sunday, CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.

About a dozen people lost their lives in a series of fires that swept San Diego County and other parts of Southern California in October 2007. Ten people perished the following August in the Iron Alps Fire Complex in northern California’s Trinity County, including nine killed in a helicopter crash.

 

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Keith Coffman in Denver and Gina Cherelus and Joseph Ax in New York; Writing Alex Dobuzinskis and Steve Gorman; Editing by Tom Brown and Diane Craft)

 

Residents in northern California evacuated amid fast-spreading fires

(Reuters) – Buildings in California’s Napa and Sonoma counties were being evacuated early on Monday morning after multiple, fast-spreading wildfires engulfed the area with thick smoke and large flames, according to fire officials and local media.

Aerial video footage from Reuters - screen shot of Napa Valley Fire

Aerial video footage from Reuters – screen shot of Napa Valley Fire

Firefighters were battling a 200-acre (80.9-hectare) wildfire in Napa County, an area nearly 70 miles north of San Francisco that is known for its vineyards, since late Sunday evening, according to the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The “Atlas Fire” was burning in the hills above Napa County and had damaged several buildings. As of Monday morning, firefighters had made no headway containing it.

At least three other fires were burning near Calistoga, a small Napa Valley city known for its wineries, and near areas in Sonoma County, forcing evacuations from homes, shopping centers and hospitals, according to the Napa County Sheriff’s Office.

Videos and photos on social media showed fires raging in the hills above Napa Valley, burning their way through vegetation, buildings, roads and some parked vehicles. Reports of injuries were not immediately clear.

Napa Valley Home on Fire. Taken from Reuters video - screen shot

Napa Valley Home on Fire. Taken from Reuters video – screen shot

Officials said strong, dry winds were fanning the flames and asked residents in mandatory evacuation zones to leave immediately for the four local shelters, according to reports by NBC Bay Area.

In Sonoma County, the fire also forced all schools in Santa Rosa City to close for the day.

The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory warning late on Sunday until Monday at 11 a.m. PDT (1800 GMT). It said it expected winds at 20 to 35 miles (32 to 56 km) per hour and gusts of at least 45 mph.

Smoke and flames in Napa Valley Fire - Reuters Video screen shot

Smoke and flames in Napa Valley Fire – Reuters Video screen shot

 

Patients at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa were being removed early Monday morning, according to NBC Bay Area reporter Laura Garcia. “Gurneys being brought out, people in wheelchairs and walkers loaded in cars,” Garcia wrote on Twitter.

 

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

 

Russia threatens retaliation over U.S. ‘break-in’ at San Francisco consulate

FILE PHOTO: The Consulate General of Russia is seen in San Francisco, California, U.S. on September 2, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam/File Photo

MOSCOW (Reuters) – U.S. officials broke into residences at Russia’s consulate in San Francisco, the foreign ministry in Moscow said, threatening retaliation over what it called a hostile and illegal act.

Russian staff had left the consulate last month, after Washington ordered Moscow to vacate some of its diplomatic properties, part of a series of tit-for-tat actions during a thorny phase in bilateral relations.

Since then, U.S. officials had occupied administrative parts of the compound but on Monday they entered residential areas that the departing staff had locked, the ministry said in a statement late on Monday.

“Despite our warnings, the U.S. authorities did not listen to reason and did not give up their illegal intentions,” it said.

“…We reserve the right to respond. The principle of reciprocity has always been and remains the cornerstone of diplomacy.”

Footage aired repeatedly on Russian state television showed

what the broadcaster said were U.S. officials breaking locks that had sealed off parts of the compound and entering the buildings.

The “intruders” had taken over the whole premises including the consul general’s residence, the ministry said.

“Therefore, we understand that Americans, breaking into our diplomatic buildings, have de facto agreed that their missions in Russia may be treated likewise.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month accused Washington of “boorish” treatment of Russia’s diplomatic premises on U.S. soil, ordering the foreign ministry to take legal action over alleged violations of Russia’s property rights.

The tit-for-tat began late last year when former U.S. president Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for alleged Russian meddling in the election that took Donald Trump to the White House.

Trump took office in January, saying he wanted to improve ties with Russia, while Putin also spoke favorably of Trump.

But the allegations of interference in the vote, which Moscow has denied, have persisted as an investigation by U.S. authorities has widened.

In July, Moscow ordered the United States to cut the number of its diplomatic and technical staff working in Russia by around 60 percent, to 455.

(This story has been refiled to fix typographical error in headline)

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; editing by John Stonestreet)

California moves presidential primary for bigger say in candidate choice

FILE PHOTO - A poll worker places a mail-in ballot into a voting box as voters drop off their ballot in the U.S. presidential primary election in San Diego, California, United States, June 7, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California will move its presidential primary from June to March under a bill signed on Wednesday by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, a change aimed at giving the liberal-leaning state more influence in choosing candidates from either national party.

The most populous U.S. state, which voted heavily for Democrat Hillary Clinton in November’s presidential election, has traditionally held its primary so late that Democratic and Republican voters in other states had essentially already chosen their parties’ candidates.

“The Golden State will no longer be relegated to last place in the presidential nominating process,” said Secretary of State Alex Padilla, a Democrat who backed the change, in a statement. “Candidates will not be able to ignore the largest, most diverse state in the nation as they seek our country’s highest office.”

The bill was passed mostly along party lines in the majority-Democrat legislature.

The new date will leave the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in place as the first and second contests of the presidential election cycle, during which voters in each state choose the candidate they would like their party to nominate for president.

Because California’s primary has been in June while others were held earlier, candidates have largely ignored the state, spending less on outreach than elsewhere, making fewer visits, and failing to prioritize California voters’ concerns in their campaigns, supporters said.

In 2016, California Democrats chose Clinton and Republicans opted for Donald Trump, the populist businessman who ultimately won the presidency.

Backers in the legislature said the early primary would lead to less divisive choices by members of both major parties in the 2020 election cycle, and establish California as a leading voice in the choice of candidates.

Progressive Democrats also believe that moving the primary up could result in their party’s selection of more liberal candidates.

“California is the beating heart of the national resistance to Trump, and California Democrats are defining the progressive agenda for America,” state Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman said in a press release. “When it comes to deciding the Democratic nominee, our voices need to be heard early in the process.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Richard Chang)

Southern California wildfire forces 1,500 to flee homes

Southern California wildfire forces 1,500 to flee homes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Crews were battling a major Southern California wildfire on Tuesday that has destroyed at least one structure and forced 1,500 people to flee their homes amid high temperatures and gusty winds.

The so-called Canyon Fire, which broke out in the Santa Ana Mountains east of Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, charred more than 2,000 acres by Tuesday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Some 900 firefighters had been called in to protect homes in and around the city of Corona, assisted by water-dropping aircraft and bulldozers, the agency said.

The Canyon Fire erupted during an intense fire season across the U.S. West.

Nearly 41,000 individual wildfires of all sizes have scorched more than 6 million acres in the United States so far this year, well above the 4.2 million acres burned on average over the last 10 years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

California to file lawsuit over Trump border wall

A view of a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence at El Paso, U.S. opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California’s attorney general plans to file a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging President Donald Trump’s plan to construct a wall along the border with Mexico, the state AG’s office said, adding to the obstacles facing a key Trump campaign promise.

Trump has insisted Mexico would pay for building the wall, which experts said could cost about $22 billion and take more than three years to complete.

With Mexico refusing to pay, Trump has said since taking office in January that the wall will initially need U.S. funding but that he will find a way to make Mexico ultimately pay for it.

Democrats in the U.S. Congress, however, firmly oppose the border wall, and at least some Democratic senators would need to vote for its inclusion in a spending package.

Democratic attorneys general including California’s Xavier Becerra have sued the Trump administration on a range of issues.

The border wall lawsuit set to be filed on Wednesday will allege that Trump’s wall violates federal environmental standards, as well as constitutional provisions regarding the separation of powers and states’ rights, a Becerra spokesperson said.

Last month the Trump administration said it had selected four construction companies to build concrete prototypes for a wall, which will be will be 30 feet (9 meters) tall and about 30 feet wide and will be tested in San Diego.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Sandra Maler)

California lawmakers take anti-Trump stance as session ends

U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Morristown municipal airport for a weekend at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster ahead of next week's United Nations General Assembly, New Jersey, U.S., September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – California lawmakers voted to become a sanctuary state, tussled over hot-button environmental issues and urged other states to refuse to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission as their legislative year ended early on Saturday.

The majority Democratic lawmakers headed back to their districts having positioned the state in opposition to conservative policies proposed by the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump on immigration, the environment and other issues.

“It’s a purposeful positioning,” said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California. “We have a different political path and a different ideological path than the Republican-controlled Congress and White House have.”

This year, California lawmakers have strengthened protections for undocumented immigrants, increased the gasoline tax and extended a program aimed at compelling businesses to reduce air pollution, all in opposition to federal policies.

Early on Saturday, lawmakers gave last-minute support to a bill barring local governments from forcing undocumented immigrants to spend extra time in jail just to allow enforcement officers to take them into their custody.

The bill, a compromise from a version that sought to severely restrict interactions between law enforcement and immigration officials, does allow communities to notify the federal government if they have arrested an undocumented immigrant with a felony record. It also allows enforcement agents access to local jails.

It came a day after a federal judge barred the U.S. Justice Department from denying public-safety grants to so-called sanctuary cities in retaliation for limiting cooperation with the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

The bill goes now to Democratic Governor Jerry Brown for his signature.

Trump issued an executive order in January targeting funding for cities that offer illegal immigrants safe harbor by declining to use municipal resources to enforce federal immigration laws. A San Francisco judge blocked the order.

Illinois’ Republican Governor signed a bill last month protecting people from being detained because they are the subject of an immigration-related warrant.

FOSSIL FUELS

Although California lawmakers have enacted several environmental protections this year, a measure aimed at weaning the state’s power grid entirely off fossil fuels by 2045 died for the year after lawmakers adjourned without voting on it.

California’s three investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric <PCG_pa.A>, Southern California Edison <SCE_pe.A> and San Diego Gas & Electric [SDGE.UL], said the bill does not protect customers from the cost of switching from fossil fuels.

Assemblyman Chris Holden, who held the measure in his Utilities and Energy Committee, said he would consider it again when the legislature returns in January for the second half of their two-year session.

The legislature also passed a package of bills aimed at increasing the availability of affordable housing in the notoriously expensive state, and approved a plan for spending $1.5 billion in income from the state’s cap-and-trade air quality program, which raises money by selling businesses limited rights to emit pollutants.

They passed a resolution condemning the election integrity commission, calling it an effort to suppress the voting rights of minorities and others, and voted to move up the state’s presidential primary from June to March.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Nichola Groom in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Andrew Bolton)