Tag Archives: Los Angeles

Portion of major highway reopens as California wildfire rages

Firefighters battling California blaze

(Reuters) – A portion of a major highway connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas has been reopened, as a wildfire that forced the evacuation of some 80,000 Southern California residents continued to rage virtually unchecked.

The so-called Blue Cut Fire erupted on Tuesday in the mountainous Cajon Pass northeast of Los Angeles and, by late Wednesday night, had exploded to cover 25,626 acres (10,370 hectares), fire officials said.

While firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around only 4 percent of the blaze, state transit officials said northbound lanes of Interstate 15 would reopen in the area.

Fire officials expressed concern that “red flag” weather conditions would keep the area dry, hot and windy into Thursday night.

The Blue Cut Fire, named for a narrow gorge north of San Bernardino where it started, threatened the town of Wrightwood near a ski resort and other communities, prompting evacuation orders for some 80,000 residents.

Authorities have described the blaze as unusually fierce, even for a year of intense wildfires in the U.S. West, where years of drought have placed a heavy burden on firefighting resources. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

U.S. government forecasters have said the risk of major wildfires in Southern California is likely to remain high until December, given the dryness and warm weather.

About 600 miles (970 km) to the northwest, the so-called Clayton Fire was 50 percent contained after charring nearly 4,000 acres in and around the community of Lower Lake and destroying 286 homes and other structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Southern California wildfire rages unchecked after evacuations

chicken coop going up in flames

(Reuters) – Hundreds of firefighters were battling a rapidly-spreading wildfire raging unchecked in drought-stricken Southern California on Wednesday after flames forced more than 80,000 residents to flee.

The Bluecut Fire, which erupted on Tuesday morning and has grown to cover some 18,000 acres (7,300 hectares) of heavy brush in an area called the Cajon Pass, was zero percent contained as of Tuesday night, fire officials said.

Authorities issued evacuation orders for 82,640 residents and some 34,500 homes near Interstate 15, the main freeway between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, a stretch of which was closed indefinitely.

Two firefighters were trapped by flames in the effort to evacuate residents and defend homes, but managed to escape with only minor injuries, fire officials said. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.

More than 600 miles (970 km) to the northwest, crews made headway against a Northern California wildfire that has destroyed more than 175 homes and businesses.

The so-called Clayton Fire was 35 percent contained on Tuesday night, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). It has charred 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) in and around the community of Lower Lake since Saturday evening, forcing hundreds to flee.

Damin Pashilk, a 40-year-old arrested on suspicion of setting that blaze, and several others in the area over the past year, is set to appear in court on Wednesday.

The Clayton fire threatened about 1,500 structures at its peak. As of Tuesday evening, only 380 buildings were in danger, according to Cal Fire. There were no reports of casualties.

California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino County for the Bluecut Fire, which allows state agencies to come to the assistance of local officials. He had issued emergency declarations on Monday for the Clayton Fire and another in Central California, the Chimney Fire.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Firefighters battling California blaze face hot, dry conditions on Tuesday

Fire fighters battling Sand Fire in California - wildfire

(Reuters) – Firefighters in drought-hit California who are battling a 50-square-mile wildfire could be hampered by triple-digit heat, wind gusts up to 30 mph and low humidity on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

About 3,000 firefighters have been fighting to contain the so called Sand Fire on the rugged northwestern fringes of the Los Angeles National Forest since Friday.

The blaze has killed one person, found in a burned-out car parked in a driveway, and destroyed at least 18 homes. An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people were forced to evacuate but late on Monday, fire officials lifted the evacuation order for the majority of residents.

The fire was just 10 percent contained on Monday evening as crews backed by bulldozers labored to hack buffer lines around its perimeter as it cast a pall of smoke and soot over a wide area.

An air quality advisory was in effect in the area of the fire until Tuesday midnight local time after much of the Los Angeles basin was dusted with a thin layer of fine white ash from the fire over the weekend.

Among the properties to go up in flames was the landmark Sable Ranch, a popular location for television and movie shoots.

About 300 miles to the north, another fire ravaged a hilly area near the scenic coastal city of Carmel-by-the-Sea, churning through 16,100 acres (6,500 hectares) and destroying 20 homes, authorities said.

The so-called Soberanes Fire, burning in the Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County, threatened 1,650 structures by Monday evening and was only 10 percent contained, the U.S. Forest Service said.

The causes of the two fires were under investigation. They are among some 3,750 blazes large and small to have erupted across California since January, a higher-than-normal total, collectively scorching more than 200,000 acres (80,940 hectares), state fire officials said.

The biggest so far was last month’s Erskine Fire, which consumed 48,000 acres (19,429 hectares) northeast of Bakersfield, killing two people and destroying about 250 structures.

By comparison, the 2003 Cedar Fire ranks as the biggest on record in the state, burning more than 273,000 acres (110,480 hectares) and killing 15 people.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Thousands of firefighters battle massive wildfire near L.A.

Fire burns brush on a hillside during the so-called Sand Fire in the Angeles National Forest near Los Angeles,

By Laila Kearney

(Reuters) – More than 1,600 firefighters battled on Monday to contain a fast-spreading wildfire that has forced hundreds of evacuations in the drought-parched canyons north of Los Angeles, destroying 18 homes, killing at least one person and closing a highway.

Authorities said the Sand Fire had grown to more than 33,000 acres (13,300 hectares) by early Monday, or more than 50 square miles (130 square km), fueled by high winds and parched conditions after years of drought.

It was threatening a string of small communities near Santa Clarita, just outside the Angeles National Forest, the Los Angeles county sheriff’s department said.

“This is the fifth year of an ongoing drought, so we have very extreme fire behavior,” the fire department chief, Daryl Osby told a Sunday news conference. “These are not normal times.”

A 10,262-acre (4,155-hectare) fire was also burning in a coastal area of Monterey county, 300 miles (480 km) northwest of Santa Clarita, prompting authorities to widen evacuation orders to several communities on Sunday, a Cal Fire spokeswoman said.

One person suffered non-life-threatening injuries and one structure was destroyed, the spokeswoman, Amber Anderson, said.

The fire near Santa Clarita, first reported on Friday afternoon, has forced at least 1,500 residents to evacuate their homes and destroyed at least 18 homes, the Los Angeles county fire department said in a statement.

All the affected communities, about 40 miles (65 km) northwest of Los Angeles, are in or around the San Gabriel Mountains, which is dotted with multimillion-dollar homes.

About 100 commercial buildings in the path of the fire have been ordered to evacuate, fire officials said.

An “unexpected wind event” forced officials to cancel plans for residents to return to some areas, fire officials said on social media network Twitter on Sunday.

“All evacuations will remain in place,” they added.

The 14 Freeway was closed to traffic because of the fire threat, the California Highway Patrol said on Twitter.

The remains of an unidentified person were found late on Saturday in a charred vehicle in the path of the blaze. The cause of death had yet to be decided, fire officials said.

Extreme heat, strong winds and parched rugged terrain will continue to hamper firefighters, the officials said, adding that they were still trying to pinpoint the cause of the wildfire, which had been only 10 percent contained by early on Monday.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Chris Michaud in New York and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Tom Brown and Clarence Fernandez)

Two L.A.-area wildfires threaten to merge after forcing evacuations

Two wildfires converging in front of LA

By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Two rapidly growing wildfires burning a few miles apart in parched foothills just northeast of Los Angeles threatened to merge on Tuesday after forcing the evacuation of more than 700 people, officials said.

The blazes came as California and other southwestern U.S. states baked in a heat wave.

The so-called Fish Fire and the Reservoir Fire, which both broke out on Monday in the Angeles National Forest, more than doubled in size overnight and were entirely unconfined, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement. (http://bit.ly/28Lbe6h)

The Fish Fire, whose cause is under investigation, has grown to 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) while the Reservoir Fire, which fire officials say was sparked by a car crash, stood at about 2,400 acres (971 hectares), according to figures from the U.S. Forest Service.

“It is a possibility that the two fires would merge,” Andrew Mitchell, a spokesman for the team battling the Reservoir Fire, said in a phone interview.

The fires burning more than 20 miles (32 km) northeast of downtown Los Angeles have forced at least 700 people to evacuate, Mitchell said. The communities nearest the flames include the suburban towns of Duarte and Azusa.

Overnight, a flank of the Fish Fire crept down a hillside on the east side of Duarte, lapping at brush just beyond some houses before firefighters extinguished the flames, Los Angeles County Fire Chief John Tripp said at a news conference.

“Our big threat today is still that left side of the fire,” Tripp said. “That still is a very uncontrolled flank of the fire.”

Officials warned more evacuations could be ordered.

While the two blazes have not yet merged, they are being handled as one incident called the San Gabriel Complex Fire. Over 600 firefighters are battling those blazes fueled by dry brush and chaparral, officials said.

Meanwhile, a half-dozen other wildfires burned across California.

In the coastal part of the state, firefighters have made steady progress in handling the so-called Sherpa Fire, a seven-day old blaze northwest of Santa Barbara that has burned nearly 8,000 acres (3,237 hectares) in an area of ranches and campgrounds. That fire is 70 percent contained, according to tracking website InciWeb.gov.

Two states away, the Dog Head Fire in central New Mexico has charred more than 17,000 acres (6,880 hectares) and was 46 percent contained after destroying 24 homes and 21 minor structures soon after it broke out last week.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Cynthia Osterman)

Governor declares massive Southern California methane leak an emergency

A massive gas leak that environmental activists say is sending potentially devastating amounts of methane into the air above Los Angeles was declared an emergency situation on Wednesday.

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. made the announcement in a news release, outlining a variety of steps designed to protect public health, stop the leak and prevent future ones from occurring.

Methane has been leaking from the Aliso Canyon storage facility since Oct. 23. The Southern California Gas Company that owns the facility has been working to stop the leak ever since, though letters that appear on the company’s website indicate that workers don’t expect to seal the leak until late February or late March as it involves drilling some 8,000 feet underground.

Last month, Brown’s office released a letter he wrote to the company’s chief executive officer in which the governor called the response “insufficient.” The emergency declared Monday directs the Southern California Gas Company to take “all necessary and viable actions” to stop the leak.

The governor’s declaration came two weeks after the Environmental Defense Fund released an infrared video in which methane could be seen billowing from the facility at a purported rate of 62 million cubic feet every day. Approximately 28 million cubic feet of oil was released during the entire 87-day Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, according to a U.S. Coast Guard report.

The governor’s order instructs the company to ensure it’s withdrawing as much gas as possible from the facility so that it doesn’t escape into the air, captures whatever methane is leaking, and comes up with a plan to stop the leak if the company’s current plan of drilling a relief well and pumping it full of cement and other fluids doesn’t fix the problem or the leak gets worse.

The Environmental Defense Fund said the leak at its current rate had the same long-term impact on climate change as driving 7 million cars, as methane is much better at trapping heat.

The leak also had short-term impacts, as the governor’s office said Wednesday that “thousands of people” have relocated because of the leak. The Los Angeles County Public Health Department had previously ordered the company to relocate residents who were affected by the leak free of charge. The Los Angeles Unified School District also temporarily closed two schools near the leak after “an increasing number of health complaints” was disrupting the education process, according to the district’s website. Those students are being relocated to other schools.

Tests conducted by the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment shows the leak “does not appear” to present a toxic threat to the public, according to the California Office of Emergency Services (CALOES), though the smell of the gas has caused nausea and headaches. Odorants are added to methane to help the public detect leaks. Those odors, while they may not be toxic, could still lead to “lasting health impacts” like eye or respiratory damage, CALOES said.

The governor’s order directs the state to convene a panel of medical experts to look into concerns about public health. It also instructs the state’s Public Utilities Commission to make sure that the Southern California Gas Company pays for the costs of the leak, and outlines more strict practices for gas storage facilities, including daily wellhead inspections to help detect leaks.

Southern California Gas Company CEO Dennis Arriola issued a statement after the declaration, saying the company would continue to work to stop the leak and lessen the gas’s impact on the neighborhood of Porter Ranch, which has been hit particularly hard by the smell, and the air.

“Our focus remains on quickly and safely stopping the leak and minimizing the impact to our neighbors in Porter Ranch,” Arriola said. “SoCalGas reaffirms our prior commitment to mitigate the environmental impact of the actual amount of natural gas released from the leak. We look forward to working with state officials to develop a framework that will achieve this goal.”

NASA predicts 99-percent possibility of 5.0 earthquake to hit Los Angeles

NASA’s scientists in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena have predicted that Los Angeles has a 99% chance to experience a possible 5.0 earthquake or stronger within the next 3 years.

Dr. Andrea Donnellan, a JPL geophysicist, came up with this hypothesis by using radar and GPS to measure Southern California’s chances of a good sized earthquake.

“When the La Habra earthquake happened, it was relieving some of that stress, and it actually shook some of the upper sediments in the LA basin and moved those a little bit more,” Dr. Donellan told CBS Los Angeles News.

However, there is still strain within the land, which could produce a more powerful earthquake of up to 6.3 magnitude.

Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey believe that the chances are slightly lower. They believe there is an 85% chance of a magnitude 5 or greater earthquake hitting the area within the next 3 years. They used fault maps and models to come up with their percentage.

“We all need to be prepared. That’s not new for LA,” Dr. Donellan added.

Los Angeles Declares Homeless Situation an Emergency

Los Angeles’ elected leaders on Tuesday said they would declare a “state of emergency” and devote up to $100 million to a growing homeless population problem. But they offered few details about where the money would come from or how it would be spent, leaving some to question the effort’s chances of success.

“We all understand the urgency that this situation requires, and what is at stake,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “I applaud the Los Angeles City Council for their action today in earmarking a necessary initial investment that helps launch my comprehensive plan to tackle homelessness.”

According to figures released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, homelessness has increased 12% since the mayor took office two years ago.

“It’s time to get real, because this is literally a matter of life and death,” said Councilman Mike Bonin, whose Westside district is home to many of the makeshift sidewalk encampments that are an increasingly glaring symbol of the problem across the city. He spoke of a “collective failure of every level of government to deal with what has been a homeless crisis for generations and is exploding and exacerbating now.”

Los Angeles has one of the largest unsheltered populations in the country, and more than an estimated 25,000 homeless residents.

Freak Rainstorm Washes Away California Highway Bridge

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) confirmed that heavy rains in a remote desert area of California has washed away an elevated part of Interstate 10 including a highway.

The CHP told the Los Angeles Times that 30 feet of the eastbound highway “is washed away and bridge is gone.”

The highway, the most direct route between Los Angeles and Phoenix, averages more than 20,000 cars a day.  Now the vehicles will have to travel hundreds of miles out of the way Interstate 8 or Interstate 40.

Forecasters say the storm was a foreshadowing of what could be striking California later this year with a strong El Nino season.  Tropical Storm Dolores, which roared far off the Mexican and California coasts, allowed for muggy and rainy weather to reach an area decimated by crippling drought.

“Even though Dolores is a pretty good wake-up call for us, we should start preparing for late August or early September,” Stuart Seto, an National Weather Service specialist, said to the Los Angeles Times.

The storms that blew through Southern California brought flash flooding in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.  The storms brought dangerous lightning, hail and high surf to the region.

The storm was so rare for this time of the year that the Anaheim Angels baseball team had a game against the Boston Red Sox rained out…the first rainout for the team in 20 years and 1,609 consecutive home games.

Planned Parenthood Accused of Selling Body Parts of Aborted Babies

A new video shows a Planned Parenthood executive drinking wine in a Los Angeles restaurant while talking about how the organizations sells body parts from aborted babies.

The video, filmed by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), shows two undercover actors posing as representatives of a human biologics company.  They met Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Debroah Nucatola, for lunch.

The video depicts Nucatola explaining in graphic detail how abortionists harvest the organs from aborted babies based on the demand.

“Yesterday was the first time she said people wanted lungs,” Nucatola told the undercover buyers in the video. “Some people want lower extremities, too, which, that’s simple. That’s easy. I don’t know what they’re doing with it, I guess if they want muscle.”

“Yeah – a dime a dozen,” an actor responds.

“I’d say a lot of people want liver,” Nucatola said. “And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”

Planned Parenthood claims the video does not tell the real story.

“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different,” Planned Parenthood’s vice president for communications, Eric Ferrero, said in a statement to the London Guardian newspaper.

Planned Parenthood claims the video is just another attempt by a group focused on damaging the abortionist’s reputation.

David Daleiden of CMP claims that Planned Parenthood’s response shows that they’re lying in their response because they admit money is exchanged despite denials.

“Planned Parenthood makes two key admissions in their statement today; first, that aborted fetal parts are harvested at their clinics, and second, that money is exchanged in connection with this,” Daleiden said.