7.2 Earthquake Near California Mexico Border

LOS ANGELES – Seismologists have raised the preliminary magnitude of an earthquake in northern Baja California from 6.9 to 7.2.

U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones says the new magnitude of the 3:40 p.m. Sunday earthquake is still an estimate.

The quake centered south of California’s border with Mexico was widely felt, swaying buildings as far away as San Diego, Los Angeles and Arizona.

There has been no confirmed damage, but some power outages were reported in southern Arizona and Tijuana, Mexico. Jones says any damage would likely have occurred closer to the epicenter such as in the Mexican city of Mexicali or in U.S. border cities.

From the original article:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A strong earthquake south of the U.S.-Mexico border Sunday swayed high-rises in downtown Los Angeles and San Diego and was felt across Southern California and Arizona, but there were no immediate reports of major damage.

The 6.9 magnitude quake struck at 3:40 p.m. in Baja California, Mexico, about 19 miles southeast of Mexicali, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The area was hit by magnitude-3.0 quakes all week.

The quake was felt as far north as Santa Barbara, USGS seismologist Susan Potter said.

Strong shaking was reported in the Coachella Valley and Riverside, Calif. The earthquake rattled buildings on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley, interrupting Easter dinners. Chandeliers swayed and wine jiggled in glasses.

In Los Angeles, the city fire department went on “earthquake status,” and some stalled elevators were reported. No damage was reported in Los Angeles or San Diego.

One woman called firefighters and said she was stuck in an elevator descending from the 34th floor in a building in Century City, but there was no way to immediately know if the breakdown was tied the quake, Los Angeles firefighter Eric Scott said.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says there are no power outages anywhere in the city, spokeswoman Maryanne Pierson said.

The quake was felt for about 40 seconds in Tijuana, Mexico, causing buildings to sway and knocking out power in parts of the city. Families celebrating Easter ran out of the homes, with children screaming and crying.

Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo said there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. But he said the assessment was ongoing.

In the Phoenix area, Jacqueline Land said her king-sized bed in her second-floor apartment felt like a boat gently swaying on the ocean.

“I thought to myself, ‘That can’t be an earthquake. I’m in Arizona,’” the Northern California native said. “And I thought, ‘Oh my God, I feel like I’m 9 years old.’”

A police dispatcher in Yuma, Ariz., said the quake was very strong there, but no damage was reported. The Yuma County Sheriff’s Office had gotten a few calls, mostly from alarm companies because of alarms going off.

Mike Wong, who works at a journalism school in downtown Phoenix, said he was in his second-floor office getting some work done Sunday afternoon when he heard sounds and felt the building start to sway.

“I heard some cracking sounds, like Rice Krispies,” coming from the building, he said. “I didn’t think much of it, but I kept hearing it, and then I started feeling a shake. I thought, ‘You know what? I think that might be an earthquake.”

Wong said the swaying lasted for “just a few seconds,” and he didn’t notice any damage.

An earthquake also hit in Northern California Sunday afternoon. The U.S. Geological Survey says a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 was recorded at 3:49 p.m. about 25 miles north of Santa Rosa.

A dispatcher with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department said the agency had not received any calls for service after the quake.

AP Story. Check here for updates.

Also, check this LINK for ongoing quake information.

Breaking: 6.0 Quake Offshore Eureka Again

Not much news yet, but preliminary reports say no damage. We felt it well over 200 miles inland.

!! You can find an update HERE but not much has changed. !!

A magnitude 6.0 quake shook Northern California early this afternoon, apparently along the same fault under the Pacific Ocean where a 6.5 temblor hit last month.

Today’s quake was centered 47 miles southwest of Eureka and 35 miles northwest of Petrolia, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Residents as far inland as Shasta Lake, Redding, Happy Valley and Red Bluff reported feeling “weak” shaking during the 12:20 p.m. quake. Even on the coast the shaking was reported as “light.”

It was not immediately clear whether today’s quake is an aftershock of last month’s temblor, said Leslie Gordon, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Details HERE

6.5 Earthquake Off The Northern California Coast !Updated!

!!  IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE QUAKE ON 2-4-10, CLICK HERE !!

At 4:27 this afternoon a 6.5 quake hit 27 miles off the coast of Eureka. That’s a fairly big shaker and we felt it here well over 200 miles inland. There were a few shakers in the 3-4 range in San Francisco earlier this week and the epicenter of this one is at the end of the San Andreas fault where it meets the Pacific and American plates in the Cascadia subduction zone. There have been several aftershocks but no threat of a tsunami.

All the technical details and a map are HERE.

!UPDATE! Some minor damage, injuries and power outages.

Dozens of people suffered minor injuries and thousands lost power.

In Eureka, north of Ferndale, residents of an apartment building were evacuated, and an office building and two other commercial structures in the town of about 26,000 people were declared unsafe for occupancy, according to Humboldt County spokesman Phil Smith-Hanes.

“Our initial reports were that, though this was a pretty decent quake, we survived it well,” Smith-Hanes said, adding that damage assessments would continue Sunday across the county.

Sandra Hall, owner of Antiques and Goodies, said furniture fell over, nearly all her lamps broke and the handful of customers in her store got a big scare. She said it was the most dramatic quake in the 30 years the Eureka store has been open.

“We’ll be having a sale on broken china for those who like to do mosaics,” she said.

More than a dozen aftershocks, some with magnitudes as powerful as 4.5, rumbled for several hours after the initial quake, which had a depth of nearly 10 miles.

More Here

US Bank Robbery Attempt In Burney… Updated! Victims Identified

!!LATEST NEWS!! Shooter Identified, Money Not Motive , More Info… !!!

It has just ended as I post this. Last report is suspect down and 3 hostages,  Sherry, Charlene and Lisa, taken away in squad cars. This is our bank and my wife and I know these people.

!!Update!! Record Searchlight reporting the gunman is dead. (still no name) Great video HERE from Intermountain News.

!!!UPDATE!!! Victims Identified. Gunman NOT!??

A lockdown on Burney schools has been lifted after a bank robbery suspect was reported down after a two-and-a-half hour standoff in Burney.

What sounded like four shots rang out in the armed robbery stand-off at the U.S. Bank just after 3 p.m.

Onlookers also heard what sounded like a high pitched scream.

Three women were escorted away from the bank in squad cars and appeared to be OK. The women’s first names are reportedly Sherry, Charlene and Lisa.

Dianna Fischer, principal at Burney Elementary School said the school was in lockdown after the robbery was first reported.

School was out at 2:35 p.m., but sheriff’s deputies told her that no one is to go in or out of the school until they notify her. Buses were not able to take kids home and parents were not able to pick up their kids from school until sheriff’s officials released the school from lockdown.

A bank customer was reported shot and bank employee was reportedly taken hostage and held in the bank vault, according to dispatch reports.

Authorities have confirmed at least one suspected robber, a male, said Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko.

CNN reports that when police arrived on scene shots were fired and they witnessed a female customer fall to the ground and they believe she is injured, CNN reports.

“Numerous” shots were fired, including several out a bank window into a sheriff’s deputy patrol car, Bosenko said, adding he did not know exactly how many. No deputies have been injured in the gun fire, he said.

Authorities say three to four people are inside the bank building, but they don’t know how many are employees and how many are customers, Bosenko said.

More Here

I’ll be updating as I get more…

A suspect involved in an armed robbery at the U.S. Bank in Burney has been arrested and transported to a hospital.

One person was been taken away in an ambulance after a two-and-a-half hour standoff this afternoon.

~~~~~~~~~
Latest from KRCR7 in Redding.

Tue, 12/15/2009 – 17:11

A bank robbery turned into a hostage situation in Burney, and the suspect was shot by law enforcement officers inside.

It started around 12:15 Tuesday afternoon at the US Bank on Main Street in Burney.

Exact details about what happened inside the bank are still sketchy, but here is what authorities who were there have told us: they say a man fired his weapon at least three times inside the bank. One customer and four employees were inside at the time.

The customer, a woman, was shot. Authorities have not confirmed where she was shot, but they say she had non-life-threatening injuries.

After what officials tell us were numerous attempts to negotiate, a sniper shot the man inside the bank. Officers from both the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department and Redding Police were there, but they say only the sniper fired, not any of the officers.

He has been seriously injured and has been taken to a Redding hospital. One other person has been questioned. It is not clear if that person was involved.

Highway 299 is closed because of the shooting, but a detour has been set up. Officials are not giving us an estimated time when it will reopen.

~~~~~~~~

Latest from Redding Record Searchlight

A suspect involved in an armed robbery at the U.S. Bank in Burney has been arrested and transported to a hospital where he is in serious condition.

Capt. Mike Ashmun said the robbery was reported at about 12:14 p.m. The suspect was in the bank and shot a woman customer in the arm but her injuries are not life threatening, he said.

She was taken to Mayers Memorial Hospital in nearby Fall River Mills.

There also were three or four employees in the bank, one of whom was in the middle of a conference call with co-workers at the bank’s Redding office. Those people heard gunshots over the telephone and notified authorities. The woman locked herself into the bank’s ATM room, where she called the sheriff’s office and fed them information about how many people were inside the bank and other details.

Since she was inside a locked room she was unable to provide details of what was going on in the bank lobby.

As deputies, California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers and police surrounded the bank, the robber grabbed one of the other tellers and dragged her into the bank vault.

The suspect fired at officers at least three times during the three-hour stand-off, shattering all the windows on the Main Street bankfront. Witnesses reported that up to 20 rounds were fired during the stand-off.

“Officers didn’t return fire until the suspect was shot,” Ashmun said.

He did not identify what kind of gun the suspect had used.

The bank was surrounded by deputies, police and CHP officers, and when the Redding SWAT team arrived they took over those duties.

Ashmun said deputies repeatedly tried to reach the suspect. The telephoned the bank, they talked to him through a public address system and they threw a radio phone into the bank through the shattered windows.

“The suspect never picked up the phone,” Ashmun said. “He never negotiated.”

Finally, a little after 3 p.m. two sheriff’s deputies “engaged” the suspect, Ashmun said. At least three shots were fired and the suspect went down, he said.

An ambulance took him to a Redding hospital. Ashmun said his condition was serious.

The two deputies who shot at the suspect were placed on administrative leave, Ashmun said. In addition, a chaplain was called in to counsel the hostages from the bank.

Meanwhile, deputies are trying to sort out what role, if any, a second man might have played in the robbery attempt.

A witness told deputies that he had seen the man, identified as Steven Bautista, outside the bank making hand signals to someone inside. That occurred around the time the first shots were fired and before deputies arrived. Ashmun said there were conflicting reports about what Bautista’s role, if any, but Bautista was arrested and was being questioned.

Identity of the alleged bank robber was not available.

Chalk Fire Update

Taken at the Pit 5 Dam.

Taken at the Pit 5 Dam

To give some perspective as to the size of the fire, in the smoke on the left side of the bottom picture, that little speck about a third of the way up is a double blade ‘copter with a bucket.

Fire officials relied on bulldozers, air tankers and helicopters at the Chalk Fire on Friday to prevent the 6,923-acre blaze from breaching containment lines and closing in on 11 structures.

Lori Mathiesen, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the Burney-area fire grew about 100 acres from Thursday to Friday and mandatory evacuations remained in effect for 10 residences along Skunk Ridge Road near Big Bend.

River Road remained closed at Pit 5 Dam.

Crews so far have kept the fire within their lines and, if weather permits, more firing operations would be under way this weekend, she said. Windy conditions Thursday and Friday blew embers that created spot fires, but none fell outside the contingency lines, she said.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Pit 4 powerhouse along the Pit River also was threatened by the fire, officials said.

As of Friday evening, the Chalk Fire had settled at 6,923 acres. The fire is one of 40 started by an Aug. 1 lightning storm.

Fire officials on Friday began releasing some engines and crews for fire duty elsewhere in the state, Cal Fire spokesman Brent Saulsbury said.

The SHU Lightning Complex of fires has burned 17,623 acres, and crews continued their efforts on the Chalk, Cassel (6,097 acres) and Goose (3,949 acres) fires.

The whole complex of fires was 70 percent contained Friday evening with mop-up operations continuing where containment lines have held.

Full containment was expected Sunday.

Nineteen minor injuries have been reported on the fire complex with suppression costs amounting to $26.8 million.

Some 1,580 people are working on the fires, of which 1,332 are Cal Fire personnel.

The 9,356-acre Sugarloaf Fire, part of the Hat Creek Complex to the southeast near Old Station, was reportedly fully contained by Friday morning, and mop-up efforts continued there throughout the day.

Lightning-sparked fires in the Trinity River Management Unit Complex have all been extinguished, but crews continue to monitor hot spots, said Rita Vollmer, a U.S. Forest service spokeswoman.

She said all the TRMU fires were less than 40 acres.

Source

Shasta/Lassen County Wildfire Update 8-6-09

A quick update of the fires around my neck of the woods.

A series of 40 fires burning in eastern Shasta County around Burney and Cassel grew overnight to more than 12,000 acres, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported today.

The SHU (Shasta-Trinity Unit) Lightning Complex has burned 12,704 acres since Sunday and is 20 percent contained.

Winds that picked up as a system moved through the area Wednesday night helped fan the complex.

“The weather in conjunction with the topography (steep terrain) moved our numbers (acreage) up,” Cal Fire spokeswoman Linda Galvan said.

The largest fire in the complex is the Goose, which nearly doubled overnight to 6,000 acres. The Cassel (4,100 acres) and Chalk (2,700 acres) fires didn’t grow overnight, while the 250-acre Backbone Fire near Ingot has been 100 percent contained, Cal Fire reported. The Goose Fire is 10 percent contained and the Chalk Fire is 30 percent contained.

Meanwhile, the 404-acre Gomez Fire near Glenburn is 100 percent contained and the 50-acre Cave Fire near Fall River Mills also is 100 percent contained.

There have been two minor injuries reported but no structures have burned. There are no current evacuations in effect.

Highway 44 five miles west of Highway 89 to Highway 36 remains closed this morning.

Highway 89 remains closed to all traffic except for residents between highways 44 and 299.

Meanwhile, the Hat Creek Complex of fires also grew overnight to 9,978 acres and is 20 percent contained.

Evacuations continue in Old Station and the Rancheria RV Park.

A combined 3,114 firefighters are battling the two complexes in eastern Shasta County and Lassen County.

Firefighters from across the state and as far south as Los Angeles and Riverside counties have come to the area to help.

Last evening I took this picture of the Chalk fire from my front yard. That’s not a thunder storm, it’s a fire storm making it’s own thunderheads. It is the opposite side of the picture that starts this Update.

It's not a thunder storm

Shasta/Lassen County Wildfire Update 8-4-09

Evacuation of RV Park

UPDATED TUESDAY | 5:45 P.M. – Evacuation of the Rancheria RV Park in Hat Creek on the west side of Highway 89 has just been ordered.

Highways 89 & 44 Closure Update

UPDATED TUESDAY | 4:44 P.M. – State Route 44 currently closed from 5 miles west of junction SR 89 in Shasta County to junction State Route 36 in Lassen County due to fire. No estimated time to open, no detour. State Route 89 still closed from junction SR 44 to junction SR 299. No estimated time to open, no detour. The highway has been opened and closed at various times since it was first closed at 7 p.m. Sunday.

CURRENT ISSUE OF NEWS

The current issue of The News is now available at the Current Issue link above right. We urge you to “refresh” or “reload” pages for the most updated info.

CAL FIRE Map

Click on the map above for larger version of the fires under command of the state agency CAL FIRE. The map shows approximate locations of the 41 fires under the command of the agency.

U.S. Forest Service Map

Click on the map above for larger version of the fires under command of the U.S. Forest Service in Hat Creek and Old Station. CLICK HERE for Tuesday, 9 a.m. update information.

Courtesy of The Intermountain News

Lightning Starts 35 Fires in Eastern Shasta County. Evacuations in Some Areas

Fire crews were battling 35 blazes in the Intermountain area ranging in size from a quarter-acre to more than 600 acres. Residents evacuated from Big Eddy Estates near Fall River Mills and along VN Lane in Hat Creek. The Susanville Interagency Fire Center (SIFC) is dispatching ground forces and aircraft to nearly 100 reported fires in the wake of widespread thunderstorms over the past two days. Lightning detecting equipment showed nearly 1,800 lightning strikes in northeast California over the past 24 hours, with 96 fires reported by mid morning, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2009. Saturday evening lightning activity was concentrated in a swath extending northwest from Susanville, but strikes were recorded across the SIFC region. There were 43 reported fires on the Lassen National Forest, 40 reported blazes on lands protected by the CAL FIRE Lassen-Modoc-Plumas Unit, 14 fires on Bureau of Land Management public lands, and two reported fires in Lassen Volcanic National Park. The largest incident is the Dodge Complex, two fires burning about 60 miles northeast of Susanville, about five miles from the community of Madeline. The fires, dubbed Mendiboure and Dodge, have burned about 1,500 acres of grass, brush, juniper and mountain mahogany on public lands managed by the BLM. Some ranch structures were threatened; none were damaged. By early Monday morning, humidity levels reached between 40-70 percent, aiding firefighting efforts.

!Update!

Here’s a personal update. The picture below shows Chalk Mountain and a fire just on the other side. It’s about 5 miles away from the house.

Sheriff’s Sergeant Shot, Shooter Killed in Lassen County !!Updated w/ Names!!

There’s been a lot of raids in the North State this year, and it’s only the middle of June. This kind of activity is usually seen in the late summer or early fall, and usually the growers just run away and return to Mexico. Not this time.

!!Update!! Through the grapevine, I’ve found out these guys are a mixture of locals and illegals. Stay tuned for names.

!!UPDATE!! Here are the names of those arrested starting top left.!!UPDATE!!

Arrested at the garden
site were Clemente Ferrias
Arroyo, 62, no address listed,
and Jose Alfredo Zepeda,
18, ast Palo Alto. Unconfirmed
reports indicate the
suspect who was shot was
the son of Arroyo and brother-
in-law of Zepeda.
Arrested in the vehicle
stopped by deputies and
U.S. Forest Service law
enforcement officers were
Jose Mendoz-Garcia, 21,
no address listed; Miguel
Abundez Mosquedo, 39, of
Fall River Mills; Alex Zavala,
19, no address listed; and
Norman Mike, 44, of Dana.
Charges against Zavala
were dropped and he was
released.
The other five suspects
were being held each on
$150,000 bail, were arraigned
Thursday and are scheduled
for a preliminary hearing this
Thursday, 8:30 a.m., in Dept.
2 of Lassen Superior Court,
said Nancy Holsey, public
information officer for the
court.

LITTLE VALLEY – One man is dead and six have been arrested after a gunbattle Tuesday afternoon near an illegal marijuana garden that sent a Lassen County sheriff’s sergeant to the hospital with a gunshot wound and also injured a sheriff’s deputy.

The sergeant and the deputy were part of a task force investigating an illegal pot plantation south of Dixie Valley, just across the Lassen County line east of Burney, said Lassen County Sheriff Steve Warren. The sergeant was flown to Mercy Medical Center in Redding with a nonlife-threatening wound, the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office said.

He reportedly was shot in the arm after he stopped a truck suspected of being involved with the marijuana garden.

His identity was not released, so his condition could not be checked. But a Record Searchlight photo of his arrival at the hospital shows that he was apparently alert and sitting up on the gurney, his right arm bandaged.

Two of the suspects were arrested on Forest Service Road 22 near where the two officers were shot, and four were arrested when they were found in a car on Pittville Road, Warren said.

Names of those arrested and the man who was killed were not immediately available.

“I want to give props to all the agencies who helped make these arrests possible today,” Warren said Tuesday night.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol were among the agencies that helped Lassen deputies.

Photos and video: Intermountain News

Story: Record Searchlight

Li’l Smokey is awake and on the move

hey li'l buddy, let me show ya the ropes

An American black bear who was returned into the wild in early February after being rescued last summer from a smoldering north state forest, Li’l Smokey has awakened from his hibernation slumber.

Officials with Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care and the Anderson forester who rescued the injured bear cub in July said Thursday that officials at the state Department of Fish and Game informed them that they had picked up a live signal from the bear’s electronic transmitter.

The signal, which was received last Friday as DFG officials flew over the area, shows that Li’l Smokey was about 4.59 miles from where he was placed in a cozy den in the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County.

“This is a great indicator that he is alive and well,” said Tom Millham, secretary-treasurer of nonprofit Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care center, where Li’l Smokey was treated for his burn injuries. “Things look good.”

Adam Deem, the 33-year-old California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection forester, said Thursday that he learned Wednesday of Li’l Smokey’s electronic sighting.

“This is fantastic news,” Deem said.

It was Deem who spotted and rescued the injured and badly dehydrated Li’l Smokey as he was scouting the western flank of the Moon Fire near the border of Trinity and Shasta counties.

The forester admitted he has worried about Li’l Smokey’s safety since the bear was tranquilized and left on his own in the bear den.

“Every time a storm comes in, I wonder if he’s hunkered down in his den,” he said.

Both Deem and Millham said that Li’l Smokey is staying well within his release site.

“They (bears) have about a 10-mile range as their home,” Millham said.

Staying within that 10-mile range indicates to them that Li’l Smokey is finding sufficient forage.

Li’l Smokey was returned to the wild two months ago, but the exact location of the release site, which is considered to be excellent bear habitat, is being kept secret by DFG officials.

One of the bear’s ears was tagged with an electronic transmitter, which will allow the wildlife experts to monitor him for about a year.

But because of state budget cutbacks, it’s not known how often DFG officials will be checking on him.

Deem and Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, which still carries a Li’l Smokey blog, have won worldwide praise for their work to save the bear.

Deem is publishing an illustrated children’s book about his favorite bear, which he hopes will be finished and on sale in June.

In the meantime, Deem and Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care representatives will be staffing a booth at the upcoming Kool April Nites car show in Redding. That booth will offer information about the wildlife care nonprofit group, as well as Li’l Smokey items for sale.

Kool April Nites is from Wednesday to April 19 at the Redding Convention Center and this year’s event pays special recognition to firefighters.

Its annual poster and program even include a drawing of Li’l Smokey.

Australia/California Fires Have Even More Similarities

Australia Fire February 2009

Hat Creek/Pit River Fire June 2008

A couple of days ago I talked about the similarities of California’s Li’l Smokey and Australia’s Sam being rescued from forest fires. (see here) Now there is another link between Australia and California that doesn’t have such a happy ending. It seems the same kind of  enviro-nut mentality that helped burn down much of California’s forests last year had a hand in the Australian disaster this year. To the Greenies, aka the Global Warming Cult, a tree is worth more than a human life. Or 300 human lives so far…. They are a sick bunch indeed.

It wasn’t climate change which killed as many as 300 people in Victoria last weekend. It wasn’t arsonists. It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was the power of green ideology over government to oppose attempts to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts, and which prevents landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.

So many people need not have died so horribly. The warnings have been there for a decade. If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but greenies.

Governments appeasing the green beast have ignored numerous state and federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of “prescribed burning”. Also known as “hazard reduction”, it is a methodical regime of burning off flammable ground cover in cooler months, in a controlled fashion, so it does not fuel the inevitable summer bushfires.

In July 2007 Scott Gentle, the Victorian manager of Timber Communities Australia, who lives in Healesville where two fires were still burning yesterday, gave testimony to a Victorian parliamentary bushfire inquiry so prescient it sends a chill down your spine.

“Living in an area like Healesville, whether because of dumb luck or whatever, we have not experienced a fire … since … about 1963. God help us if we ever do, because it will make Ash Wednesday look like a picnic.” God help him, he was right.

Gentle complained of obstruction from green local government authorities of any type of fire mitigation strategies. He told of green interference at Kinglake – at the epicentre of Saturday’s disaster, where at least 147 people died – during a smaller fire there in 2007.

“The contractors were out working on the fire lines. They put in containment lines and cleared off some of the fire trails. Two weeks later that fire broke out, but unfortunately those trails had been blocked up again [by greens] to turn it back to its natural state … Instances like that are just too numerous to mention. Governments … have been in too much of a rush to appease green idealism … This thing about locking up forests is just not working.”

Read The Rest

We had the same thing happen last June/July in California, though thankfully without as many people being killed. In California they even started talking about thinning the undergrowth in the forests and allowing more logging of the smaller trees. But it’s all talk now with Obama and Pelosi in charge, the Greenies will keep on saving the world, humans be damned.

Another Li’l Smokey…. In Australia

David Tree shares his water with an injured Australian Koala at Mirboo North

Here’s my original story from last year on July 20th, about a bear cub (Li’l Smokey) being rescued from the worst wildfires in recent history in California. Now in Australia a koala bear has been rescued in the very same conditions.

Li’l Smokey was released this week after his rehab. See Here. For all the stories about Li’l Smokey’s rehab,  just type lil smokey into the search bar. Let’s hope “Sam” has a good recovery also.

SYDNEY – It was a chance encounter in the charred landscape of Australia‘s deadly wildfires: A koala sips water from a bottle offered by a firefighter. David Tree noticed the koala moving gingerly on scorched paws as his fire patrol passed. Clearly in pain, the animal stopped when it saw Tree.

“It was amazing, he turned around, sat on his bum and sort of looked at me with (a look) like, put me out of my misery,” Tree told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I yelled out for a bottle of water. I unscrewed the bottle, tipped it up on his lips and he just took it naturally.

“He kept reaching for the bottle, almost like a baby.”

The team called animal welfare officers to pick up the koala Sunday, the day after deadly firestorms swept southern Victoria state.

“I love nature, and I’ve handled koalas before. They’re not the friendliest things, but I wanted to help him,” Tree said.

Often mistakenly called koala bears because they resemble a child’s teddy bear, the marsupial is actually a rather grumpy creature with a loud growl. It rarely comes down from the trees and doesn’t like walking.

Koalas are especially vulnerable to wildfires because they move slowly on the ground.

The wildfires cut through parks and forests and sent countless wombats and other native species fleeing. One resident reported seeing kangaroos bouncing down the road with flames at their backs.

The fires also razed farmland, killing or panicking sheep and cattle. Television footage showed cows running down the main street of a smoke-filled town.

A count of the animals killed has not been made.

Tree said he found the koala in a burned-out forest near Mirboo North, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) east of Melbourne, Victoria’s capital.

Koalas normally drink almost no water because they get almost all their fluids from the leaves they eat.

After the scorched koala sipped from the water bottle and Tree’s crew moved on, animal welfare officials came by.

The koala was in pain but recovering with antibiotics, Jenny Shaw of the Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter told Melbourne’s The Herald Sun newspaper.

“She is lovely — very docile — and she has already got an admirer. A male koala keeps putting his arms around her,” Shaw was quoted as saying. “It will be a long road to recovery, but she should be able to be released back into the wild in about five months.”

The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals said it was establishing shelters to care for thousands of pets and livestock affected by the fires.

Despite her gender, the now famous koala is nicknamed Sam.

Source

Li’l Smokey: The Next Step

Li’l Smokey, a now not-so-little American black bear cub rescued last summer from a smoldering north state forest, was returned Thursday to new digs in the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County.

The exact location of Li’l Smokey’s new home is being kept secret by state Department of Fish and Game officials.

But wildlife experts said it is considered to be excellent bear habitat.

DFG personnel placed the tranquilized cub in a cozy den, one ear tagged with an electronic transmitter.

That device will allow them to monitor him for about a year.

Li’l Smokey won the affection of countless animal lovers throughout the world after his rescue last year.

He was quietly picked up Wednesday from a South Lake Tahoe wildlife care and rehabilitation center, where he had been housed since July while recovering from severe paw and other injuries suffered during last summer’s Moon Fire in Shasta County.

Tom Millham, secretary-treasurer of nonprofit Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, who was one of those on hand for the bear’s release, wrote earlier on Li’l Smokey’s Web site blog – www.ltwc.org – that the black bear seemed to be more than happy to finally be on his way to freedom.

“We were able to get Smokey (Wednesday) into his transport crate without sedating him by placing the door of the crate against the door of the ‘Igloo’ that Smokey’s been denning in for the past several weeks,” Millham wrote.

But it appears that Li’l Smokey, who’s now about a year old, wanted to make sure that he didn’t leave some of his favorite toys behind. The toys were placed in the travel crate for the long trip ahead of him.

“He was very calm when he was loaded up and just seemed to be ‘hanging out’ waiting for the next chapter,” the Web site read.

A Li’l Smokey webcam that was popular with those who liked to get a glimpse of the bear these past few months today showed site visitors an empty straw-filled enclosure and a small sign that simply read, “Gone home.”

Also on hand when Li’l Smokey was released was California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection forester Adam Deem of Anderson.

Deem spotted and rescued the injured and badly dehydrated Li’l Smokey as he was scouting the western flank of the Moon Fire near the border of Trinity and Shasta counties

Hibernation lasts about three months, but bears don’t sleep the entire time, Millham has said.

“They’ll get up and move around a bit,” he has said. And though they will also continue to drink a bit, they won’t eat.

The average life expectancy of a black bear in the wild is about 18 years, and Millham has said he has nothing but confidence that Li’l Smokey will survive and thrive in the wild.

In fact, wildlife experts said, they would not have released him back into the wild had they been uncertain he would survive.

Tornado Hits Barn in Glenn County

It’s not unheard of around these parts, but it does cause a stir.  Here’s the latest. (this happened yesterday, 1-24)

A tornado reportedly touched down in a rural part of Glenn County and blew a tin roof off a barn this afternoon.

The California Highway Patrol reported the twister to the Glenn County Sheriff’s Department about 3:09 p.m., sheriff’s dispatcher Megan Spooner said.

Spooner said “a pretty good storm” took place where the tornado was spotted in the Four Corners area near Butte City, about 11 miles east of Willows.

The first deputy responding to the report ran into heavy hail during a severe thunderstorm, Glenn County sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Miranda said.

No one was home at the farmhouse where the barn was damaged, Miranda said. Deputies found pieces of tin scattered all around the area.

“The tin roof was blown off to the north,” he said.

The CHP relayed an emergency call of a tornado with people running from the area and reported a sighting of a funnel cloud about the same time in separate spots, although deputies weren’t able to locate anybody who actually saw them, Miranda said.

“We were not able to contact any eyewitnesses,” Miranda said.

National Weather Service officials were checking out the report.

“We’re trying to get more information on it,” meteorologist Cynthia Palmer said this afternoon.

Palmer said a tornado wouldn’t be all that unusual considering it’s January and a strong cold front was passing through the area.

Meanwhile, the Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for central Tehama County that expired at 5:30 p.m. today.

The weather radar showed the thunderstorm had weakened as of 5:45 p.m. and was no longer a threat.

Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas from Northern California. We have about 28 inches of snow on the ground as of 6:00 Christmas eve, and still snowing. A wonderful White Christmas. Traditional ham dinner with all the fixen’s on Christmas Day. Hope your day is filled with joy.