Sand fire rages in Santa Clarita Valley

'The most frightening thing': 10,000 homes evacuated as Sand fire rages in Santa Clarita Valley

Wind-whipped flames raged overnight in the steep, rugged mountains of the Santa Clarita Valley, charring more than 33,000 acres and threatening thousands of homes.

2 more homes confirmed destroyed by Cold Springs fire, brings total to 5

2 more homes confirmed destroyed by Cold Springs fire, brings total to 5

The blaze is estimated at 606 acres and zero percent containment

NEDERLAND — Two more homes were confirmed destroyed by the Cold Springs fire on Monday, bringing the total number of houses consumed by the blaze to five.

Officials released the news after a damage assessment team toured the burn area. Another 65 homes are within the fire’s perimeter, according to emergency managers, however no other houses are currently within the blaze’s immediate path.

The county identified the newly recognized homes destroyed in the blaze as being at 2315 Ridge Rd. and 2454 Ridge Rd. They are just north of Boulder Canyon, east of the Barker Reservoir.

More firefighters arrived on Monday to join the fight against the fire burning northeast of Nederland as crews brace for another breezy day despite cooler temperatures.

Helicopter pulls water from Barker Reservoir for #ColdSpringsFire bucket drop pic.twitter.com/aY4iSrjH1f

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul) July 11, 2016

After little growth overnight, crews will be working on fire lines along Hummer Road and on Hurricane Hill and in the Bonanza area, according to the Boulder County Office of Emergency Management. One of the main goals is to keep the fire north of Boulder Canyon, which remains closed, and away from a large neighborhood that sits on the south side.

“We’re definitely prepared for a hard day,” said Gabi Boerkircher, spokeswoman for the emergency management office. “We’ll just have to see where the wind directs the fire. We definitely do not want (the fire) to cross Boulder Canyon.”

Two spot fires jumped the canyon road Sunday night but crews quickly contained them, according to the Monday morning update. Crews will be stationed in fire engines along Boulder Canyon Drive to watch for any new spot fires on the south side.

Even on Saturday, a few hours after the fire broke out about 1:45 p.m., flames were making runs toward the road.

“Cooler temperatures will make firefighting a little more comfortable for crews battling the Cold Spring fire, but humidity is still low and winds are predicted to be erratic,” the emergency management office said in a briefing bulletin.

Getting breezy early in Ned pic.twitter.com/FEvhIWtS1b

— Jesse Aaron Paul (@JesseAPaul) July 11, 2016

A Red Flag warning is in effect from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. over the area, with forecasters warning of gusts up to 40 mph. Cooler temperatures are expected, and a high of 73 degrees is forecast around the burn zone.

Winds were already picking up about 8:45 a.m. in Nederland. Little smoke was visible, however, as the temperature rose with the sun getting higher in the sky.

“Rapid fire growth and spread will be possible,” the National Weather Service in Boulder said in a forecast bulletin. “Any outdoor burning is strongly discouraged.”

The blaze, which has already burned three homes and three outbuildings, is estimated at 606 acres with no containment. About 2,000 people have been evacuated from a large swath of area as fire commanders brace for the blaze to grow. Contingency plans are in place to move more people out of the area should the fire expand.

Teams are working Monday morning to determine if any other structures have burned. Boerkircher said authorities should know by about 10 a.m. if additional homes were lost.

Boulder County sheriff’s detectives on Sunday afternoon arrested two men from Alabama at the Nederland High School evacuation site in connection with the blaze. They are suspected of being behind a poorly extinguished campfire that ignited the spreading fire.

Campers Jimmy Andrew Suggs, 28, and Zackary Ryan Kuykendall, 26, both of Vinemont, Ala., face felony arson charges because, according to investigators, “lives were endangered as a result of the fire.” The men were booked into the Boulder County jail.

“I’m kind of put out over it,” Rachael Dew said Monday morning of the fire’s cause. “You need to be better educated about fires if you are going to come up here and camp.”

Dew, who was working at the town’s co-op, said the blaze has been stressful for the community. While she hasn’t been evacuated yet, Dew said she has packed up belongings just in case.

With the town’s main artery — Boulder Canyon — closed, there are worries about declining tourism revenues.

Laura Vega, who was evacuated from her home Saturday when the fire broke out nearby, said that Sunday was noticeably slower in Nederland once traffic from Boulder was cut off. The first night away from her house, she slept in the town’s accounting office before moving to a friends place.

“I heard that firefighters did an amazing job in saving our houses,” Vega said. She went through three or four rounds of packing as flames approached her home, grabbing autographed pictures, a Neil Young box CD set and Peruvian weavings among the items she ushered to safety.

Many homeowners forced to flee had livestock in tow. An evacuation center for animals at the Gilpin County fairgrounds had filled up by Sunday night.

More than 450 firefighters, aided by a dozen aircraft, will continue Monday to fight the flames and work to establish a perimeter, according to the Boulder OEM. Officials say one of the main goals is to attack the blaze head-on.

Incident commanders noted just before 11 p.m. on Sunday that fire runs in the afternoon pushed over lines of fire retardant put down by aircraft.

Latest map of #ColdSpringsFire
— Orange is burn area
— Yellow is evacuation zone
— Red dotted lines road closures pic.twitter.com/tBI7TaNRYj

— Matt Sebastian (@mattsebastian) July 11, 2016

“Crowning, torching and spotting are common,” officials said on a website created to release information about the blaze. “New fire perimeter has stretched ground resources, making current air resources critical to success. Fire has spread over roads previously used as escape routes, further limiting tactical options. Predictions for fire growth indicate the potential for significant structure and infrastructure loss, along with closures of two adjacent state highways.”

At 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, command of the Cold Springs fire fight was transferred to Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team Black. The Type II team specializes in commanding battles against major blazes.


source: denverpost

West Virginia floods

West Virginia floods: 7 people dead, including two kids

In this photo released by the The Weather Channel, a vehicle rests on the in a stream after a heavy rain near White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Friday, June 24, 2016.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A storm system dumped up to 9 inches of rain on parts of West Virginia, trapping 500 people in a shopping center when a bridge washed out, while dozens of other people had to be plucked off rooftops or rescued as water quickly rose during the deluge.

At least seven people died, including an 8-year-old boy who was swept away by swift-moving creek water, and a 4-year-old boy who was caught in rushing waters in a different county, authorities and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's spokesman said Friday. The rains submerged homes and cars in dirty brown water and chewed up roads. Tens of thousands of people were without power at the peak of the storm.

Some areas are "probably looking at flooding that's going to be the worst in 100 years," Tomblin's spokesman Chris Stadelman said.

Forty-four of West Virginia's 55 counties are under a state of emergency, and parts of the mid-Atlantic region face more severe weather Friday, reports CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave.

Eric Blackshire was one of the hundreds of people stranded at the Crossings Mall, a mix of restaurants, retail and grocery stores and a hotel in Elkview, which is about 15 miles northeast of Charleston. The people were trapped when the culvert bridge washed out Thursday, Kanawha County Sheriff's Sgt. B.D. Humphreys said.

Some people had to sleep in their cars or at businesses overnight, and restaurants stayed open to help feed people, WSAZ reported.

Blackshire opted for a room at the hotel.

"It was kind of like a hurricane party. I guess you could call it a flood party. There were lots of beers being drank last night," he told The Associated Press.

He was able to get across Friday when the Pinch Volunteer Fire Department firefighters used a strong rope to guide people down a hillside. About 50 people had been rescued so far.

As for a better solution to get more people to safety, Kanawha County Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Brian Humphreys said: "that's going to require, I think, some engineering efforts" - perhaps a temporary bridge.

"I'm screwed," Blackshire said. "I mean I've only got one vehicle and it's over there now and it's gonna be days before it gets out."

An area near the West Virginia-Virginia border received at least 9 inches of rain while other parts of the state had 3 to 5 inches, National Weather Service hydrologist John Sikora said. While most of the rain had tapered off Friday, there were still scattered showers, thunderstorms and river flood warnings.

Kanawha County emergency officials said there were at least 70 water rescues.

"We had swift water rescue teams out until late last night and back out again this morning literally rescuing people from rooftops and upper stories of houses," Stadelman said.

For hours, Paul Moya was trapped on top of a roof. A diabetic in need of medical attention, he watched as his daughter's home was washed away and shot a video as he waited for rescue.

"I'm still shaking. I really just want to break down and cry right now," Moya said, speaking from his hospital bed. "All I could see was the homes burning and the electrical poles burning. I think I could say that now I was scared."

The heaviest rainfall was in Greenbrier County. At The Greenbrier, a luxury resort nestled in the mountains, the golf course was overrun by rushing waters. The course is scheduled to host a PGA tour event, The Greenbrier Classic, from July 4-10.

"It's like nothing I've seen," owner Jim Justice said in a statement. "But our focus right now isn't on the property, golf course or anything else. We're praying for the people and doing everything we can to get them the help they need."

Professional golfer Bubba Watson was apparently visiting the resort and tweeted photos of entire holes underwater:

Prayers for @The_Greenbrier & surrounding areas. We are without power & it's still raining. Never seen this much rain! #WestVirginiaBeSafe

— bubba watson (@bubbawatson) June 23, 2016

The governor issued a state of emergency on Thursday for 44 counties in the state.

"I have authorized the deployment of up to 150 members of the West Virginia National Guard to assist local emergency responders as we continue to evaluate the situation today," he said in a statement Friday.

Three people died in Kanawha County; the fourth death was an 8-year-old boy in Wheeling, the governor's spokesman said.

The body of Emanual Williams - known as "Manny" - was recovered after he fell into Big Wheeling Creek on Thursday, said Harry Croft, pastor at Marwin Church of the Nazarene at Wheeling.

Croft said the mother told him that she was walking across the creek with her son and daughter because Manny wanted to catch crawdads. One of the children slipped and the mother grabbed both the boy and his sister in the swift current.

"She lost her grip on Manny," the pastor said.

The boy's body was found about a half-mile from where the family lives, Croft said.

Croft said he informed the boy's mother that her son's body had been found.

"I said, 'They found Manny,'" he said. "And I said, 'I can tell you this, he's with Jesus now.' That's the only thing I knew to tell her."

The fifth victim, the 4-year-old boy, was with his grandfather when he fell into the creek, which usually runs about an ankle deep, said Bob Bibbee of the Ravenswood Fire Department, which confirmed the boy was found dead at 11:30 a.m. about a quarter mile from where he fell.

The grandfather jumped in after the boy to try to pull him out but the water was rushing too quickly. Neighbors, alerted by the sound of the family's screams, tried to help save the boy but were also unable to reach him.

The bodies of two other males were found amid debris near White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County.

Across the state line, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in Alleghany County and Covington after severe weather and flooding there.

Three emergency workers were injured during a water rescue in Alleghany County, officials said. One worker fell in the water during a rescue and two others were hurt while rescuing their colleague, Botetourt County Battalion Chief Andrew Moore said Friday.


source: cbsnews

Powerful Tornado Strikes East China

Powerful Tornado Strikes East China; 78 Reportedly Dead

BEIJING — A powerful tornado and hailstorm struck the outskirts of an eastern Chinese city on Thursday, killing at least 78 people and destroying buildings, smashing trees and flipping vehicles on their roofs.

The tornado hit a densely populated area of farms and factories near the city of Yancheng in Jiangsu province, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Beijing.

Nearly 500 of people were injured, 200 of them critically, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Roads were blocked with trees, downed power lines and other debris, while heavy rain and the possibility of further hailstorms and even more tornados was complicating rescue efforts, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The disaster has been declared a national-level emergency, and on a trip to Uzbekistan, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered central government bodies to provide all necessary assistance.

Tents and other emergency supplies were already being sent from Beijing, CCTV said.

The network showed people carrying the injured to hospitals, cars and trucks lying upside down, street light poles snapped in half, and steel electricity pylons crumpled and lying on their side. Power and telephone communications were knocked out over a broad area.

"I heard the gales and ran upstairs to shut the windows," Xinhua quoted area resident Xie Litian, 62, as saying. "I had hardly reached the top of the stairs when I heard a boom and saw the entire wall with the windows on it torn away."

The roof then collapsed as he raced downstairs, Xie said. After sheltering in a corner for 20 minutes, he emerged to find the neighborhood transformed into a wasteland. "It was like the end of the world," he said.

Jiangsu is a coastal province north of Shanghai. Yancheng is an ancient city with more than 8 million people.

The Jiangsu provincial fire and rescue service provided no word on casualties but said on its microblog that the storm was accompanied by hail. Crews were dispatched to evacuate workers and secure chemicals and other potentially dangerous items at a sprawling solar panel factory in the Yancheng suburb of Funing, it said. No chemical leaks been reported, CCTV said.

Photos posted online showed a wrecked three-story schoolhouse with large trees strewn on its playing field. Its windows had been blown out and its roof and upper floor torn off, along with those of numerous other buildings.

Bodies were shown lying in the open or buried in rubble. At least one hog farm was hit, its livestock covered in bricks and roofing material.

The reports said the tornado struck at about around 2:30 p.m. and hit Funing and Sheyang counties on the city's outskirts the hardest, with winds of up to 125 kilometers per hour (78 mph).

Tornados occasionally strike southern China during the summer months, but rarely with the scale of death and damage caused by the one on Thursday.

This year, southern and eastern China have experienced weeks of torrential rain and storms that have caused widespread flooding and dozens of casualties.

The southern part of the country is hit every year during the May-July monsoon season, but this rainy season has been particularly wet. Water levels in some major rivers have exceeded those of 1998, when China was hit by disastrous floods that affected 180 million people, according to state media reports.

source: nytimes

Local Emergency Declared in 4,000-Acre Santa Barbara County Wildfire

Local Emergency Declared in 4,000-Acre Santa Barbara County Wildfire.

Santa Barbara County firefighters stand by for structure protection as the Scherpa Fire consumes heavy brush near Highway 101 on July 16, 2016. (Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

A wildfire that burned thousands of acres in Santa Barbara County prompted the declaration of a local emergency as firefighters continued Friday to face difficult conditions.

More than 1,200 personnel were responding to the fire, which has been burning since it started near Refugio Road, west of Goleta, on Wednesday.

The fire had scorched 4,000 acres and was just 5 percent contained, officials stated at a later-morning news conference Friday. About 270 structures are threatened.

A water treatment plant that serves El Capitan State Beach was burned down overnight, a California State Parks superintendent said. Camping reservations were likely to be canceled, he said.

A declaration of local emergency was made by the county just after 10 a.m., said Supervisor Doreen Farr, who represents the area burning. Agriculture and natural resources have been damaged, she said. Another official said avocados, olives, lemons and cattle-grazing lands were damaged.

The fire comes as California continues into its fifth year of drought.

“It is ominous. We are concerned because the fuels out there are drought-stressed. There’s a lot of tree mortality out there that makes fire behavior worse,” Santa Barbara County Fire Department Chief Eric Peterson said. "The drought is making an already pretty volatile situation not any better."

County Sheriff Bill Brown warned residents to continue to heed mandatory evacuation orders and to be prepared to leave at a moment's notice in areas where evacuation warnings are in effect.

"This is still a very dynamic fire situation and we do not want residents ... to be complacent," Brown said. "Even though conditions may appear to have become better during the day, the reality is things can change ... very rapidly in the evening. We do not want our residents to have a false sense of security."

Officials estimated the fire, is expected to be contained sometime in the afternoon of Wednesday, June 22, the federal InciWeb page for the wildfire stated Friday morning. That statement was no longer on the site by midday.

Information about the fire, which is being referred to as both the Scherpa Fireand Sherpa Fire, is also available on the county's website.

Gusty sundowner winds have continued to fan the flames, pushing them down the mountain toward the coast, during the overnight hours. The winds once again forced the closure of the 101 Freeway through the region Thursday night.

Officials were able to reopen the Freeway about 4 a.m. Friday.

Sundowner winds were expected to continue to be a challenge for firefighters as forecasters have predicted them to return each afternoon through the weekend.

A heat wave was also expected to hit the region over the weekend. Temperatures will rise into the 80s and 90s and humidity will drop, and sundowners are expected to again pick up about 5 p.m., National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist Eric Boldt said.

The heat wave will peak and humidity will plummet on Monday, Boldt said.

Fire restrictions were in effect in Los Padres National Forest.

Air-quality warnings were in effect for the southern areas of Santa Barbara County through the weekend, unless conditions change, officials said.

Crews have successfully protected residential property in the El Capitan Canyon Area and El Capitan State Beach, according to the Inciweb site.

Mandatory evacuations were in place for areas of Refugio Canyon, Las Flores, Venadito, El Capitan Campground, El Capitan Canyon, El Capitan Ranch and Refugio Campground. About 400 phone lines received emergency evacuation notifications, Sheriff Brown said.

An evacuation warning was issue from El Capitan Canyon to Farren Road.

An evacuation center was set up at the Wake Center, located at 300 North Turnpike Road in Goleta, and Santa Ynez Union High School, according to the InciWeb page. Large animals can be taken to the Earl Warren Show Grounds.

The fire was being managed by the U.S. Forest Service, Santa Barbara County Fire Department and Cal Fire.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

source: ktla

Wildfire near California oil refinery burning out of control

Wildfire near California oil refinery burning out of control

This photo provided by Los Padres Forest Aviation and KEYT-TV shows a wildfire burning in Los Padres National Forest, north of Santa Barbara, on Wednesday, June 15, 2016, in Goleta, Calif.

GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — A California wildfire spurred by strong gusts mushroomed in size and burned out of control Thursday in a remote coastal area west of Santa Barbara, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of campers, some homes and an oil refinery as it crept toward the ocean.

Winds and rising temperatures across the dry Western U.S. also worsened wildfires in other states. A blaze in central New Mexico grew to more than 3 square miles and forced residents to flee at least 50 homes after sending up a towering plume of smoke that blanketed the state's largest city in a thick haze.

Southern California rocked by 5.2 earthquake

Southern California rocked by 5.2 earthquake

A handout shakemap released by the US Geological Survey (USGS)

(Photo: USGS, EPA)

LOS ANGELES -- An moderate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 rocked Southern California, rousing residents out of bed at about 1:05 a.m. PT.

The quake was centered near Borrego Springs in the desert east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Service reported.

On the west side of Los Angeles, about 100 miles from the epicenter, the quake produced a long shaking motion lasting about 30 seconds. There was no hard jolt. In USA TODAY's news bureau on the ninth floor of an office building near Los Angeles International Airport, window shutters shook and the building structure rolled in steady waves.

The quake was also felt in San Diego.

Seismologist Lucy Jones tweeted that quake struck on the San Jacinto fault, one of the most active in the region. She says the same fault produced a magnitude 6 earthquake in 1937 and a 5.3 quake in 1980.

source: usatoday