Fires

Well before balls of flame engulfed the hills of Santa Barbara, the federal government was already taking an accounting of California's likely devastation in the hot, dry fire season to come.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger started the week promoting Wildfire Awareness Week in events with fire officials, during which he suggested he might have to cut 1,700 firefighting jobs if voters reject the May 19 ballot measures.

A prescribed fire operation in the Rubicon Bay area on Lake Tahoe's West Shore, which began Thursday, will be creating smoke through the weekend.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, more popularly known as Cal Fire, is urging residents to create a 100-foot zone of defensible space around their homes before temperatures and the fire risk heat up.

For one California man, a little fix-it job in the driveway wound up costing big – $1 million, to be exact. This week, the U.S. Department of Justice approved a settlement with a homeowner from North Fork, east of Madera, whose attempt to sharpen a wood splitter with an electric grinder sparked a fire in the Sierra National Forest that burned more than 4,100 acres.

Sacramento fire officials were preparing to send a third strike team to Southern California on Saturday night to help firefighters battling a devastating wind-fueled blaze near Sylmar.

Concerns about the late-season wildfire in the Santa Barbara area stretched to Sacramento and beyond, especially among people with loved ones in the area.

Northern California currently faces little or no risk of large wildfires thanks to a late October downpour, fire officials said Friday.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection declared an end Tuesday to the 2008 fire season in its Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit.

Angel Island State Park, scarred by a fire this week that overran half the terrain, reopens on Monday for visitors, but will remain closed to campers at least through November.

As firefighters tried to tame a blaze Saturday along the lower stretch of the American River Parkway and as cars on Highway 160 slowed to watch a helicopter dart overhead to make a water drop, Ralph Plunkett stood in the shade of the overpass, his head bowed.

Firefighters contained a blaze early Friday that burned about 7 acres in Nevada County and briefly forced evacuations of a few homes.

Placer County has issued cleanup guidelines to Lincoln residents whose rural properties were burned or damaged by a fire Monday and Tuesday.

Labor Day meant an awful lot of labor for Sacramento-area firefighters as dry, gusty winds fanned blazes threatening hundreds of homes across the region.

Just when you thought you couldn't get enough of that furry little face with those piercing brown eyes, Li'l Smokey is about to go 24/7.

The U.S. Forest Service is again allowing controlled fires in California, after a ban last month in response to air quality concerns and personnel limitations.

Transportation officials have finished a field investigation of the fatal crash of a firefighting helicopter in the Trinity Alps earlier this month, but have much more work to do to pin down the cause, they said Friday.

Michael Brown, one of the firefighters who survived Tuesday's fatal helicopter crash in the Northern California wilderness, remains committed to his work despite the horror he experienced.

Ladder fuel, firefighters call it.

The regional chief of the Forest Service recently banned a practice that allowed local fire managers to let some blazes burn if they don't pose a threat.

Transportation officials have found the cockpit voice recorder from a firefighting helicopter that crashed in the rugged Trinity Alps on Thursday, killing nine people and injuring four others.

As transportation officials probed Tuesday's fatal crash of a firefighting helicopter, questions arose about why firefighters were in the area at all.

TRINITY COUNTY – Teams of federal investigators will comb rugged terrain in Northern California's Trinity Alps Wilderness today, searching for clues to what caused the nation's worst-ever helicopter crash involving firefighters.

The Rich fire continued to burn out of control through the Feather River Canyon on Friday, forcing Plumas National Forest officials to close about 400 square miles of the forest between Lake Almanor and Bucks Lake Wilderness.

BELDEN – A fast-moving fire on Wednesday continued to whip through timber on both sides of the Feather River Canyon four miles east of Belden, closing state Highway 70 for a second day.

MARIPOSA – Her little brown cabin in the woods was gone, reduced to ash and rubble by a wave of flames, but Mary Briggs had no time to be consoled. Her mind was elsewhere.

Firefighters working on a complex of lightning-sparked fires in Plumas National Forest were diverted Tuesday to a new blaze in the Feather River Canyon near Rich Bar.

Lightning-caused fires that killed a man and destroyed 106 residences and 11 outbuildings in Butte County were contained Tuesday evening, a Cal Fire official said.

Video from the Mariposa fire.
Telegraph fire photo gallery.
Updates from Cal Fire.
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK – The view of El Capitan was shrouded by a thick curtain of ashy haze Monday, but Marc Allard had flown from Paris to view the iconic rock formation. And it was no time to minimize the grandeur standing before him.

WASHINGTON – The Forest Service has struggled for years to pay for fighting fires that last year alone scorched almost 10 million acres, mainly in the West. As fire seasons grow longer and the blazes more intense in forests stressed by global warming, the agency's funding woes mount.

OROVILLE – Active fire along the trail to Feather Falls has forced Plumas National Forest officials to close the trail and scenic area for the rest of the summer.

Li'l Smokey – the cub who suffered horrible burns to his paws in the Northern California wildfires – was off the critical list Thursday and gaining a little weight at a South Lake Tahoe wildlife care center.

BIG SUR – California's storied Big Sur region, ravaged for more than a month by wildfires that continue to blaze in remote areas, will take a step toward recovery today with the reopening of 218 campsites at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

JAMESTOWN – Firefighters on Tuesday evening launched an aggressive attack on a wildfire that burned 102 acres to keep flames from reaching about 200 structures, most of them homes in Tuolumne County, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Firefighters have gained control over the woodland fires they've been battling since June 21, officials said. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported today it has contained more than 2,000 fires that have consumed nearly 1 million acres of woodlands.

The National Weather Service says the Sacramento Valley is experiencing cooler, damper air -- which should help firefighters battling woodland blazes.

If every cloud has a silver lining, what good can be said of the big brown dome of wildfire smoke that capped much of California these past few weeks?

President Bush took a helicopter tour of charred forests above Shasta Lake on Thursday and vowed to do the "best … we possibly can" in directing federal assistance to help California respond to devastating wildfires.

Firefighting crews say cooler weather has allowed them to gain the upper hand on the Butte County wildfires, although they're not yet ready to declare the fight won. The fire is now 65 percent contained.