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Los Angeles ‘turns corner’ on largest wildfire in city history

Water is dropped above homes in Sun Valley during the La Tuna Canyon fire over Burbank, California, U.S., September 2,

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A smattering of rain and easing temperatures helped more than 1,000 firefighters battling the largest wildfire in Los Angeles history gain the upper hand on the blaze on Sunday, but officials warned that danger remains.

“We’ve turned the corner, but this is not over,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters. “With winds this strong, anything can happen.”

Shifting winds could cause burning embers to spread the fire once more through the rugged northern edge of Los Angeles, said Garcetti.

The nearly 5,900-acre (2400-hectare) La Tuna Fire, named after the canyon area where it erupted on Friday, has destroyed three homes and damaged one. More than 700 homes were evacuated as the blaze tore through thick brush that has not burned in decades.

Firefighters evaluate houses in a voluntary evacuation zone during the La Tuna Canyon fire in Burbank, California, September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Kyle Grillot

Of the 1,400 people evacuated from their homes, 90 percent had returned by Sunday afternoon and Garcetti said nearly all would be back before the day was over.

The wildfire is the largest in terms of acreage in the city’s history, Garcetti said. It was considered 30 percent contained by late Sunday night, up from 10 percent Sunday morning.

“We do not have this fire contained,” Garcetti said, “but we do have a good sense of, in the next day or two, how we can bring this fire to rest.”

The stretch of the 210 freeway, a major thoroughfare that has been closed for several days, will reopen either Sunday night or Monday morning, Garcetti said.

Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people and vast tracts of undeveloped mountainous land, has suffered much larger wildfires that have burned for weeks.

California Governor Jerry Brown on Sunday declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles County, which will ease the path for state and federal help to fight the fire.

Temperatures in the area have hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in recent days. But the mercury was in the low 90s on Sunday, and the temperatures are expected to be moderate and the humidity higher in the coming days, positive signs for containing the fire, said Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas.

Garcetti said four firefighters had suffered dehydration or minor burns.

Flames above houses in Sun Valley during the La Tuna Canyon fire over Burbank, California, U.S., September 2, 2017. REUTERS/ Kyle Grillot

More than 400 miles (644 km) to the north, the so-called Ponderosa Fire has burned 4,000 acres, or 1,620 hectares, and destroyed 32 homes in Butte County since it started on Tuesday, prompting evacuation orders to residents of about 500 homes. The blaze was 64 percent contained on Sunday evening, up from 56 percent earlier in the day.

(Writing by Gina Cherelus in New York and Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by Mary Milliken and Clarence Fernandez)

California governor declares wildfire state of emergency

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – California Governor Jerry Brown on Friday issued an emergency declaration for a wildfire burning in the northern part of the state, the same day the man accused of starting the blaze was charged with arson.

The so-called Ponderosa Fire has burned 3,715 acres (1,503 hectares) and destroyed 30 homes in Butte County, prompting authorities to issue evacuation orders to residents of some 500 homes in the area, officials said. It was 40 percent contained on Friday, up from 30 percent the day before.

The blaze is burning east of the town of Oroville, about 85 miles (137 km) north of the state capital of Sacramento.

The declaration will free up additional resources to battle the blaze, which erupted on Tuesday from a campfire that was started outside a designated area.

The man charged with starting the fire, John Ballenger, made his first court appearance in Butte County Superior Court on Friday, District Attorney Michael Ramsey said in a telephone interview.

Ballenger is charged with two counts of arson and was ordered held on a $1 million bond, Ramsey said. Ballenger could face up to seven years and eight months in prison if convicted.

Ballenger was appointed a public defender and is due back in court to enter a plea on Wednesday. The public defender’s office could not be reached for comment.

Ballenger was camping on property his family owns, Ramsey said.

“He had a campfire burning 24-7,” the district attorney said.

Meanwhile, another wildfire broke out on Friday, more than 400 miles (644 km) south of the Ponderosa blaze, in a north Los Angeles neighborhood.

The 2,000-acre (810 hectare) blaze triggered the closure of a section of the 210 Freeway as it tore through brush, and authorities also told residents of 200 homes in the area to evacuate because of approaching flames, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart.

In Montana, Governor Steve Bullock on Friday declared a state of disaster due to wildfires as dozens raged across tens of thousands of acres during one of the worst fire seasons in state history.

Bone-dry conditions, high winds and triple-digit temperatures pose “an imminent threat” to residents, Bullock said in the disaster declaration, which would allow the state to mobilize additional Montana National Guard troops and tap other state resources to combat the blazes.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Additional reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles,; Editing by Richard Chang and Nick Macfie)

Indigenous Peoples Day replaces Columbus Day in Los Angeles

(Reuters) – Indigenous Peoples Day will be celebrated in Los Angeles instead of the traditional Columbus Day after city leaders in the second largest U.S. city decided to recognize Native Americans instead of the Italian explorer.

Los Angeles joined several U.S. cities and states, including Minneapolis, Seattle, Alaska, Hawaii and Oregon that have replaced Columbus Day, a federal holiday celebrated on the first Monday in October to commemorate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas in 1492.

The Los Angeles city council voted 14-1 on Wednesday to make the change to commemorate indigenous, aboriginal and native people.

“The historical record is unambiguous and today is a moment where we took a step that is righteous, that is just, that is heeling and that is historically clear,” Councilman Mitch O’Farrell said after the vote.

Support for Indigenous Peoples Day has steadily risen in recent years, paralleling the growing perception that the wave of European settlement in the Western Hemisphere was genocidal to native populations.

The vote came after a contentious debate unfolded between Italian Americans and Native Americans over Christopher Columbus’ place in history versus that of Native Americans who were slain or driven from their land.

“Why don’t you stop picking on Christopher Columbus as though you’re picking on our people,” Beverly Hills resident John Giovanni Corda told a crowd of supporters and opponents of the measure during the meeting, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We never hurt you. We never wanted to hurt you.”

The federal government and about half of U.S. states give public employees paid leave on Columbus Day, according to the Council of State Governments. Schools and government offices are generally closed, but many private businesses remain open.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Fast-moving wildfire destroys homes in Northern California

(Reuters) – A fast-moving wildfire destroyed several homes and forced the evacuation of residents in Northern California on Tuesday, local media and fire officials said.

The fire started at 1.15 p.m. and burned 1,000 acres (405 hectares) in Butte County, about 85 miles (135 km) north of Sacramento, according to information on the Cal Fire website. At least nine houses were destroyed, local media reported.

Photos on social media showed the fire turning houses into ash as smoke billowed into the sky and flames ripped through trees and vegetation.

“My grandparents’ house is gone. Everything on their road burned and it feels like losing my grandma all over again,” said a Twitter user.

A mandatory evacuation order was placed on residents who live in the remote area. It is unclear how many residents were evacuated. Two shelters were opened for displaced residents, local media reported.

Cal Fire officials were not immediately available for comment.

Northern California is facing a heatwave over the next few days with temperatures expected to top 105 degrees Fahrenheit, the National Weather Service said.

Since the beginning of the year, wildfires in the U.S. West have burned more than 6.8 million acres, about 50 percent more than during the same time period in 2016.

More than 45,000 fires have burned so far this year across the region, 15 percent more than in 2016, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

California school children help build tiny homes for LA’s homeless

By Jane Ross

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A Los Angeles man who has spent more than two years building tiny, portable homes to help house the city’s homeless population recruited a group of fourth and fifth grade children to aid his mission.

Elvis Summers, 40, has built dozens of compact one-room homes on wheels. For his latest construction, a 28-foot-by-8- foot home, he has teamed up with a group of more than 100 children, aged 9 to 11, from a local charter school.

Mariposa Robles, 10, sawed planks of wood, installed floor insulation and helped raise the plywood walls of a tiny house. Around 135 children have been involved with the project, working in shifts over a year.

“It’s so amazing seeing it all come together,” an excited Robles told Reuters.

Robles’ school, Santa Clarita Valley International Charter School in Castaic, California, reached out to Summers to help build houses and has raised almost $6,000 of a $19,00 target through crowd-funding website GoFundMe to finish the home.

Los Angeles’ homeless population is estimated at about 58,000, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

Even as American cities grapple with a chronic shortage of affordable housing, as well as budget constraints on social programs, many municipalities across the United States have also been clamping down on homeless encampments.

Summers said that because the tiny house is built on wheels from an old trailer, it is legally considered a recreational vehicle, “which allows more flexibility in where they can be placed.”

(Reporting by Jane Ross for Reuters TV)

San Francisco latest city to brace for protests

FILE PHOTO: Joey Gibson speaks during the Trump Free Speech Rally in Portland, Oregon, U.S. June 4, 2017. REUTERS/David Ryder

By Dan Whitcomb

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – San Francisco braced on Friday for a weekend of protests, including a rally by an Oregon-based group that local leaders labeled “white supremacist” as the city’s mayor urged residents to boycott the event.

The demonstrations planned for Friday, Saturday and Sunday across the Bay Area raised concern among San Francisco police and elected officials two weeks after right-wing activists, including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, fought with anti-racism protesters in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia.

A woman was killed at that “Unite the Right” rally when a man thought to have neo-Nazi sympathies drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Nineteen other people were injured.

The Saturday event is billed as a “free speech” rally, but critics say the Oregon-based organizers, Patriot Prayer, is a white nationalist group, pointing to plans that may include the far-right Oath Keepers to provide armed security. The group has decried racism and neo-Nazis.

Last weekend, 33 people were arrested in Boston as tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest a “free speech” rally featuring far-right speakers.

In San Francisco, city officials including Mayor Ed Lee had lobbied the National Park Service to deny a permit for Patriot Prayer to hold a free-speech event at Crissy Field, which is under federal control as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

When that permit was granted on Wednesday, Lee told residents of San Francisco to essentially boycott the rally.

“I ask our public and our residents of the San Francisco Bay Area to honor our request to not dignify people who are coming in here under the guise of patriot and prayer words to really preach violence and hatred,” Lee told a press conference.

The mayor urged locals to instead attend city-hosted events on Friday and Saturday that he said would focus on “inclusion, compassion and love rather than hate.”

U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, in a written statement, slammed the Patriot Prayer gathering as a dangerous “white supremacist rally.”

Left-wing counter-protesters, meanwhile, were planning a march to Crissy Field, where police were concerned that a confrontation could erupt between the two groups. Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson said in a video message posted on the group’s Facebook page that it was “absolutely not” white supremacist, pointing out that he is a person of color.

“What I’m trying to do is bring people together who believe in freedom, who believe in love, believe in peace and believe in free speech,” Gibson said.

The nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, does not classify Patriot Prayer in those terms and reported on its website that Gibson denounced white supremacists and “neo-Nazis” at a rally in Seattle earlier this month.

On Sunday, conservative activists planned a so-called “No to Marxism” rally in nearby Berkeley, an event that left-wing groups were also expected to protest. However, city of Berkeley officials on Thursday denied that group’s request for a rally permit, putting the event in jeopardy.

In April, supporters and opponents of U.S. President Donald Trump clashed in a Berkeley park, resulting in at least 20 arrests as well as bloodied faces and minor injuries.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Diane Craft)

Evacuation order lifted as wildfire threatens California homes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An evacuation order was lifted on Monday at the edge of a national forest in Southern California, after a wildfire threatening dozens of homes in the path of the flames.

The so-called Rose Fire, which broke near foothill communities east of the Cleveland National Forest in mid-afternoon, had charred some 150 acres (61 hectares) within several hours, according to the Riverside Fire Department.

The blaze was zero-percent contained at 8 p.m., as local television showed images of the flames bearing down on several homes. There were no immediate reports of injuries or structures destroyed.

Fire officials lifted all evacuation orders at about 8 p.m. local time.

More than 200 firefighters were deployed to battle the flames, assisted by three helicopters and six fixed-wing air tankers.

Investigators determined that the fire was caused accidentally by equipment, the Riverside Fire Department said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Montana blaze rages as California crews gain ground on wildfire

FILE PHOTO: A house stands amid blackened range where the Lodgepole Complex fire jumped the Montana 200 highway, near Mosby, Montana, U.S. July 23, 2017. Bureau of Land Management/Handout via REUTERS.

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – The biggest U.S. wildfire torched buildings and parched grassland forcing evacuations in eastern Montana while California firefighters gained ground on a massive blaze near Yosemite National Park on Monday, authorities said.

The two-blaze Lodgepole Complex in Montana, the biggest wildfire in the United States currently, was only 5 percent contained on Monday after racing through 226,000 acres (91,500 hectares) of timber, brush and range land near the Missouri River, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.

The 215 firefighters have had to rely on bulldozers and harrows to plow fire breaks since water alone cannot put out the flames driven by high temperatures, lack of rain and gusty winds, said Tim Engrav, a spokesman for the firefighter command center.

“Folks who’ve been fighting fires in this part of Montana since the early ’80s said they’ve never seen it so difficult,” he said by telephone from Sand Springs, Montana. Engrav said about 50 people have been evacuated from their homes.

The Lodgepole fire was started by lightning on Wednesday and has destroyed 22 structures, the coordination center said. Much of the state is under a National Weather Service “red flag” warning because of dry weather and gusty winds.

In California, the Detwiler Fire that has threatened historic gold rush towns in the Sierra Nevada mountains was 50 percent contained, up from 45 percent on Sunday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

The fire has burned 76,500 acres (31,000 hectares), but higher overnight humidity has helped the 5,100 firefighters despite sunny, dry daytime weather, said Heather Williams, a Cal Fire spokeswoman.

The Detwiler fire has destroyed more than 130 structures, including 63 homes, and most of the 5,000 people ordered from their homes are now allowed to return, according to the Cal Fire website.

The Lodgepole and Detwiler fires are among the 38 large U.S. wildfires, the coordination center said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; editing by Diane Craft)

California crews hold wildfire in check, let more residents go home

Wildland Firefighters battle the Bridge Coulee Fire, part of the Lodgepole Complex, east of the Musselshell River, north of Mosby, Montana, U.S. July 21, 2017. Bureau of Land Management/Jonathan Moor/Handout via REUTERS

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – California authorities battling a massive wildfire near Yosemite National Park lifted evacuation orders on Sunday for more residents but said firefighters may need almost two more weeks to fully contain the blaze.

The Detwiler Fire was 45 percent contained, a slight improvement from Saturday, after burning 76,250 acres (30,857 hectares) and more than 130 structures, including 63 homes, since it broke out on Monday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

Evacuation orders were lifted by midday Sunday for much of the historic gold rush era town of Coulterville and nearby areas as firefighters completed firelines to contain the blaze, Cal Fire said in a statement.

More evacuation orders were lifted for residents of nearby affected areas on Sunday evening.

A chimney stands amidst remains of a home destroyed by the Detwiler fire in Mariposa, California U.S. July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

About two-thirds of the 5,000 people who had been ordered to leave their homes have been allowed to return, Scott McLean, a Cal Fire spokesman, said by telephone.

The almost 4,800 firefighters battling the blaze expect to contain it fully by Aug. 5, with temperatures forecast to top 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) this week complicating the fight, he said.

“Hopefully we’ll see it (contained) before then,” McLean said. “We’re making pretty good progress.”

There have been no injuries reported from the Detwiler fire, named for the road where it erupted. Its cause is being investigated.

Yosemite National Park has remained open as the fire has burned to the west, but smoke has clouded the views of its world-famous landmarks.

The Detwiler Fire is one of 35 large fires in the United States, almost all in the west, the National Interagency Fire Center said on its website.

Montana Governor Steve Bullock on Sunday declared a fire emergency because of wildfires burning across the state, fed by high temperatures and drought. Montana’s Lodgepole Complex fire expanded to about 226,000 acres (91,460 hectares) and was uncontained on Sunday, the fire center said.

The order allows Bullock to mobilize more state resources and the Montana National Guard in the fight against the fires, which have destroyed more than 10 homes so far.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington and Chris Michaud in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Nick Macfie)

Evacuation orders lifted but California wildfire rages on

Charred grasslands remain after the Long Valley fire came through the Fort Sage Off-Highway Vehicle Area.

(Reuters) – Residents of a historic gold-mining town in central California began returning home on Friday as evacuation orders prompted by a massive wildfire were lifted, but some 1,500 structures remained threatened by the flames.

Around 2,000 residents of the town of Mariposa, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, fled their homes on Tuesday as the so-called Detwiler Fire bore down on them.

The blaze, which has blackened more than 75,000 acres, destroyed 125 structures, 61 of them homes, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Detwiler, one of dozens of major wildfires burning across the U.S. West, was 25 percent contained as of Friday evening, Cal Fire said on its tracking website.

“Even though the fire has grown in one area, there’s containment in other areas and those are safe for the owners to go back,” Cal Fire spokesman John Clingingsmith said.

A total of 5,000 residents in the small communities on the edge of the Yosemite National Park have been evacuated since the fast-moving fire broke out on Sunday, including the town of Coulterville.

“Except for (Wednesday), this fire doubled in size every day,” Tim Chavez, a state fire official said during the community meeting. “That is really unusual for it to progress like that.”

More than 3,800 firefighters, working in temperatures of 90 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit (32 to 36 Celsius), were battling the fire, Cal Fire said.

Chavez blamed the fire’s growth on spot fires, drought and grassy vegetation. The area’s rough topography made fighting the blaze harder, he said.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Tuesday.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

A total of 44 large fires across 11 western states were burning on Thursday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center’s website.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Gina Cherelus in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Larry King and Bernadette Baum)

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