Sunday, June 22, 2008

More Fires, Weather and Everything Else.

Wow.. It's been a week since my brother or I posted. This week has been so hot that I just haven't sat in here at my computer a whole lot. And when I have been at the computer, I'm semi brain dead! lol... No, not really. I got sidetracked a bit watching some of the Neil Entwistle trial among other things.

First of all I'll start the "news" with an article in the Appeal Democrat (the local newspaper) about Rex Archer. The preliminary hearing for the case was supposed to have happened last Wednesday the 18th, but was postponed again at the request of the defense attorney. The new hearing is supposed to happen this coming Wednesday, June 26th now. We shall see, I guess.

I got a bit of information about Mario Lozano's location from a couple of sources. He was apparently transferred from the El Dorado County Jail to Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) at Tracy. My sources tell me he could be there anywhere from a few weeks to a few months depending on how long his processing takes. They'll be looking at his entire history; medical, psychological, criminal, his life and everything about him before deciding where to house him next. Kacie's family and friend as well as the other people this man victimized are hopefully resting much easier knowing that Mario is secure in the hands of the California Corrections Department.

As for the fires I had been following and reporting on, most of them have been 100% contained or extinguished. (Thank goodness!) The Humbolt Fire near Chico, the Whiskey Fire and the Martin Fire are all at 100% contained. The problem the firefighters are having today though are hundreds of new fire starts as result of dry lightning strikes all over the state yesterday. With manpower stretched over all of the fires, it's going to be a mess to clean up! California Fire News had a couple of images up that showed the dry lightning strikes yesterday. Very scary..

The Indians fire is still very active though. It's 59% contained and has burned over 53,000 acres. Fort Hunter Liggett is still somewhat "safe" as the fire is burning more towards the North and East. The fire did manage to get onto the Fort's territory some before turning back on itself and going to the North again. They have determined that the cause of the fire was an "escaped campfire". The Inciweb site has no estimation of control or containment yet.

A new fire, the Wild Fire near Napa is causing evacuations and a lot of fear today. They've lost 1 home so far and over 100 more are threatened. The fire is only 10% contained as of 8am this morning and the acreage scorched is over 1000 acres.

I'm not going to list all of the fires that are going on. There are just too many. If you click on this link to the CalFire Current Incidents page, you'll see what I mean. Or just click on this link to CalFire's Northern California Lightning Series Summary you'll see even more. Between the hot dry weather here in the West, the floods in the Midwest and other "weather events" around the world, the news media is going to be very busy reporting on disasters this summer, I think.

As for me right now, I'm going to go fix some iced tea and perhaps turn my air conditioner on. It's not even 11am and it's getting uncomfortably warm in the house.

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