Latest news with #TubbsFire
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Sonoma County officials warn of dangerous wildfire season outlook
(KRON) — Sonoma County officials are urging residents to prepare for a high-risk wildfire season. As temperatures rise through the summer and fall, high fuel loads and unfavorable windy weather conditions could combine to create a large wildfire. County officials wrote, 'Sonoma County is expected to experience warmer and drier-than-normal conditions from June through August, with only limited relief from the coastal marine layer.' Officials said extended periods of dry and high winds will lead to flash drought conditions. Flash droughts, characterized by prolonged periods of high temperatures and strong winds, cause rapid evaporation and drying vegetation. 'We're entering this fire season with conditions that demand heightened vigilance,' said Lynda Hopkins of the county Board of Supervisors. Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls with the Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit said, 'The reports clearly show we need to be vigilant and prepared for an increased threat of large wildfires.' The 2017 Tubbs Fire ravaged Napa and Sonoma counties, destroying more than 5,500 homes and killing 22 people. On October 8, 2017, tens of thousands of people woke up to the sounds of sirens and crackling flames. It was a dark, uncomfortably warm night, met with ferocious winds. People were forced to abandon their homes within minutes. It took four months for firefighters to contain the blaze that blistered 36,000 acres. The National Weather Service created a new warning level in 2025, known as 'Particularly Dangerous Situation' (PDS), to indicate an unusually high risk of severe weather in association with extreme Red Flag Warnings. A PDS warning is used to highlight specific areas most vulnerable during a natural weather event. Heading into the second half of 2025, community members are encouraged to sign up for emergency alerts, maintain defensible space around their homes, and review evacuation routes. You can sign up for alerts and find fire preparedness resources at 'We can't prevent every wildfire, but we as a community can be better prepared to keep ourselves and loved ones safe,' said Jeff DuVall, director of the Sonoma County Department of Emergency Management. 'We've strengthened our alert systems, updated evacuation maps, and are working hard to ensure the public has timely, accurate information when it matters most.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
Bracing for the heat: Santa Rosa announces wildfire season has begun
The Brief The Santa Rosa Fire Department on Monday announced the start of the city's wildfire season. The department will begin conducting weed abatement inspections to ensure properties are defensible against wildfires. SANTA ROSA, Calif. - On the heels of a 20-acre grass fire that threatened an RV encampment, the Santa Rosa Fire Department on Monday announced the official start of fire season in the region. In an effort to prevent more destructive fires in the months to come, the department will, in the next two weeks, begin conducting weed abatement inspections at properties throughout the city. Paul Lowenthal, the SRFD Fire Marshal, said he hopes announcing the start of fire season will help residents better prepare themselves and their homes. "We've seen really significant compliance, especially what's here locally. When you look at the Tubbs, Nuns, Glass and Kincade fires that either burned through the city or directly impacted the city and threatened the city, people have changed their behaviors," Paul Lowenthal, Fire Marshal with the Santa Rosa Fire Department, told KTVU. "We've seen an increase with compliance with weed abatement, compliance with defensible space and compliance with overall vegetation management, ultimately making our community safer." The department's weed abatement inspections are part of the city's vegetation management program, which requires property owners to maintain fire-defensible space around a structure. The ordinance requires grass to be cut to four inches or less, as well as the removal of dead plants, grass and weeds, maintaining trees so that no portion is closer than 10 feet from the chimney opening of a neighboring property, and removing the branches of trees up to 10 feet from the ground. Big picture view Santa Rosa has experienced or been threatened by several notable wildfires in recent years, including the Tubbs Fire, the fourth-most destructive blaze in California's history. That fire, which burned in October 2017, destroyed over 36,000 acres in Napa and Sonoma Counties. The Bay Area's wildfire season, as stated by the Western Fire Chief's Association, an organization made of the leadership of firefighting organizations across the western United States, starts in June and can run through November. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, climate change has caused the national window for wildfire season to peak earlier in the year. Between 2003 and 2021, fire season peaked in July, whereas between 1984 and 2002, most wildfires occurred in August. The impact of climate change on wildfires is becoming more and more evident. Two of the most destructive blazes in California's history swept through Southern California in January of this year, well outside the window of the region's wildfire season, May through October. The research organization World Weather Attribution, which studies the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, found that human-caused global warming made the conditions that drove those fires 35% more likely.
Business Wire
28-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Exchange Bank Promotes Ali Spitzer to Senior Vice President and Chief Credit Officer
SANTA ROSA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Exchange Bank (OTC: EXSR) is pleased to announce the promotion of Ali Spitzer to Senior Vice President and Chief Credit Officer, recognizing her outstanding leadership and continued contributions to the Bank's long-term success. Spitzer brings a wealth of experience to the role, having served in multiple leadership positions since joining the Exchange Bank. From her early days as a Credit Analyst to roles as Underwriter, Loan Officer, and most recently Credit Administrator, Spitzer has demonstrated exceptional versatility, strategic insight, and a deep commitment to the principles of community banking. 'Ali's promotion is a reflection of her unwavering dedication, her ability to lead with both integrity and vision, and the respect she has earned throughout the organization,' said Troy Sanderson, President and CEO of Exchange Bank. 'She exemplifies the leadership qualities that drive our mission and strengthen our commitment to the communities we serve.' In addition to her professional accomplishments, Spitzer has been recognized by her peers and the broader business community. She was recently named one of the North Bay Business Journal's Influential Women of 2025 and is a past recipient of the North Bay Business Journal's 40 Under 40 award, celebrating rising leaders in the region. Spitzer's civic involvement includes her current board position with the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber, where she continues to play a meaningful role in regional economic development. She has previously served on the boards of the Sonoma Community Action Network and the Business Alliance of Sonoma County, contributing significantly during community recovery efforts following the Tubbs Fire and other local crises. Her dedication to community banking is matched by her passion for helping customers and communities achieve their goals, and she remains committed to supporting organizations that drive local progress. About Exchange Bank Headquartered in Sonoma County and founded in 1890, Exchange Bank is a full-service community bank with assets of $3.27 billion. Exchange Bank provides a wide range of personal, commercial, and trust and investment management services with 17 retail branches in Sonoma County, a retail branch in Roseville and Trust & Investment Management offices in Santa Rosa, Roseville, Marin County and Silicon Valley. The Bank's legacy of financial leadership and community support is grounded in its core values of commitment, respect, integrity, and teamwork. Exchange Bank is known for its people who care about their customers, their company, and the communities where they live and work. Exchange Bank is a 19-year winner of the North Bay Business Journal's Best Places to Work survey and a 13-time winner of the Best Bank of Sonoma County by the Press Democrat's Readers' Choice 2024 awards. Exchange Bank was named Best Consumer Bank by the NorthBay biz Magazine's Best of the North Bay readers' poll and Best Local Bank by The Petaluma Argus Courier People's Choice Awards 2024. Exchange Bank is also a winner of the 2024 San Francisco Business Times Corporate Philanthropy award, and the Bohemian Magazine's Best of the North Bay 2024 named Exchange Bank Best Business Bank and Best Consumer Bank. Member FDIC — Equal Housing Lender — Equal Opportunity Employer
San Francisco Chronicle
02-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Hedge fund buys Press Democrat and four other North Bay publications
Hedge fund Alden Capital's MediaNews Group is acquiring the Press Democrat newspaper and five other North Bay publications. The purchase agreement, confirmed by the companies on Thursday, would add the Santa Rosa-based publication to Alden's dozens of newspaper holdings that include the Mercury News, East Bay Times and San Diego Union-Tribune. 'We always believed that a viable, independent local press was vital to our North Bay community. We believe that the newspaper, its staff and most importantly the public will be best served under the stewardship of MediaNews Group, with the newspaper expertise and financial resources necessary to carry on our mission of delivering the highest-caliber local journalism for future North Bay generations,' said Darius Anderson, managing member of Sonoma Media Investments, in a statement. The sale would honor the existing contract between the newspaper and the Pacific Media Workers Guild, the newsroom's union. 'We are honored to bring a newspaper of this quality into MediaNews Group,' said Frank Pine, executive editor of MediaNews Group, in a statement. 'We appreciate the importance of local news and information to the communities where we publish and are proud to expand our commitment to Northern California in the North Bay.' The Press Democrat won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for its coverage of the Tubbs Fire. The sale also includes the Sonoma Index-Tribune, Petaluma Argus-Courier, North Bay Business Journal, Sonoma magazine, Sonoma County Gazette and La Prensa Sonoma. Hearst, owner of the Chronicle, was also reportedly a bidder for the newspapers.
Washington Post
06-04-2025
- General
- Washington Post
I'm a disaster reporter. But I was not prepared to watch my city burn.
I should have known better. I have seen what wildfire storms can do to cities and entire towns: Santa Rosa, Paradise, Redding, Malibu, Berry Creek, Greenville, Lahaina. As a climate disaster reporter, I know how quickly special places disappear. I routinely walk through their leveled remains. I grew up in Malibu, the so-called wildfire capital of North America, which some say should just be allowed to burn. Every fall, it seemed, we'd look up at an anxiety-inducing orange sky, wondering if this was it. I remember as a 6-year-old stuffing my toys in the one black plastic bag my mom said I could take, and sobbing hysterically as police blared that we had to get out now. My father, a second-generation immigrant and attorney from Upstate New York who has no business fighting fires, was one of those who always refused to leave. I used to wonder if the last time I'd ever see him would be from the back seat of our packed station wagon as he sat on our wood-shingled roof in the smoke-obscured dark, holding a garden hose. That's California for you. But something shifted in our consciousness when the Tubbs Fire ripped through Santa Rosa one October night in 2017, burning apartment complexes, supermarkets and gas stations. Then, a few months later, the Thomas Fire stunned us. Those firestorms, experts say, marked the beginning of the modern era of fire. Wildfires that sparked in brushy rural hillsides could reach cities in a matter of hours, catching thousands of people completely unprepared. A year later, I watched the Woolsey Fire explode in the hills, jump a freeway and barrel into my hometown, turning the tree-filled canyon road where my dad taught me to ride a bike into a battleground. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Within days, I flew to Paradise to cover the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and is still the deadliest fire in the state's history. I followed search-and-rescue crews as they looked for bone fragments and other tiny pieces of human remains in ash-filled lots and in vehicles where people trying to escape might have hidden as flames overtook them. I knew these were warnings. We have been inching toward the reality that Los Angeles could burn from the foothills to the ocean for a long time. The same mix of natural and human-made ingredients that turn brush fires into urban conflagrations have only become more potent. I've lost count of the number of veteran firefighters, their eyes bloodshot from working 48 or 72 straight hours, who have told me, 'I've never seen fire behave like this before.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Each major, once unfathomable disaster has been laying out the truth in clear, plain terms: In this era of climate change, there are fewer and fewer safe places. Great loss, for many of us, is inevitable: You may watch your home, your childhood and your community get wiped out, perhaps more than once. There is so much science signaling the risks, so many maps and models pinpointing Zip codes that could be wiped off the map. I know all this. I am supposed to be prepared. I wasn't. I never could have imagined Los Angeles burning the way it did: two fires sparking on the same day, on opposite ends of our sprawling metropolis, essentially taking out two whole towns, killing 29 people and counting, in one of the most climate-conscious states in the U.S. Nothing prepares you, I've learned, to watch so many homes and histories you know intimately go up in flames — especially your father's. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) How is this happening? This can't be happening. This is not supposed to happen. I could not process what I was seeing. Sunset Boulevard, that famous thoroughfare that cuts nearly straight across L.A., where I grew up driving, and where my dad now lived, was on fire. The Palisades blaze had sparked about 24 hours earlier, on the morning of Jan. 7, miles away in the highly flammable Santa Monica Mountains. Now flames were flashing out of living and bedroom windows, swallowing homes I had seen standing safe the evening before when I had been out reporting. I didn't see any firefighters around. Instinctually, I headed north, toward my dad's house, where I could tell the fire was active because the black smoke got thicker. A few cars were burning. As I drove, I started having flashbacks: embers covering my windshield like confetti, driving through a hometown canyon that had become an unrecognizable inferno, watching houses I could draw with my eyes closed go up in flames. It was 2018, and I was back in Malibu, swerving around power lines on my smoking childhood street, praying. No no no no — Not again, not again. There's something primal and simple, yet inexplicable, about home — that one corner of the world that holds and reaffirms your history, your existence, no matter how much time passes. Even if it hurts, even if the memories are bad, we want to hold on to it. (Illustration by Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post; Brianna Sacks family photo) Home, for me and my family, has been a painful, tender subject for a while. In 2014, my parents suddenly separated, and it tore our once tight unit apart. Eventually, they rented out our home, storing all of 'us' — our report cards, trophies, framed photos, yearbooks, the imprint of my first step, locks of our baby hair, family heirlooms — in a backyard shed. When the Woolsey Fire roared through our wooded canyon in November 2018, it burned down my neighbors' homes but somehow only drew a definitive black line around ours. When I pulled up that day while out reporting on the disaster, I went limp with relief. Then I walked up the driveway, stood in the scorched grass and stared at a blackened pile. The ash, all that remained of the shed, was still warm as I dug through it, looking for anything salvageable, any tangible piece of us. A few years later, my parents sold the house. This past June, my dad, now 80, moved to Pacific Palisades. It was the happiest I'd seen him in years, and it felt like a homecoming. After a rough period, he'd finally found a place that felt like him, with a backyard for his dog, a sprawling tree he dubbed 'the wisdom tree,' and space for him to lie in the sun — his favorite pastime. This house, he declared, was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Driving slowly down Sunset, I squinted to find his evacuated house in the swirling dark smoke. I made out his bright red, often broken-down 1988 Mercedes 560 SL convertible — which we've called 'the red car' since I was 2 years old — in the driveway. Immediately, I saw us in it: my dad squeezing me and my brother into the cracked brown-leather back seat, playing the Beatles before dropping us off at preschool; my dad, always with the top down, teaching me how to drive in a beach parking lot. Staring at the red car, my eyes finally registered the flames behind it. They were dancing in his living room, which he'd filled with all his books and our childhood portraits — where, in December, we had thrown a big party for his birthday. I could see my bedroom burning: my college journals, my mother's artwork. My breath turned ragged, but I couldn't stop watching the flames. They were hypnotic, and everything around me disappeared. A popping sound from a swinging power line brought me back to reality. I knew I shouldn't be there. A police cruiser roared up; the officer gestured at me through the smoke, his eyes bulging. I turned around and started driving. House after house was gone. I stared at my hands on the steering wheel as if they were someone else's and began to hyperventilate. This must be a panic attack. When I made my way back down to Pacific Coast Highway, I picked up my phone, trying to calm my breathing. After so many years walking up to still-smoking piles of disintegrated walls and twisted metal, I've learned how to tell people they have lost everything. They rarely cry, the shock is so sharp. My dad didn't either when I said, hollowly, 'I'm so sorry.' All he could say was, 'Thank you for letting me know.' (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) I was watching a Chase bank burn on Sunset Boulevard when I got my friend's text. 'Our house is gone.' She lives about 40 miles away, on the other side of L.A. in Altadena, a historic, racially diverse, beautiful, ramshackle gem of a town at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The community, with its hilly, tree-canopied streets, was another home for me. I'd recently lived there with my friend and her partner in their cozy house filled with plants, books and dogs. Like my dad in the Palisades Fire, they took only a duffel bag as they fled the Eaton Fire. They'd been through wildfires before, but they'd never expected a fire to swallow half a town before it reached them. In the following days and weeks, I watched my city become the latest historic American tragedy. Scores of disaster response and recovery groups and nonprofits, including those I often work with, set up their usual aid distribution depots. This time, my sources were the ones calling me, sending me their '5 tips to deal with trauma.' Those pamphlets are hard to follow, I've learned, when you intimately know the places where so many people died. In Altadena, the bulk of the deaths were clustered around my former address, on streets where I had run and walked every day. I wondered if I had waved at Lora Swayne or Evelyn McClendon or Unidentified Doe No. 37 in the mornings, because their homes were on my usual route. Maybe I had stood in line behind Anthony Mitchell at Unincorporated Coffee. Or perhaps I'd smiled and said hi to Unidentified Doe No. 49 or 50 or 54 at West Altadena's weekly Buy Nothing Group grocery giveaways. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Along with the extinguished lives, there is the mounting, crushing tally of all the lost landmarks that you didn't realize were landmarks until other newspapers started writing about their ruins: diners, historic homes, divey seafood shacks that tethered my childhood. I will never get to show them to my children. That loss is brutal. But it's nothing compared with the suffering that comes next. The real disaster, people who do this work know, doesn't start until Day 30. That's when the adrenaline ebbs and the oppressive nightmare of the new reality hits. Insurance payouts are never enough. Residents whose homes survived will start to wish they'd burned down because of smoke contamination. Many families who were doing just fine before the fire will not be able to afford anything close to the lives they once had. This is the part of the disaster we often don't talk about: the long aftermath, and how paralyzing it is, especially for those already living on the edge. One Paradise Fire victim used to call or message me on Facebook in the middle of the night. She'd tell me she wanted to give up. What was the point of living this way? Another woman, a former addict, would count off how many times she'd come 'this close' to using again. She started drinking heavily. After Hurricane Ian, an 84-year-old man living alone in his torn-up home would text me about the pain he was in: 'My daughter removed all the guns from my house so I don't pull the trigger and end it all.' (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Then there's the PTSD: For weeks or months, many people see fire when they close their eyes. Others feel their anxiety spike when they hear a helicopter, when the wind picks up or when they smell smoke from a cigarette or a barbecue. After 2018, I'd drive by familiar hillsides and see flames that weren't there. We are well past the two-month mark, and some people are just now able to cry. It's been curious, they say, what triggers the tears. One man who lost everything broke down while buying cans of soup at the grocery store, realizing the last time he'd done that he'd had a cupboard — his cupboard — to put them in. Even though I got my car deep-cleaned twice and changed the filters, I still smell sharp, acidic smoke when I turn it on. Often, without warning, the image of my dad's burning house flashes before my eyes. On a rainy Sunday afternoon, I took my father home for the first time since he'd evacuated on Jan. 7. It was jarring. Driving past his barely standing neighborhood dry cleaner, he mentioned that he still had a few sweaters there and 'a good shirt.' 'I wonder if I could pick them up?' he said quietly. In my experience with previous fires, families had usually found pieces of themselves in the ash: a ring dish, a heart-shaped ceramic bowl, a bracelet. Outfitted with shovels, boots, gloves and white protective Tyvek suits, we hoped to unearth my grandmother's 100-year-old engagement ring. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post) Staring at the sodden layers of stucco, the tile roof, metal pipes and stone, it was hard to remember that this used to be a bright yellow two-story home filled with Jewish history and meditation books that my dad had been carrying around since I was born. We tried to map out where in the debris his bedroom might be. The toxic chunks of nail-laden wood and drywall made it impossible. My dad said little. At one point, he put his glove-covered hands on the cracked remnants of his office wall and bowed his head. 'My whole life went up in smoke,' he said. (Illustration by Matt Huynh For The Washington Post; Rachel Gray) We're in uncharted (though predicted) wildfire territory now. I keep asking myself what it means that we are here. For my father, it means letting go of that kind of home. Like so many others, especially residents in the last chapter of their lives, he's choosing not to start over. He got some insurance money, but he will spend an unknown amount of time living in a client's house, wearing mostly donated clothes. It's just easier, he said. Because of that loss, though, I have spent more time with my dad these last few weeks than I did in most of last year. We lie side by side in the sun and talk like we used to. We spend weekend nights together watching movies. I go with him to the farmers market, like when I was younger. One afternoon, I asked him how it was for him, to see all that devastation. It was strange, he said. When we were in the rubble, as he was watching me walk across the nail-filled boards and shards of roof, he saw me when I was little: a toddler marching across every wall I could find when we'd go on walks together — a 4-year-old pretending to be a gymnast, balancing on the back of our couch, reaching for his hand. I squeezed it. (Matt Huynh/For The Washington Post)
