After weeks of improving COVID-19 numbers, Fresno County has advanced to the next tier in the state’s reopening framework known as the Blueprint for a Safer Economy . The county is the first in the San Joaquin Valley to graduate out of the purple tier, the most restrictive level that …
Read More »Valley’s New Cases Drop, But Not Within Avenal State Prison – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 25
As the COVID-19 caseload continues to fall in San Joaquin Valley communities, the opposite trend has been happening inside Avenal State Prison: With more than 2,500 cumulative cases, the facility now has the dubious honor of being the state prison with the highest cumulative case count. More than 250 men …
Read More »California Voters To Decide On Affirmative Action and Property Tax Increases In November
Propositions 13 and 209 were some of the most impactful in California’s history, but now their fates are back in the hands of voters, who come November will weigh in on whether to bring back affirmative action and potentially increase property taxes for some businesses. To learn more about these …
Read More »Valley’s New Cases Drop, But Not Within Avenal State Prison – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 25
As the COVID-19 caseload continues to fall in San Joaquin Valley communities, the opposite trend has been happening inside Avenal State Prison: With more than 2,500 cumulative cases, the facility now has the dubious honor of being the state prison with the highest cumulative case count. More than 250 men …
Read More »Kern County Demands Governor Newsom Stop ‘Moving The Goalposts’ On COVID-19 Reopening
Earlier this week, the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted to challenge a part of Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to reopen counties during the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing a data algorithm unfairly penalizes the county. According to the raw numbers, Kern County is currently meeting the data targets that would allow …
Read More »Creek Fire’s ‘Fire-Breathing’ Cloud To Aid Research On Wildfires And Climate
In the early days of the Creek Fire, photographs went viral of what looked like a mushroom cloud billowing into the atmosphere over the blaze . It’s no wonder that type of cloud, known as pyrocumulonimbus, was dubbed by a NASA writer as “ the fire-breathing dragon of clouds ”: …
Read More »How Climate Change And Forest Management Are Contributing To A Historic Wildfire Season
For two weeks, the Creek Fire in the Sierra National Forest has been destroying property and pumping smoke and ash into the air. There’s also the Bullfrog Fire in the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness and the Sequoia Complex Fire, which is currently threatening the town of Three Rivers in Tulare County. …
Read More »Case Counts Improve, Yet State Guidelines ‘Penalize’ Kern County – COVID-19 Update For Sept. 18
Over the last few weeks, the local COVID-19 landscape has changed dramatically. In the San Joaquin Valley, average daily cases have dropped to a fraction of what they were in late July and early August, and hospitals are regaining the beds necessary for their normal, non-COVID volume of patients. Dozens …
Read More »Labor Day Getaway Instead Becomes Dogged Quest For Safety, Backpackers Recount
When James Sponsler and two close friends set out on a backpacking trip Friday night over Labor Day Weekend, they didn’t know the Creek Fire had started 30 miles away. “Just about lunch time on Saturday was when we noticed the massive thunderhead,” says Sponsler. “Unbeknownst to us, this was …
Read More »‘It Was Surreal’ – Volunteer Firefighter Describes Losing Home Near Cressman’s General Store
Joel Preheim grew up the oldest of eight kids in the tiny town of Big Creek. His 87-year-old mother still lives in his childhood home across the street from his sister. Fortunately, both of their houses survived the Creek Fire, which destroyed many of the area’s homes. But Preheim wasn’t …
Read More »‘God Bless You, Heidi’ – Family Evacuated In Creek Fire Overwhelmed By Support
People across the San Joaquin Valley have been rallying to assist evacuees from the Creek Fire. For one family, the gift of a tent led to a change in outlook. When Matthew Warner and his family were evacuated from their home in Tollhouse last week, they weren’t planning on camping, …
Read More »Wildfire Smoke Billows Into Valley ‘No Matter Which Way The Wind Is Blowing’
So far in 2020, thousands of wildfires have torched a record-setting 3.2 million acres in California. If that makes this wildfire season unprecedented, here and throughout the West Coast, so is our region’s resulting smog. In a press conference on Monday, Valley air officials said: Don’t expect the air to …
Read More »Ordered To Leave Their Homes, Creek Fire Evacuees Decide What Goes With Them
More than 30,000 people in Fresno County have had to leave their homes due to the Creek Fire. Sharon Souza is one of them. She left Tollhouse Tuesday morning, but spent the weekend deciding what items would stay and what would go. She says she tried to be practical rather …
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