The ever-present threat of fires

[mgforshort]

TV reports today that a suspect was arrested. The guy is a "transient".

Can someone explain why is that whenever the guy needs help the media calls him homeless or unhoused, but when he commits a crime he is always a transient. Happens all the time.

[saibot]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

TV reports today that a suspect was arrested. The guy is a "transient".

Can someone explain why is that whenever the guy needs help the media calls him homeless or unhoused, but when he commits a crime he is always a transient. Happens all the time.

Because the homeless/unhoused are all law-abiding people who are just down on their luck.

[CA4Now]

"After more than four agreeable decades in California, my wife and I became climate migrants — highly privileged ones, to be sure — and moved to Vermont.

Our life in Marin County had turned into a tightrope walk.

....the advance of climate change meant that each fire season was hotter and longer than the one before it. Then came the surrealistic orange-black morning in Mill Valley last September that looked like a solar eclipse, only more ominous, when ashes from nearby fires blotted out most light until close to noon. Soon after, we heard that insurers had declined to offer renewals to some homeowners in our area, and we knew it was time to sell, before the house’s value declined."

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...hange-wildfire

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

I'm reading today that a hazardous gray pine falling on a Pacific Gas and Electric transmission line was declared the cause of the Zogg Fire — the September 2020 blaze that killed four residents of Shasta County.

Nearly six months after the fire that started near the town of Igo, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said that its investigators determined the tree’s brush with the equipment owned and operated by PG&E sparked the blaze.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will pay $50 million in a legal settlement with Shasta County for its role in causing the 2020 Zogg fire, which tore through several rural Northern California communities, killing four people and burning more than 56,000 acres.

As part of the settlement agreement, which awaits final approval by a judge, criminal charges against PG&E that were filed by the Shasta County district attorney in 2021 will be dropped.

The settlement includes $45 million earmarked for improving fire safety and emergency preparedness, including firefighter training, a large-animal evacuation center, the hiring of new arson investigators, and vegetation removal to reduce wildfire risk via the Shasta County Fire Prevention Council. The money will also pay for permanent memorials to the four people killed in the Zogg fire.

The settlement’s remaining $5 million will cover a civil penalty to Shasta County. As part of the stipulated judgment, PG&E cannot raise customer rates to cover the settlement costs.

The Zogg fire began on Sept. 27, 2020, after a damaged gray pine fell on a PG&E electric line along Zogg Mine Road. The fire burned 56,388 acres across southwestern Shasta County and northwestern Tehama County, destroying 204 structures before it was fully contained on Oct. 13, 2020.

Four people died in the fire: Karin King, 79; Alaina Mcleod, 45; Felya Mcleod, 8; and Kenneth Vossen, 52.

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-shasta-county