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A man suspected of arson was arrested at Maxwell Farms Regional Park in Sonoma on Sunday afternoon after he was seen leaving a creek bed where a fire was burning, authorities said. Three Sonoma County Probation officers patrolling the area because of ongoing fires in the region noticed Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, 29, walking out of the creek area and a plume of smoke behind him, Sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Crum said. Sheriff’s Deputy John Grohl was called to the scene and extinguished the fire, which was then completely doused by Sonoma Valley Fire Protection District personnel. Gonzalez was wearing a trench...

The U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) issued a detainer request on the Sonoma County Jail for Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, who was arrested Sunday on suspicion of arson in Wine Country fires that have killed at least 40 residents.Breitbart News reported earlier this week that Sonoma County Sheriffs had arrested Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, 29, at Maxwell Regional Park in Sonoma County after a series of reports of ongoing fires in the region. Mr. Gonzalez was observed around 3:00 p.m. PDT wearing a jacket and walking “out of the creek area and a plume of smoke behind him,” according to the Santa Rosa...

"Shares of California utility PG&E rose 7.51 percent Tuesday on word about a suspected arsonist arrested in Sonoma County."

SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, Calif. (KGO) -- A wildfire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains forced at least 150 residents to evacuate Tuesday morning. So far, the fire has burned 152 acres and is 5 percent contained. During a press conference, Cal Fire said five firefighters suffered minor injuries. One fell, into a ravine battling the blaze. The firefighter suffered a broken wrist, and cuts to face. Three other firefighters fell down a hill, but are expected to be OK. And another person injured was an inmate on the hand crew who had to be taken out from battling the fire...

Please post this for me as I am in the middle of this mess near where the nunns fire started. This article explains how these fires followed nearly the exact same path they did in 1964. http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7382773-181/gaye-lebaron-tubbs-fire-revives?artslide=0 It is complete mismanagement. The burnable material wasn’t managed the people were not alerted when it started I’m well though suffered hard but pray for the others who are much worse off. Thanks to whoever posts this for me. Go Cubs!

NOTICE: If you hate California and have nothing good to say, move on. You are NOT wanted on this thread. Get lost. If you have a heart, please watch the video of the Berkeley Engine 6 firefighting team helping out in Santa Rosa. This is heart-wrenching. There are links to contribute to those who have lost everything. A group of Berkeley firefighters was called out to help fight the Tubbs Fire early Monday morning. They thought it was a "large grass fire," but arrived in Santa Rosa to find hundreds of homes and businesses burned. This video was taken and...

Burned to the ground: Inside the Napa wineries gutted by raging wildfires that has devastated the $63billion industry and killed 40 people The wildfires, the deadliest in California history, have claimed 40 lives so far and have destroyed an estimated 5,700 properties More than 100,000 people have been evacuated in Sonoma, Napa, Santa Rosa and Calistoga Entire neighborhoods have been leveled and 214,000 acres of land has been reduced to ash Among the most high-profile victims of the disaster has been the area’s wine-making industry In Napa County alone, the industry contributes $13bn to the local economy each year and...

These are developments in the Northern California wildfires as of 3:35 p.m.; click here for more recent updates: 3:25 p.m. Two Napa victims ID’d: Two bodies found on the 1900 block of Soda Canyon Road in Napa County are believed to be Sally Lewis, 90, and her caretaker, Teresa Santos, 50, according to the Napa County sheriff. The bodies were found at 10 a.m. Saturday. Their discovery brings the death toll from fires in the county to six.

Two places to donate money to help the California fire victims! All of your money will go to that effort! The family that owns Hall’s Winery has started a matching fund drive to help the people in the fire areas needing financial aid. Every $ donated will be matched and will go to help those in need and not line some rich liberal so called charity’s pockets! Many of the evacuees left their homes at night with minimal clothing and basically what money they might have had at home. Many will have no homes to return to and maybe no...

Sam Krop’s characterization of catastrophic wildfire on public and privately owned forest lands (guest viewpoint, Oct. 4) doesn’t match the reality of what Oregon experienced this summer. But I can see why Cascadia Wildlands and other special interest groups oppose solutions such as the Resilient Federal Forests Act. These bills untie the hands of our federal land managers, and provide them with more tools and resources to restore the health of our public forests, before and after a fire. Has “hands-off” forest management reduced the size and severity of forest fires? Are we choking on less wildfire smoke every summer?...

Among the dozen people identified by Sonoma and Napa county officials as of late Thursday...The youngest victim was 57, the oldest 100. “The bulk of them are in their 70s and 80s, so there is that commonality,” Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano told reporters at a news briefing. A majority were found inside their homes, unable to escape as the fire bore down. At least one was confined to a wheelchair. Another was lying next to a vehicle. ... In Sonoma County, where most of the fatalities occurred, 18% of the population is over the age of 62, compared with...

After four days of terrorizing Wine Country and surrounding regions, the Northern California wildfires on Thursday became the deadliest in state history, with 31 confirmed fatalities and more expected. The most destructive of those, the Tubbs fire, killed at least 15 people, and new figures told of its destruction. Santa Rosa lost 2,834 homes and approximately 400,000 square feet of commercial space, and Mayor Chris Coursey expects the numbers to grow. “We all have suffered a trauma here,” the mayor said. He is said it will take time to recover “from this incident. The city of Santa Rosa has suffered...

One was a 14-year-old boy found dead in the driveway of his Redwood Valley home, where his parents were badly burned and his 17-year-old sister so badly hurt she had both her legs amputated. Some were found dead in cars and trucks as they tried to flee the firestorms, or inside homes where they apparently were trapped. Still others were discovered as piles of ash and bones, as though they already had passed through a cremation chamber. By Thursday, officials throughout Northern California had begun cataloging the death toll of the huge fires that broke out Sunday night and plowed...

The deadly wildfires ravaging northern California have destroyed more than 3,500 homes and businesses, leveling entire neighborhoods and forcing thousands of residents to flee the flames. Experts say fires like those burning up California wine country will be more frequent, more intense and last longer as global temperatures rise. While no single fire can be said to have been caused by climate change, variations in temperature and precipitation are already affecting the complex dynamics that determine how wildfires develop and spread. California Gov. Jerry Brown laid the blame squarely at the feet of climate change on Wednesday. "With a warming...

In the early hours of the blaze, officials at the Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services Department discussed sending something similar to an Amber Alert to cell phones in the area, but chose not to since it would have gone to tens of thousands of people not in immediate danger. The type of warning, called a Wireless Emergency Alert, can only target phones in large geographic areas, according to Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services Coordinator Zachary Hamill, who made the decision not to send the wireless alert together with the county’s emergency manager, Christopher Helgren. “If I had done...

Big deadly fires are nothing new to California, particularly during fire season when the Santa Ana or Diablo winds blow hot and dry, making tinder out of trees and bushes that have been baking all summer long. But the firestorm now raging through Northern California isn’t the typical wildfire. We don’t yet know what started the fires in Northern California, but we have a good idea of what made them so destructive. Authorities blame a combination of factors. Burning fossil fuels is not the only human activity that contributes to the destruction wrought by wildfires and hurricanes. So does the...

SACRAMENTO (CBS SF) — California Gov. Jerry Brown warns that catastrophic wildfires will keep ripping through the state as the climate warms. **SNIP** He said a warming climate has contributed to catastrophic wildfires. “That’s the way it is with a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture.” said Brown. “These kind of catastrophes have happened and they’ll continue to happen, and we have to be prepared to do everything we can to mitigate.” The governor has positioned himself as a leader in the fight against climate change.

Dennis DeVilbiss had made up his mind. “I’m not leaving,” the former cop and firefighter said Wednesday afternoon as he stood on his front porch in Calistoga, a wine country town under threat from an approaching wildfire. Authorities had ordered its 5,000 residents to evacuate. He glanced at smoke drifting over nearby trees, and smiled. “I’m not stupid,” said DeVilbiss, 60. “If it’s time to run, I’ll run like hell.” As the death toll from 16 wildfires raging in Northern California climbed Wednesday, thousands more residents in Calistoga and elsewhere were ordered to flee their homes and firefighters raced against...

Peter Lang had a heart-wrenching choice — save his house in the fire-ravaged hills above Santa Rosa or protect the more than 1,000 animals trapped at his wildlife preserve, Safari West. The 77-year-old owner of the 400-acre facility on Porter Creek Road didn’t give it much thought. As the flames approached, Lang ushered his wife, employees and 30 overnight guests off the hill, grabbed a garden hose and began dousing hot spots threatening his collection of primarily African species, including cheetahs, giraffes and rhinoceroses. When dawn broke, they were all alive but Lang’s home was destroyed. “I did not lose...

As the first reports came in Sunday night of numerous fires that would grow into one of the most destructive wildfire disasters in California history, emergency dispatchers in Sonoma County received multiple calls of power lines falling down and electrical transformers exploding. In all, according to a review of emergency radio traffic by the Bay Area News Group, Sonoma County dispatchers sent out fire crews to at least 10 different locations across the county over a 90-minute period starting at 9:22 pm to respond to 911 calls and other reports of sparking wires and problems with the county’s electrical system...