latimes--2020-08-21--Bay Area fires among biggest in California history

A series of wildfires burning an area larger than the state of Rhode Island have depleted California ’ s firefighting resources and triggered requests for help from across the West , the East Coast and even as far as Australia .
Since Saturday , more than 771,000 acres of California ’ s forests and shrub lands have burned , many of them sparked by a weekend lightning storm stretching hundreds of miles and stoked by one of the worst heat waves in recent memory .
The blazes include the LNU Lightning Complex fire and the SCU Lightning Complex fire , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bay Area history covering more than 200,000 acres each .
“ These fires again are stretching our resources , our personnel , ” Gov .
Gavin Newsom said during a Friday media briefing .
About 96 % of the fire engines with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are already committed to wildfires , with little in the way of local assistance .
Oregon , Arizona and Washington have all sent firefighters and equipment to help , and there ’ s a pending request with Australia for their fire crews , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from California for out-of-state resources are being granted .
Officials with the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho , which coordinates interstate firefighting deployments , said they ’ ve been inundated with requests from across the West and have redirected some of California ’ s requests back home .
“ It ’ s difficult with what ’ s happening across Northern California right now , ” said Sean Kavanaugh , Cal Fire ’ s incident commander on the LNU Lightning Complex fire , which is burning in Napa , Sonoma , Lake , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fires could not be predicted , the strain on firefighting resources was .
Cal Fire ’ s union leadership began sounding the alarm about a depletion of resources in the spring , when the COVID outbreak triggered early releases from prisons and with that , a loss of hundreds of inmate firefighters who annually help set up defensive lines around wildfires .
Inmate firefighters make up about 43 % of Cal Fire ’ s firefighting force .
Since the outbreak began , the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has released more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those releases coming since July .
“ A combination of expedited and natural releases have contributed to the recent decrease in the conservation camp population , ” CDCR spokesman Aaron Francis said in an email .
The state is down to 1,659 inmate firefighters from the 2,255 available in April .
Overall , 1,300 inmates are deployed across the state assisting with some of the most grueling work in firefighting : marching into rugged terrain with hand tools to cut away brush and scrape the earth free of anything that could burn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers “ just in time ” to offset the loss in inmates at the cost of about $ 72 million , Newsom said .
“ We have more people , but it ’ s just not enough .
We have more air support , and it ’ s still not enough , ” the governor said .
The fires in Northern and Central California have killed at least five people , destroyed more than 570 structures and scorched over 1,200 square miles , more than twice the area of the city of Los @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the entire state last year .
A Pacific Gas & Electric worker also died at the time of the fires , but Cal Fire officials say it was unrelated to the blaze .
“ We can confirm that a Vacaville-based troubleman passed away while assisting first responders as they dealt with the LNU Complex Fire , ” PG & E said in a statement .
“ Out of respect for the family ’ s privacy , we won ’ t be sharing additional details at this time.
” More than 60,000 people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cruz and San Mateo counties for the CZU Lightning Complex fire , as firefighters hoped to use a break in the extreme heat to make progress .
Mark Brunton , a Cal Fire operations section chief , said the area was still burning Friday .
Some cooler , moist air did arrive Thursday evening , which slowed the fire significantly .
In fact , “ once that marine layer pulled out , there was free burning activity out there again , which challenged all our lines out there , and burned in several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , one of the Cal Fire incident commanders .
See said nearly 100 more firefighters showed over the last day , bringing their force to about 1,000 people .
The fire has burned more than 50,000 acres .
“ It ’ s still not enough , ” he said .
“ We ’ re going to continue to bring additional personnel and resources in here.
” Resources are coming in from other states , but it takes a matter of days for that manpower to arrive .
“ They ’ re stretched very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
See has said this fire is historic — so much that he ’ s tired of saying it .
“ I ’ m tired of saying that I ’ ve never seen something like this in 34 years of fighting fire , ” he said .
“ It ’ s a dangerous situation.
” The fire continued to burn through the mountainous Santa Cruz County communities of Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond , destroying a number of structures overnight .
One problem was residents who were refusing to evacuate , forcing firefighters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that do stay behind … try to take matters in their own hands with trying to suppress fires , it creates a bigger issue , ” Brunton said .
“ We had , last night , three separate rescues that pulled our vital — very few resources — away to have to rescue those individuals , because they put themselves in peril .
They ’ re not trained firefighters.
” He added : “ In the long run it ’ s created a bigger problem for first responders , because of that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to rescue them.
” Firefighters must choose which buildings to save .
“ We can ’ t save everything , ” Brunton said .
“ We have to pick and choose our targets of opportunity the best we can.
” Properties that have a cleared layer of defensible space — no flammable vegetation in a zone around property — give firefighters the best opportunity to save a home , he said .
The intense smoke caused by the fire , which is burning through timber , has limited the use of firefighting aircraft @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the visibility would be akin to flying through fog or dense clouds , and it would be unsafe to have aircraft fly , Brunton said .
The evacuation zone for the fire stretches in the mountains from San Gregorio State Beach , south of Half Moon Bay , to the edge of the city limits of Santa Cruz .
The orders reached the UC Santa Cruz campus late Thursday .
Brant Robertson , a UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist , lives 100 yards from the evacuation zone on the university ’ s campus .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a warning but that he and his family — his wife , 11-year-old triplets and dog — were all packed and ready to evacuate at a moment ’ s notice .
He lives in a cul-de-sac at the edge of campus and said roughly half his neighbors had already left .
Standing on his porch , Robertson said the air was thick with dust and ash , as well as larger particles — burnt leaves and fibers suspended in the wind .
“ We have all the windows shut , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the smoke .
It ’ s unavoidable.
” He and his wife have been constantly following Twitter and keeping an eye on NASA ’ s satellite imagery .
“ I ’ ve lived all over the place , ” Robertson said .
“ I ’ ve been through tornadoes and earthquakes .
But this is different .
You just react to those events .
This is unusual in that we don ’ t know when the alarm is going to go off .
But there ’ s a lot of tension .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wait.
” He said the schools have closed for at least the next week as families and teachers evacuate .
Even though classes were being taught remotely , the evacuations have made teaching and learning impossible .
He said this last week has been exhausting , starting with the heat wave .
His phone recorded a high of 108 degrees at his house one day .
Then there were the blackouts , as the electrical grid was overwhelmed amid the heat .
“ As a physicist , we use supercomputers , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He lost a ton of data .
“ Then the storms hit , ” he said of the lightning storms that moved across the region Sunday and Monday .
“ It cooled off , but then the smoke began to build ” as a result of the fires .
And now his family is on the edge of evacuation .
With more than 18,000 students enrolled at UC Santa Cruz , the university is working to find hotel or other rooms for students , although it ’ s unclear how many were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the evacuations were announced .
The fire also seriously damaged Big Basin Redwoods State Park , northeast of Santa Cruz , prompting a conservation group on Thursday to openly mourn the loss of California ’ s oldest state park .
“ We are devastated to report that Big Basin , as we have known it , loved it , and cherished it for generations , is gone , ” said the Sempervirens Fund in a statement .
“ Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed much of the park ’ s historic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fate of the park ’ s grandest old trees.
” Farther inland , in the mountains east of San Jose , the SCU Lightning Complex fire has grown to 229,968 acres , making it the seventh largest fire in recorded state history .
It has destroyed five buildings .
So many fires burned in the numerous low mountain ranges surrounding the San Francisco Bay that the region was home to the world ’ s worst air quality earlier in the week , according to the .
One major cluster of blazes is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Complex fire has blackened a combined 219,067 acres , destroyed 480 structures and triggered the evacuation of nonessential personnel from Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and patients from Adventist Health St. Helena hospital in Napa County .
It was 7 % contained Friday morning as the area cooled overnight .
The largest in the complex is the Hennessey fire , which is so big at more than 194,000 acres , it has nearly surrounded Lake Berryessa , one of California ’ s largest reservoirs .
It has merged with a number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now ranks as the 10th largest wildfire in state history .
The activity of the Hennessey fire on its southern edge — including in the direction of Vacaville and Fairfield in Solano County — has dropped off significantly , said Chris Waters , a Cal Fire operations section chief ; Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield has canceled its evacuations for non-essential personnel ; evacuations for parts of Vacaville were also canceled .
The Hennessey fire , however , is still active on its northern edge , and is threatening Pope Valley in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dehe Wintun Nation tribal community in Yolo County , which operates Cache Creek Casino Resort .
The second fire , the 21,000-acre Walbridge fire , in northern Sonoma County , is moving toward the town of Guerneville on the Russian River .
“ Right now we have engines , dozers , hand crews and law enforcement working in the Walbridge fire right now to try and slow the spread of the fire down , ” Waters said .
“ We ’ re also organizing evacuations and warnings for the community of Guerneville.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the Sonoma County coast , has stopped moving and should be contained fairly soon , Waters said .
“ These fires are burning in areas that have not burned in decades .
The fuel load is extremely high .
The conditions are very dry .
And the winds will continue to pick up throughout the day , ” Assemblyman Jim Wood ( D-Santa Rosa ) said of the fires burning in Sonoma County .
By Friday afternoon , there were more than 1,000 people fighting the LNU Lightning Complex fire in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people working the fire on Thursday .
Looking ahead , there is a chance that another string of lightning storms could hit the coastal mountains over the weekend , San Jose State atmospheric scientist Alison Bridger said .
The dome of heat that crawled up from Arizona last week and baked Northern California is going to reestablish itself , although temperatures won ’ t reach the same extremes , she said .
At the same time , another storm off the Mexican coast is poised to feed that heat dome moisture , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for thunderstorms .
“ And then all you need is a little energy to spark it and you ’ ll get more lightning and thunder , ” Bridger said .
The storms would develop fairly rapidly , so it won ’ t be clear whether there will be lightning and where it would strike until possibly Sunday morning , she added .
At this point , this setup looks favorable for scattered or widespread dry thunderstorms to develop , the National Weather Service said in a Friday forecast .
“ That said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the recent historic event that brought thousands of lightning strikes and numerous fires to the region.
” While residents Friday morning in the mountain town of Inskip in Butte County were told to pack up and leave ahead of the approaching fires , on the other side of the state , families evacuated from their homes for more than a week in Riverside County were told they can begin to return as crews gathered momentum against the Apple fire , the first big wildfire of the season .
Yet for all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lately , it ’ s been extremely dry up north , experts say .
“ The fire concentration , the challenge we ’ re facing in the state is now disproportionately affecting California , ” the governor said .
Crews that were battling the Apple fire are now headed north .
And when they get there , they ’ ll be fighting fires on myriad fronts .
Rust reported from Santa Cruz , Lin from San Francisco and Serna from Los Angeles .
Times staff writers Anita Chabria in Healdsburg and Stuart Leavenworth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Los Angeles contributed to this report .

Joseph Serna, Susanne Rust, Anita Chabria, Rong-Gong Lin II

Firefighter Ian Johnson watches as an air tanker drops retardant to keep the River fire from reaching a home in Salinas. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
A home in the Sky Ranch community burns in the Carmel fire near Carmel Valley. (Nic Coury / Associated Press)
A plume rises over a vineyard in unincorporated Napa County as the Hennessey fire burns. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Members of the Grizzly Firefighters fight the Carmel fire near Carmel Valley. (Nic Coury / Associated Press)
Mobile homes burn at Spanish Flat Mobile Villa as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through unincorporated Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Flames consume a cabin at the Nichelini Family Winery in unincorporated Napa County as the Hennessey fire burns in Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Horses stand in an enclosure as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through the Spanish Flat community in unincorporated Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Seen in a long-exposure photograph, embers burn along a hillside above Lake Berryessa as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through unincorporated Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Matt Nichols sprays water while trying to save his home as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through Vacaville. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Seen in a long-exposure photograph, embers burn along a hillside as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through unincorporated Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Bill Nichols, 84, works to save his home as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through Vacaville. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
An air tanker drops retardant as the LNU Lightning Complex fire tears through the Spanish Flat community in unincorporated Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires jump Interstate 80 in Vacaville on Wednesday. The highway was closed in both directions shortly afterward. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
The charred carcass of a cow rests beside a road in Vacaville. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
A firefighter walks through an area burned by the Hennessey fire along Solar Hills drive in Vacaville. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Flames from the the CZU August Lightning Complex fire approach a structure along Pine Flat Road in Felton. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
The remains of a house burned by the CZU August Lightning Complex fire in Felton. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Firefighters from Eugene, Ore., walk beside an area burning along Pine Flat Road during the CZU August Lightning Complex fire in Felton. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
A plume of smoke billows over Healdsburg as the LNU Lightning Complex fire continues to burn. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Scorched homes and vehicles fill Spanish Flat Mobile Villa struck by the LNU Lightning Complex fire in unincorporated Napa County. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Charles Chavira, left, and Thomas Henney watch a plume of smoke spread over Healdsburg as the LNU Lightning Complex fire continues to burn. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
A crew cuts down foliage and trees near some structures in preparation in Boulder Creek. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Ben Lomond firefighters work on a blaze at The Sequoia Retreat Center during the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires on Friday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Firefighters keeps watch as the fire line creeps up on Highway 9 during the CZU Lightning complex fire. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Firefighters respond to a structure fire along Riverdale Blvd. during the CZU Lightning complex fire on Sunday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Smoke hangs low in the air at Big Basin Redwoods State Park as some redwoods are still on fire on Saturday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
The Big Basin Redwoods State Park Headquarters & Visitor Center which was built in 1936 was one of the structures lost to the blaze that tore through the state park. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Hand crews work on a hillside above the Boulder Creek Community Church as the fire line creeps up on Highway 9 during the CZU Lightning complex fire on Sunday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
A house is engulfed with flame during the CZU Lightning complex fire on Sunday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Firefighters watches as the fire line creeps up on Highway 9 during the CZU Lightning complex fire on Sunday. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
Burned vehicles and rubble from homes are left after the CZU Lightning Complex Fire tore through Sunday in Boulder Creek, Calif. (Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)
Firefighters protect a home in the Berryessa Estates neighborhood of unincorporated Napa County, Calif., as the LNU Lightning Complex fires burn on Friday. The blaze forced thousands to flee and destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)
Firefighters from Barstow tackle hotspots along Highway 9 during the CZU Lightning Complex fire Sunday in Boulder Creek, Calif. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
A series of wildfires burning an area larger than the state of Rhode Island have depleted California’s firefighting resources and triggered requests for help from across the West, the East Coast and even as far as Australia.
Since Saturday, more than 918,000 acres of California’s forests and shrub lands have burned, many of them sparked by a weekend lightning storm stretching hundreds of miles and stoked by one of the worst heat waves in recent memory.
The blazes include the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which at more than 302,000 acres is the second-largest fire in California history. The SCU Lightning Complex fire, currently covering more than 274,000 acres, is fourth largest.
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“These fires again are stretching our resources, our personnel,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Friday media briefing.
About 96% of the fire engines with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are already committed to wildfires, with little in the way of local assistance. Oregon, Arizona and Washington have all sent firefighters and equipment to help, and there’s a pending request with Australia for their fire crews, Newsom said.
But not all requests from California for out-of-state resources are being granted. Officials with the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho, which coordinates interstate firefighting deployments, said they’ve been inundated with requests from across the West and have redirected some of California’s requests back home.
“It’s difficult with what’s happening across Northern California right now,” said Sean Kavanaugh, Cal Fire’s incident commander on the LNU Lightning Complex fire, which is burning in Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.
While the fires could not be predicted, the strain on firefighting resources was.
Cal Fire’s union leadership began sounding the alarm about a depletion of resources in the spring, when the COVID outbreak triggered early releases from prisons and with that, a loss of hundreds of inmate firefighters who annually help set up defensive lines around wildfires. Inmate firefighters make up about 43% of Cal Fire’s firefighting force.
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Since the outbreak began, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has released more than 800 inmate firefighters, with about 600 of those releases coming since July.
“A combination of expedited and natural releases have contributed to the recent decrease in the conservation camp population,” CDCR spokesman Aaron Francis said in an email.
The state is down to 1,659 inmate firefighters from the 2,255 available in April.
Overall, 1,300 inmates are deployed across the state assisting with some of the most grueling work in firefighting: marching into rugged terrain with hand tools to cut away brush and scrape the earth free of anything that could burn.
The state hired some 800 seasonal workers “just in time” to offset the loss in inmates at the cost of about $72 million, Newsom said.
“We have more people, but it’s just not enough. We have more air support, and it’s still not enough,” the governor said.
The fires in Northern and Central California have killed at least five people, destroyed 629 structures and scorched over 1,400 square miles, more than twice the area of the city of Los Angeles and more than three times what burned in the entire state last year. A Pacific Gas & Electric worker also died at the time of the fires, but Cal Fire officials say it was unrelated to the blaze.
“We can confirm that a Vacaville-based troubleman passed away while assisting first responders as they dealt with the LNU Complex Fire,” PG&E said in a statement. “Out of respect for the family’s privacy, we won’t be sharing additional details at this time.”
More than 60,000 people were under evacuation orders Friday in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties for the CZU Lightning Complex fire, as firefighters hoped to use a break in the extreme heat to make progress.
Mark Brunton, a Cal Fire operations section chief, said at an evening press conference that the fire weather had improved Friday in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties with cooler temperatures; firefighters did not observe erratic fire behavior. The areas of most concern are communities along the Highway 9 corridor north of Santa Cruz, which have the largest number of buildings in the direct line of fire.
Billy See, a Cal Fire incident commander, said nearly 100 more firefighters showed over the last day, bringing their force to about 1,000 people. The fire has burned at least 57,000 acres.
“It’s still not enough,” he said. “We’re going to continue to bring additional personnel and resources in here.”
Resources are coming in from other states, but it takes a matter of days for that manpower to arrive.
“They’re stretched very, very thin,” See said.
See has said this fire is historic — so much that he’s tired of saying it.
“I’m tired of saying that I’ve never seen something like this in 34 years of fighting fire,” he said. “It’s a dangerous situation.”
The fire has burned through the mountainous Santa Cruz County communities of Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond, destroying a number of structures overnight.
One problem was residents who were refusing to evacuate, forcing firefighters to rescue them.
“When people that do stay behind … try to take matters in their own hands with trying to suppress fires, it creates a bigger issue,” Brunton said. “We had, last night, three separate rescues that pulled our vital — very few resources — away to have to rescue those individuals, because they put themselves in peril. They’re not trained firefighters.”
He added: “In the long run it’s created a bigger problem for first responders, because of that it took our firefighters away from the firefight to rescue them.”
Firefighters must choose which buildings to save.
“We can’t save everything,” Brunton said. “We have to pick and choose our targets of opportunity the best we can.” Properties that have a cleared layer of defensible space — no flammable vegetation in a zone around property — give firefighters the best opportunity to save a home, he said.
The intense smoke caused by the fire, which is burning through timber, has limited the use of firefighting aircraft. The smoke is so bad that the visibility would be akin to flying through fog or dense clouds, and it would be unsafe to have aircraft fly, Brunton said.
The evacuation zone for the fire stretches in the mountains from San Gregorio State Beach, south of Half Moon Bay, to the edge of the city limits of Santa Cruz. The orders reached the UC Santa Cruz campus late Thursday.
Brant Robertson, a UC Santa Cruz astrophysicist, lives 100 yards from the evacuation zone on the university’s campus.
He said that he had not received a warning but that he and his family — his wife, 11-year-old triplets and dog — were all packed and ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice.
He lives in a cul-de-sac at the edge of campus and said roughly half his neighbors had already left.
Standing on his porch, Robertson said the air was thick with dust and ash, as well as larger particles — burnt leaves and fibers suspended in the wind.
“We have all the windows shut,” he said. “But you can still taste the smoke. It’s unavoidable.”
He and his wife have been constantly following Twitter and keeping an eye on NASA’s satellite imagery.
“I’ve lived all over the place,” Robertson said. “I’ve been through tornadoes and earthquakes. But this is different. You just react to those events. This is unusual in that we don’t know when the alarm is going to go off. But there’s a lot of tension. It’s continuously stressful to hurry up and wait.”
He said the schools have closed for at least the next week as families and teachers evacuate. Even though classes were being taught remotely, the evacuations have made teaching and learning impossible.
He said this last week has been exhausting, starting with the heat wave. His phone recorded a high of 108 degrees at his house one day.
Then there were the blackouts, as the electrical grid was overwhelmed amid the heat.
He said that the supercomputers he uses as a physicist were intermittently shutting on and off. He lost a ton of data.
“Then the storms hit,” he said of the lightning storms that moved across the region Sunday and Monday. “It cooled off, but then the smoke began to build” as a result of the fires.
And now his family is on the edge of evacuation.
With more than 18,000 students enrolled at UC Santa Cruz, the university is working to find hotel or other rooms for students, although it’s unclear how many were on campus or in the community when the evacuations were announced.
The fire also seriously damaged Big Basin Redwoods State Park, northwest of Santa Cruz, prompting a conservation group on Thursday to openly mourn the loss of California’s oldest state park.
“We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone,” said the Sempervirens Fund in a statement. “Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed much of the park’s historic facilities. We do not yet know the fate of the park’s grandest old trees.”
Farther inland, in the mountains east of San Jose, the SCU Lightning Complex fire has grown to more than 274,000 acres, making it the fourth largest fire in recorded state history. It has destroyed five buildings.
So many fires burned in the numerous low mountain ranges surrounding the San Francisco Bay that the region was home to the world’s worst air quality earlier in the week, according to the website PurpleAir .
One major cluster of blazes is in wine country. The LNU Lightning Complex fire has blackened more than 302,000 acres, destroyed 480 structures and triggered the evacuation of nonessential personnel from Travis Air Force Base in Solano County and patients from Adventist Health St. Helena hospital in Napa County. It was 15% contained Friday evening as the area had cooled overnight.
The largest in the complex is the Hennessey fire, which is so big at more than 256,000 acres that on Friday it had nearly surrounded Lake Berryessa, one of California’s largest reservoirs. It has merged with a number of other fires.
The activity of the Hennessey fire on its southern edge — including in the direction of Vacaville and Fairfield in Solano County — has dropped off significantly, said Chris Waters, a Cal Fire operations section chief, on Friday. Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield has canceled its evacuations for nonessential personnel; evacuations for parts of Vacaville were also canceled.
The Hennessey fire, however, is still active on its northern edge, and threatening Pope Valley in Napa County. It has neared the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation tribal community in Yolo County, which operates Cache Creek Casino Resort.
The second fire, the 43,286-acre Walbridge fire, in northern Sonoma County, was moving Friday toward the town of Guerneville on the Russian River.
“Right now we have engines, dozers, hand crews and law enforcement working in the Walbridge fire right now to try and slow the spread of the fire down,” Waters said. “We’re also organizing evacuations and warnings for the community of Guerneville.”
The third fire, the Myers fire on the Sonoma County coast, has stopped moving and should be contained fairly soon, Waters said.
“These fires are burning in areas that have not burned in decades. The fuel load is extremely high. The conditions are very dry. And the winds will continue to pick up throughout the day,” Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Santa Rosa) said of the fires burning in Sonoma County.
By Friday afternoon, there were more than 1,000 people fighting the LNU Lightning Complex fire in the North Bay, significantly above the 587 people working the fire on Thursday.
Looking ahead, there is a chance that another string of lightning storms could hit the coastal mountains over the weekend, San Jose State atmospheric scientist Alison Bridger said.
The dome of heat that crawled up from Arizona last week and baked Northern California is going to reestablish itself, although temperatures won’t reach the same extremes, she said.
At the same time, another storm off the Mexican coast is poised to feed that heat dome moisture, which would destabilize it, laying the groundwork for thunderstorms.
“And then all you need is a little energy to spark it and you’ll get more lightning and thunder,” Bridger said.
The storms would develop fairly rapidly, so it won’t be clear whether there will be lightning and where it would strike until possibly Sunday morning, she added.
The National Weather Service has issued a wide ranging fire weather watch for large swaths of Northern and Central California beginning Sunday morning through Tuesday, saying “fast moving … thunderstorms may lead to a risk of dry lightning and new fire starts.”
Residents Friday morning in the mountain town of Inskip in Butte County were told to pack up and leave ahead of the approaching fires. And in Monterey County, officials have issued an evacuation warning for the Carmel Valley — known for its rolling hills, vineyards and hotels — and the adjacent Laureles Grade area, which is close to the River and Carmel fires that have already destroyed at least 38 structures. Monterey County supervisor Mary Adams urged people to act early “so that we don’t have a glut of traffic on Carmel Valley Road should the order to evacuate comes.”
Meanwhile, families evacuated from their homes for more than a week in Riverside County were told they can begin to return as crews gathered momentum against the Apple fire, the first big wildfire of the season.
For all the sweltering humidity Southern Californians have been experiencing lately, it’s been extremely dry up north, experts say.
“The fire concentration, the challenge we’re facing in the state is now disproportionately affecting California,” the governor said. Crews that were battling the Apple fire are now headed north. And when they get there, they’ll be fighting fires on myriad fronts.
Rust reported from Santa Cruz, Lin from San Francisco and Serna from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Anita Chabria in Healdsburg and Stuart Leavenworth, Luke Money and Leila Miller in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


latimes--2020-08-21--Golden State Killer given life in prison for rapes, murders that terrorized a generation

All that now awaits the Golden State Killer is an end of his days in prison .
A Sacramento County judge Friday sentenced 74-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. to life without parole for killing 13 people and raping 50 in a series of break-ins that terrorized the state .
Judge Michael Bowman handed down the sentence in the ballroom at Sacramento State University , where DeAngelo , a former police officer , graduated nearly 50 years ago with a degree in criminal justice .
Among those in attendance for the filled-to-capacity proceedings were victims , family members , prosecutors from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Orange , Santa Barbara , Sacramento , Contra Costa and Tulare , the six prosecuting DeAngelo — former case detectives , and even newspaper reporters who covered the first of the crimes in the 1970s .
Before he was officially sentenced , DeAngelo rose easily from his wheelchair and , for the first time , addressed the victims who had recounted over the last few days in court horrific details about the ordeal that has haunted them for decades .
“ I ’ ve listened to all your statements , each one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a halting but clear voice .
“ And I ’ m truly sorry to everyone I ’ ve hurt.
” Contra Costa County Dist .
Atty .
Diana Becton called DeAngelo “ the boogeyman , the man whose horrific , unspeakable crimes devastated the lives of so many people , lives that will never be the same , lives forever changed , moments , hours of terror that can never be erased or forgotten.
” But as the historic criminal case came to an end , victims and prosecutors struggled with what constitutes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loss .
“ To say our family is in grief is an understatement .
Calling this true justice is probably an overstatement , ” Bryan Sanchez , nephew of 1981 murder victim Greg Sanchez , told the judge this week during three days of impact statements .
“ Justice is not possible in this case , ” said Jennifer Carole , whose father , Lyman Smith , and his wife , Charlene , were murdered by DeAngelo .
“ And because of that , I can have no peace.
” DeAngelo ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the nation to be solved by tracking a killer through the DNA of his family members on public genealogy sites .
Since his capture , he has admitted to crimes originally attributed to multiple assailants in the 1970s and ’ 80s , each with his own sobriquet — the Visalia Ransacker , East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker .
It wasn ’ t until DNA connected the crimes that the unknown attacker was rebranded the Golden State Killer .
“ These rapes and these murders , in the words of our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ friends , generations and entire communities , ” Sacramento County Dist .
Atty .
Anne Marie Schubert said .
She added that “ my greatest hope is perhaps put into their own words ... the greatest revenge is to live your lives .
Paint your children ’ s and your grandchildren ’ s rooms with hearts and rainbows ” — a reference to the decor of a bedroom where one 13-year-old victim was attacked .
Schubert drew applause in challenging DeAngelo ’ s appearance in court as old , wheelchair-bound and infirm .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she played several video clips showing him doing stretches and otherwise moving easily around his jail cell .
The counts against DeAngelo , detailing more than 100 criminal offenses , were so numerous that Bowman needed 22 minutes to read them aloud and impose the accompanying sentences , the maximum allowed under law after prosecutors had agreed not to seek the death penalty .
Alice Michel , one of DeAngelo ’ s public defenders , acknowledged the pain her client had inflicted .
“ We hope that , by admitting these offenses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the survivors and their loved ones , and we hope that these proceedings have provided some relief.
” DeAngelo ’ s apology took his first rape victim , Phyllis Henneman , by surprise .
However , she was not moved .
“ They ’ re just words , ” she said from her own wheelchair .
Immediately before issuing the sentence , Bowman spoke to DeAngelo about the words of his victims , saying , “ I was moved by their courage , their grace , their strength , all qualities you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ could not help but wonder , ‘ What are you thinking ?
Are you capable of comprehending the pain and anguish you have caused ?
’ ” The crimes began as window peeping in DeAngelo ’ s hometown of Rancho Cordova .
They progressed to bedroom burglaries and panty thefts in Visalia , and then the murder of Claude Snelling , a college instructor who caught the intruder attempting to abduct his 16-year-old daughter from her bedroom in 1975 .
The rapes that ensued became more violent as DeAngelo began to attack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kill them .
While DeAngelo typically dragged women out of bed and away from their husbands to rape them in other rooms , crime scene evidence shows the couples he murdered died in bed beside one another .
“ It wasn ’ t enough for him to rape or beat or shoot his victims , ” said Santa Barbara County Dist .
Atty .
Joyce Dudley .
“ He wanted to take inflicting human pain to the highest level possible .
Therefore , he often ensured that their loved ones saw or heard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s who Joe DeAngelo is.
” The investigations were often botched by law enforcement agencies refusing to cooperate , but the crimes also instigated major advances in criminal justice laws and tools .
They were cited by women ’ s rights advocates to successfully increase the penalties for rape .
A political crusade launched and funded by the family of murder victim Keith Harrington fueled a California law requiring felons to add their DNA to a databank used to hunt criminals .
Harrington ’ s older brother , Ron , used his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make the case for overriding privacy concerns and preserving police access to consumer genealogy sites , like the one detectives used to identify DeAngelo .
As part of a plea deal with prosecutors , DeAngelo admitted to carrying out 53 attacks on 87 victims in 11 counties , starting in 1975 and ending with the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Orange County in 1986 .
Authorities believe he is also responsible for two more sexual assaults and a shooting for which he was not charged .
In exchange for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the death penalty .
He was sentenced to 11 life terms without the possibility of parole , to be served consecutively , plus 15 life terms and eight years .
Orange County Dist .
Atty .
Todd Spitzer said Friday that he still believes “ this beast deserved the ultimate punishment of death , ” but the extended time involved in bringing a capital punishment case to trial and through appeals made DeAngelo ’ s execution unlikely , considering his age , and the toll on victims for all that time too great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aloud letters of anguish , support and love from family and friends who described a different DeAngelo .
Michel read a statement from a niece of his , who called him “ kind and loving ” and her “ favorite person.
” “ He made my life peaceful .
He is part of why I am a good , kind , loving person today , ” the unidentified niece wrote , adding , “ I am thankful I had him in my life.
” Among those filing victim statements was DeAngelo ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ during the rapes and murders of the 1970s and ’ 80s but moved out with their three daughters not long after .
She finalized their divorce after his arrest .
Huddle has remained silent most of the two-year court case , beyond expressing sympathy for victims shortly after DeAngelo ’ s arrest .
She told the court DeAngelo ’ s crimes “ have had a devastating and pervasive ” effect on her and her family .
She did not say what she wished to happen with her former husband , but said she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will detract from any other person ’ s impact statement .
”

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., known as the Golden State Killer, stands in court while apologizing to his victims before a judge sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison.
All that now awaits the Golden State Killer is an end of his days in prison.
A Sacramento County judge Friday sentenced 74-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. to life without parole for killing 13 people and raping 50 in a series of break-ins that terrorized the state.
Judge Michael Bowman handed down the sentence in the ballroom at Sacramento State University, where DeAngelo, a former police officer, graduated nearly 50 years ago with a degree in criminal justice.
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Among those in attendance for the filled-to-capacity proceedings were victims, family members, prosecutors from nearly a dozen counties — including Ventura, Orange, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Contra Costa and Tulare, the six prosecuting DeAngelo — former case detectives, and even newspaper reporters who covered the first of the crimes in the 1970s.
Before he was officially sentenced, DeAngelo rose easily from his wheelchair and, for the first time, addressed the victims who had recounted over the last few days in court horrific details about the ordeal that has haunted them for decades.
“I’ve listened to all your statements, each one of them,” he said in a halting but clear voice. “And I’m truly sorry to everyone I’ve hurt.”
Contra Costa County Dist. Atty. Diana Becton called DeAngelo “the boogeyman, the man whose horrific, unspeakable crimes devastated the lives of so many people, lives that will never be the same, lives forever changed, moments, hours of terror that can never be erased or forgotten.”
But as the historic criminal case came to an end, victims and prosecutors struggled with what constitutes justice after four decades of suffering and loss.
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“To say our family is in grief is an understatement. Calling this true justice is probably an overstatement,” Bryan Sanchez, nephew of 1981 murder victim Greg Sanchez, told the judge this week during three days of impact statements.
“Justice is not possible in this case,” said Jennifer Carole, whose father, Lyman Smith, and his wife, Charlene, were murdered by DeAngelo. “And because of that, I can have no peace.”
DeAngelo’s 2018 arrest marked the first cold case in the nation to be solved by tracking a killer through the DNA of his family members on public genealogy sites.
Since his capture, he has admitted to crimes originally attributed to multiple assailants in the 1970s and ’80s, each with his own sobriquet — the Visalia Ransacker, East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker. It wasn’t until DNA connected the crimes that the unknown attacker was rebranded the Golden State Killer.
“These rapes and these murders, in the words of our victims, have cut across families, friends, generations and entire communities,” Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert said.
She added that “my greatest hope is perhaps put into their own words ... the greatest revenge is to live your lives. Paint your children’s and your grandchildren’s rooms with hearts and rainbows” — a reference to the decor of a bedroom where one 13-year-old victim was attacked.
Schubert drew applause in challenging DeAngelo’s appearance in court as old, wheelchair-bound and infirm. At a news conference after the hearing, she played several video clips showing him doing stretches and otherwise moving easily around his jail cell.
The counts against DeAngelo, detailing more than 100 criminal offenses, were so numerous that Bowman needed 22 minutes to read them aloud and impose the accompanying sentences, the maximum allowed under law after prosecutors had agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Alice Michel, one of DeAngelo’s public defenders, acknowledged the pain her client had inflicted.
“We hope that, by admitting these offenses, Mr. DeAngelo has provided some peace to the survivors and their loved ones, and we hope that these proceedings have provided some relief.”
DeAngelo’s apology took his first rape victim, Phyllis Henneman, by surprise. However, she was not moved.
“They’re just words,” she said from her own wheelchair.
California Full coverage: ‘Man in the Window’ To an early love interest, Joe DeAngelo was energetic and worldly. Now, nearly 50 years later, he stands accused of an extended spasm of violence — home invasions, rapes, murders — in the 1970s and ’80s.
Immediately before issuing the sentence, Bowman spoke to DeAngelo about the words of his victims, saying, “I was moved by their courage, their grace, their strength, all qualities you clearly lack.”
He added that he “could not help but wonder, what are you thinking? Are you capable of comprehending the pain and anguish you have caused?”
The crimes began as window peeping in DeAngelo’s hometown of Rancho Cordova. They progressed to bedroom burglaries and panty thefts in Visalia, and then the murder of Claude Snelling, a college instructor who caught the intruder attempting to abduct his 16-year-old daughter from her bedroom in 1975.
The rapes that ensued became more violent as DeAngelo began to attack couples together and, later, to kill them.
While DeAngelo typically dragged women out of bed and away from their husbands to rape them in other rooms, crime scene evidence shows the couples he murdered died in bed beside each other.
“It wasn’t enough for him to rape or beat or shoot his victims,” said Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Joyce Dudley. “He wanted to take inflicting human pain to the highest level possible. Therefore, he often ensured that their loved ones saw or heard their loved ones being killed. That’s who Joe DeAngelo is.”
The investigations were often botched by law enforcement agencies refusing to cooperate, but the crimes also instigated major advances in criminal justice laws and tools. They were cited by women’s rights advocates to successfully increase the penalties for rape. A political crusade launched and funded by the family of murder victim Keith Harrington fueled a California law requiring felons to add their DNA to a databank used to hunt criminals.
Harrington’s older brother, Ron, used his victim statement in court this week to make the case for overriding privacy concerns and preserving police access to consumer genealogy sites, like the one detectives used to identify DeAngelo.
As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, DeAngelo admitted to carrying out 53 attacks on 87 victims in 11 counties, starting in 1975 and ending with the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Orange County in 1986. Authorities believe he is also responsible for two more sexual assaults and a shooting for which he was not charged.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to spare him the death penalty. He was sentenced to 11 life terms without the possibility of parole, to be served consecutively, plus 15 life terms and eight years.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said Friday that he still believes “this beast deserved the ultimate punishment of death,” but the extended time involved in bringing a capital punishment case to trial and through appeals made DeAngelo’s execution unlikely, considering his age, and the toll on victims for all that time too great.
DeAngelo’s defense lawyers read aloud letters of anguish, support and love from family and friends who described a different DeAngelo.
Michel read a statement from a niece of his, who called him “kind and loving” and her “favorite person.”
“He made my life peaceful. He is part of why I am a good, kind, loving person today,” the unidentified niece wrote, adding, “I am thankful I had him in my life.”
Among those filing victim statements was DeAngelo’s ex-wife. Sharon Huddle lived with him during the rapes and murders of the 1970s and ’80s but moved out with their three daughters not long after. She finalized their divorce after his arrest.
Huddle has remained silent most of the two-year court case, beyond expressing sympathy for victims shortly after DeAngelo’s arrest.
She told the court DeAngelo’s crimes “have had a devastating and pervasive” effect on her and her family. She did not say what she wished to happen with her former husband, but said she hoped “that nothing I say here will detract from any other person’s impact statement.”


latimes--2020-08-21--The surprising story of the salesman who became L.A.'s first known COVID-19 patient

The family arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on the way home from a Mexican vacation that had been short-lived and unpleasant .
They had been exhausted , the father was battling a nasty stomach bug , and even before they settled into their Cancun hotel , they got word of the sudden death of the wife ’ s mother in their hometown : Wuhan , China .
The couple and their toddler son wanted to get back for the funeral and planned to be at LAX just long enough to switch planes .
But as they passed through Tom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the father was overcome with a fever and body aches and approached a customs officer for help .
The family did not make their flight that Wednesday night and , indeed , would not return to China for more than a month .
The father , Qian Lang , became the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Los Angeles and the fourth in the United States .
He remained the sole patient diagnosed with the virus here for five weeks , passing most of that time in top-secret isolation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ role , not widely known until now , in a frantic race to understand the deadly new virus before it hit the United States in full force .
Public health officials and researchers looked to him as a real-time , flesh-and-blood case study .
From Qian ( pronounced Chee-an ) , they gleaned early insights into the protection of healthcare workers , contact tracing and treatment .
He was the second virus patient in the world to take the drug remdesivir , then experimental and now a standard therapy for those seriously ill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Qian ’ s illness and recovery meant a strange and frightening sojourn in California .
Though his wife and preschooler son tested negative , they stayed with him at Cedars-Sinai in the closest approximation of a domestic life infection protocols allowed : adjoining isolation suites separated by glass .
“ We realized that is a huge burden on that poor woman , ” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer recalled .
“ By herself .
Didn ’ t really speak the language .
And taking care of a child full time around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ space.
” Ferrer and other health professionals said medical privacy laws prevented them from identifying Qian by name or divulging details of his care .
But they agreed to talk generally about his case , which has been included in half a dozen prominent research studies .
In one , he is called “ CA1.
” In another , “ Patient 9.
” This story is based on those published scientific papers , interviews with public health officials and clinicians , ambulance records , an airport police report that named Qian and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gave to a Chinese news blog , Deeper Wuhan , under a pseudonym .
Qian did not respond to messages left for him on a social media account .
The anonymous author of the Wuhan blog article said she reached out to him on behalf of The Times , but he declined an interview request .
Americans weren ’ t paying a lot of attention to COVID-19 when Qian landed at LAX .
President Trump ’ s impending impeachment hearing and the upcoming Iowa caucuses dominated the news , and around water coolers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ water coolers then — the talk was less likely about the new virus in Wuhan than “ Parasite ’ s ” shot at a best picture Oscar or LeBron James ’ quest to overtake the still-alive Kobe Bryant on the NBA ’ s all-time scorers list .
Inside L.A. County ’ s public health department , however , epidemiologists and other experts were keeping watch for the first inevitable cases .
They spoke regularly with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
By mid-January , there was enough awareness about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were phoning the county with suspected cases .
“ There was a lot of flu at the time , ” said Dr. Sharon Balter , the county director of acute communicable disease control , recalling hundreds of calls her colleagues received .
Many clearly were not COVID-19 , she said , but “ we anticipated that with a large amount of travel between L.A. and China there would eventually be a case , so we were definitely preparing for it.
” Each suspected patient had to be treated as if infected until test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Atlanta , the only testing facility at the time .
More than once , Balter and her colleagues were convinced they had a bona fide virus patient , only to get a negative result from Georgia .
It was the third week in January when COVID-19 was detected on American shores .
On Sunday , Jan. 19 , a man sought treatment at a Washington state clinic for a cough and fever .
He became the first person in the U.S. diagnosed with the virus .
One day later , a Chicago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became the second .
Orange County got the third case that Wednesday .
All three had been in Wuhan shortly before falling ill. All would survive .
Qian was next .
He , his wife , Liu Ying , and their son set out from Wuhan early that week for a long-planned Caribbean vacation .
They were aware of the virus , but “ pretty at ease overall ” about it , he later told the blog .
The local health commission in Wuhan was reporting only 62 cases and two deaths at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Health officials there noted that many of the stricken had only mild symptoms , and the city ’ s top public health doctor told a government news broadcast that “ the infectivity of the new coronavirus is not strong.
” Still , Qian , a physician ’ s son steeped from a young age in safety protocols , took precautions public health officials would later cite as significant .
On flights from Wuhan to Mexico City , he wore a mask , one of the few aboard to do so , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ circulation around his family .
Connecting through LAX on their way to Mexico , the couple and their child were screened by the CDC , but displayed no symptoms .
Qian told the blog that his temperature was so low that a screener joked , “ Are you a vampire ?
” The family planned to spend time in Mexico City before heading on to their Caribbean destination , but they were gripped by fatigue and weakness and Qian contracted giardia , a common parasite that afflicts travelers with diarrhea .
The family @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second day , Liu ’ s father phoned them to say her mother had taken ill with a fever .
The next day , he reported that he had summoned an ambulance , but it was too late and she had died .
The family packed their bags and headed back through LAX .
After touching down , Qian felt hot and , as he told the blog , “ powerless.
” Going through customs “ the Husband self-reported to one of their officers that he needs medical attention and may be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad cough and ... running nose , ” an airport police sergeant wrote in a report .
He noted that the family was “ from Wuhan , where the Coronavirus originated.
” The situation in their hometown had become dire in the three days since they ’ d left .
Authorities were reporting hundreds of new cases , and rather than downplaying the threat , officials were preparing to lock down the city of 11 million to stop the virus ’ spread .
Told of Qian ’ s connection to Wuhan , his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mother-in-law , CDC personnel at the airport suspected the virus and called for a Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance specially equipped for COVID patients .
It took the family to Cedars-Sinai ’ s Marina del Rey hospital .
The crew , dressed head-to-toe in protective gear , allowed the boy and his parents to sit side by side on the stretcher , Qian told the blog , adding of the American authorities , “ Their response is very professional , timely and fast !
” Tests sent to Atlanta confirmed Qian was positive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though she had the common flu .
The family was transferred to Cedars ’ flagship on Beverly Boulevard , a celebrity favorite where Kim Kardashian gave birth and Frank Sinatra died .
The blog did not name the hospital , but Qian described it as “ a very famous medical institution ” and photos of an isolation unit posted with the blog entry show personnel in blue-green scrubs such as those worn at Cedars .
Providing top-secret care was second nature at Cedars , and many who worked there were unaware of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the family was installed in a special wing of the fourth-floor pediatric intensive care unit protected by a security guard .
A photo on the blog shows Qian ’ s room decorated with “ Minions ” cartoon characters such as the ones the employee said decorate the walls of Cedars ’ Pediatric Intensive Care Unit .
The family ’ s electronic medical records were designated “ break the glass , ” a classification that dissuades employees from spying on famous patients by requiring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a reason for viewing the records , the employee said .
The employee requested anonymity to speak publicly about patient care .
The Cedars team took aggressive steps to quarantine the hospital ’ s COVID-19 patient , following protocols created for Ebola and other pathogens , said Dr. Jonathan Grein , Cedars ’ director of epidemiology .
The measures were more extreme than in current use for COVID-19 , but at the time , Grein said in an interview , the team was “ kind of looking in the void and not sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And then Qian took a turn for the worse .
Grein described a nerve-racking time , with frequent conference calls arranged by the CDC to consult with the clinicians caring for the 11 other patients scattered across the United States .
Of them , Qian was the most severely ill. “ The information coming out of China was increasingly concerning , ” Grein said .
“ At the time , there was no known treatment.
” For days , the chief medical officer of the CDC ’ s influenza division , Dr. Tim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 patients for an experimental treatment .
Remdesivir was an experimental antiviral drug developed a decade earlier by Gilead Sciences and tested briefly on Ebola victims .
It was not especially effective : Of 175 test candidates , 93 had died — most from Ebola , and one of them potentially from the treatment .
Qian initially experienced only run-of-the-mill flu symptoms that could be treated with pain reliever and cough medicine .
But in the second week , his temperature spiked , his lungs filled with fluid and he struggled to breathe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monitored around the clock .
One night , with his wife and child on the other side of a glass window , he typed out a will on his phone , he told the blog .
Doctors told Qian about the experimental trials with remdesivir , but he was apprehensive , according to the blog .
Twice , he told doctors he didn ’ t want to try it .
Qian ’ s condition remained grave .
As he struggled to breathe , he told the blog , he often thought of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the family had undergone blood tests , clenching his small fist and shouting to his father , “ Dad , you have to hang in there !
” The third time doctors approached him , he agreed to try remdesivir .
An interpreter read him a five-page consent form over the phone , and then the drug was administered intravenously .
After a day , his fever dropped .
Soon , he no longer needed the oxygen .
“ The doctors were amazed , ” he told the blog , adding that one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ due to the medication or his own immune system .
“ I told him I think it was both .
A calm , optimistic attitude also helped.
” Qian ’ s case was included in an encouraging study of remdesivir published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month .
Fifty-three patients hospitalized for the virus were given the drug in various countries .
Seven died .
But 68 % improved .
Despite continued concern of adverse effects , it is so widely used now that hospitals from India to San Francisco @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recovery was thrilling for the medical team , it didn ’ t mean he and his family could go home .
Little was known about how long patients remained contagious .
Grein said officials decided it was safest if he remained in isolation , and after 27 days at Cedars , he was moved to another secret medical facility .
The county kept close tabs on the airport first responders and Cedars employees who had contact with the family , looking for signs of illness .
At the time , it was not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus .
Dr. Howard Chiou , a CDC epidemiologist , recalled being interrupted in the middle of a weekend dinner to help on Qian ’ s case .
Chiou , who is fluent in Mandarin , worked directly with the family to develop a list of places and people for contact tracing .
“ Case investigation and contact tracing is really hard , complicated work that requires building a strong relationship and trust in a very short amount of time , ” Chiou said .
“ This case was a great reminder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in building trust and rapport.
” Public health officials reached out to their Mexican counterparts so the hotel could be made aware of the case .
They also alerted passengers seated near the family on the flight from Mexico City as well as the plane crew .
In the end , no one is known to have been infected by Qian .
Some healthcare workers developed respiratory symptoms , but tests came back negative .
There has been no recurrence of the COVID strain that infected Qian among thousands of samples shared by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ David Engelthaler , the head of the infectious disease arm of Arizona ’ s Translational Genomics Research Institute .
He said that absence suggests Qian did not infect others and was “ a dead end ” for the virus , though he cautioned that testing was limited .
Most people working at Cedars then were not told a COVID patient was in their facility and were not offered testing .
“ I do not think there was spread , ” Balter said .
Public health officials say they believe the precautions Qian took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kept others safe .
“ He was very good about wearing his mask when around [ his family ] and on the plane , ” Balter said .
By mid-February , COVID had crept around the world and was starting to ravage South Korea and Italy , but Qian was still L.A. ’ s only known case .
Worried about the toll the isolation was taking on Qian ’ s wife and son , public health workers bought toys for the boy and worked to make sure the family had food they liked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family that for people to isolate successfully , they need personalized support from health workers .
“ It made a big difference .
It wasn ’ t just that they got good clinical care , ” she said .
Chiou , the CDC epidemiologist , agreed , saying , “ It really helped us to think through the issues that people would face in isolation and quarantine , and especially travelers or people without safe places to stay.
” On March 4 , 42 days after Qian sought help at LAX , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases of COVID-19 .
In retrospect , public officials said , strict limitations on testing and ignorance of the virus ’ asymptomatic spread prevented public health officials from detecting many people already infected .
“ We clearly had other cases , ” Ferrer said .
Qian was still in isolation when the story of his care in the U.S. was published in the Wuhan blog .
Relations between China and the United States were stressed , and worsening .
Some readers were cynical about the story ’ s favorable account of U.S. medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by remdesivir without paying a penny , ” one poster wrote .
“ I highly doubt this article.
” It ’ s unclear whether Qian or the Chinese Consulate , which was kept informed of his case , paid anything .
Cedars and the consulate declined to answer questions about his case , citing patient privacy .
For his part , Qian was appreciative .
“ He did send a very , very grateful thank you note to the department , ” Ferrer said .
Times staff writer Alice Su in Beijing contributed @ @ @ @

Harriet Ryan, Paige St. John, Xinlu Liang

The family arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on the way home from a Mexican vacation that had been short-lived and unpleasant. They had been exhausted, the father was battling a nasty stomach bug, and even before they settled into their Cancun hotel, they got word of the sudden death of the wife’s mother in their hometown: Wuhan, China.
The couple and their toddler son wanted to get back for the funeral and planned to be at LAX just long enough to switch planes. But as they passed through Tom Bradley International Terminal on Jan. 22, the father was overcome with a fever and body aches and approached a customs officer for help.
The family did not make their flight that Wednesday night and, indeed, would not return to China for more than a month. The father, Qian Lang, became the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Los Angeles and the fourth in the United States. He remained the sole patient diagnosed with the virus here for five weeks, passing most of that time in top-secret isolation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
The 38-year-old salesman played an important role, not widely known until now, in a frantic race to understand the deadly new virus before it hit the United States in full force. Public health officials and researchers looked to him as a real-time, flesh-and-blood case study.
Advertisement
From Qian (pronounced Chee-an), they gleaned early insights into the protection of healthcare workers, contact tracing and treatment. He was the second virus patient in the world to take the drug remdesivir, then experimental and now a standard therapy for those seriously ill with COVID-19.
For his family, Qian’s illness and recovery meant a strange and frightening sojourn in California. Though his wife and preschooler son tested negative, they stayed with him at Cedars-Sinai in the closest approximation of a domestic life infection protocols allowed: adjoining isolation suites separated by glass.
“We realized that is a huge burden on that poor woman,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer recalled. “By herself. Didn’t really speak the language. And taking care of a child full time around the clock in basically a very confined space.”
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, at podium, speaks at a news conference with Mayor Eric Garcetti, left, in Los Angeles in March. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
Ferrer and other health professionals said medical privacy laws prevented them from identifying Qian by name or divulging details of his care. But they agreed to talk generally about his case, which has been included in half a dozen prominent research studies. In one, he is called “CA1.” In another, “Patient 9.”
This story is based on those published scientific papers, interviews with public health officials and clinicians, ambulance records, an airport police report that named Qian and his wife, and a February interview he gave to a Chinese news blog, Deeper Wuhan, under a pseudonym.
Advertisement
Qian did not respond to messages left for him on a social media account. The anonymous author of the Wuhan blog article said she reached out to him on behalf of The Times, but he declined an interview request.
::
‘the Husband self-reported to one of their officers that he needs medical attention and may be suffering from flu since he has a bad cough and ... running nose’ — an airport police report
Americans weren’t paying a lot of attention to COVID-19 when Qian landed at LAX. President Trump’s impending impeachment hearing and the upcoming Iowa caucuses dominated the news, and around water coolers in L.A. — and there were still water coolers then — the talk was less likely about the new virus in Wuhan than “Parasite’s” shot at a best picture Oscar or LeBron James’ quest to overtake the still-alive Kobe Bryant on the NBA’s all-time scorers list.
Inside L.A. County’s public health department, however, epidemiologists and other experts were keeping watch for the first inevitable cases. They spoke regularly with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By mid-January, there was enough awareness about the virus in the medical community that doctors were phoning the county with suspected cases.
“There was a lot of flu at the time,” said Dr. Sharon Balter, the county director of acute communicable disease control, recalling hundreds of calls her colleagues received. Many clearly were not COVID-19, she said, but “we anticipated that with a large amount of travel between L.A. and China there would eventually be a case, so we were definitely preparing for it.”
Each suspected patient had to be treated as if infected until test results came back from the CDC lab in Atlanta, the only testing facility at the time. More than once, Balter and her colleagues were convinced they had a bona fide virus patient, only to get a negative result from Georgia.
Advertisement
Ambulance workers move a man on a stretcher from the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., into an ambulance. At the time, the facility was a hotbed of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)
It was the third week in January when COVID-19 was detected on American shores. On Sunday, Jan. 19, a man sought treatment at a Washington state clinic for a cough and fever. He became the first person in the U.S. diagnosed with the virus. One day later, a Chicago woman was hospitalized for pneumonia. She became the second. Orange County got the third case that Wednesday. All three had been in Wuhan shortly before falling ill. All would survive.
Qian was next. He, his wife, Liu Ying, and their son set out from Wuhan early that week for a long-planned Caribbean vacation. They were aware of the virus, but “pretty at ease overall” about it, he later told the blog. The local health commission in Wuhan was reporting only 62 cases and two deaths at the time of their Jan. 19 departure. Health officials there noted that many of the stricken had only mild symptoms, and the city’s top public health doctor told a government news broadcast that “the infectivity of the new coronavirus is not strong.”
Still, Qian, a physician’s son steeped from a young age in safety protocols, took precautions public health officials would later cite as significant. On flights from Wuhan to Mexico City, he wore a mask, one of the few aboard to do so, and blasted the overhead air vents to increase circulation around his family.
Connecting through LAX on their way to Mexico, the couple and their child were screened by the CDC, but displayed no symptoms. Qian told the blog that his temperature was so low that a screener joked, “Are you a vampire?”
Cleaning supervisor Jose Mendoza uses an electrostatic sprayer to disinfect the cabin of a United Airlines 737 jet before passengers are allowed to board at LAX on July 9 in Los Angeles. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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The family planned to spend time in Mexico City before heading on to their Caribbean destination, but they were gripped by fatigue and weakness and Qian contracted giardia, a common parasite that afflicts travelers with diarrhea. The family rarely ventured from the hotel. On the second day, Liu’s father phoned them to say her mother had taken ill with a fever. The next day, he reported that he had summoned an ambulance, but it was too late and she had died.
The family packed their bags and headed back through LAX. After touching down, Qian felt hot and, as he told the blog, “powerless.” Going through customs “the Husband self-reported to one of their officers that he needs medical attention and may be suffering from flu since he has a bad cough and ... running nose,” an airport police sergeant wrote in a report. He noted that the family was “from Wuhan, where the Coronavirus originated.”
The situation in their hometown had become dire in the three days since they’d left. Authorities were reporting hundreds of new cases, and rather than downplaying the threat, officials were preparing to lock down the city of 11 million to stop the virus’ spread.
Told of Qian’s connection to Wuhan, his symptoms and the sudden death of his mother-in-law, CDC personnel at the airport suspected the virus and called for a Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance specially equipped for COVID patients. It took the family to Cedars-Sinai’s Marina del Rey hospital.
‘The information coming out of China was increasingly concerning. At the time, there was no known treatment.’ — Dr. Jonathan Grein, Cedars’ director of epidemiology
The crew, dressed head-to-toe in protective gear, allowed the boy and his parents to sit side by side on the stretcher, Qian told the blog, adding of the American authorities, “Their response is very professional, timely and fast!”
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Tests sent to Atlanta confirmed Qian was positive and Liu and their son were negative, though she had the common flu. The family was transferred to Cedars’ flagship on Beverly Boulevard, a celebrity favorite where Kim Kardashian gave birth and Frank Sinatra died. The blog did not name the hospital, but Qian described it as “a very famous medical institution” and photos of an isolation unit posted with the blog entry show personnel in blue-green scrubs such as those worn at Cedars.
Providing top-secret care was second nature at Cedars, and many who worked there were unaware of the presence of a COVID patient. One employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the family was installed in a special wing of the fourth-floor pediatric intensive care unit protected by a security guard. A photo on the blog shows Qian’s room decorated with “Minions” cartoon characters such as the ones the employee said decorate the walls of Cedars’ Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
The family’s electronic medical records were designated “break the glass,” a classification that dissuades employees from spying on famous patients by requiring them to reenter their password and state a reason for viewing the records, the employee said. The employee requested anonymity to speak publicly about patient care.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
The Cedars team took aggressive steps to quarantine the hospital’s COVID-19 patient, following protocols created for Ebola and other pathogens, said Dr. Jonathan Grein, Cedars’ director of epidemiology. The measures were more extreme than in current use for COVID-19, but at the time, Grein said in an interview, the team was “kind of looking in the void and not sure what’s going to happen.”
And then Qian took a turn for the worse.
Grein described a nerve-racking time, with frequent conference calls arranged by the CDC to consult with the clinicians caring for the 11 other patients scattered across the United States. Of them, Qian was the most severely ill.
“The information coming out of China was increasingly concerning,” Grein said. “At the time, there was no known treatment.”
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For days, the chief medical officer of the CDC’s influenza division, Dr. Tim Uyeki, had been trying to recruit COVID-19 patients for an experimental treatment. Remdesivir was an experimental antiviral drug developed a decade earlier by Gilead Sciences and tested briefly on Ebola victims. It was not especially effective: Of 175 test candidates, 93 had died — most from Ebola, and one of them potentially from the treatment.
Qian initially experienced only run-of-the-mill flu symptoms that could be treated with pain reliever and cough medicine. But in the second week, his temperature spiked, his lungs filled with fluid and he struggled to breathe. He was placed on oxygen and monitored around the clock. One night, with his wife and child on the other side of a glass window, he typed out a will on his phone, he told the blog.
Doctors told Qian about the experimental trials with remdesivir, but he was apprehensive, according to the blog. Twice, he told doctors he didn’t want to try it.
Qian’s condition remained grave. As he struggled to breathe, he told the blog, he often thought of the bravery his young son had shown when the family had undergone blood tests, clenching his small fist and shouting to his father, “Dad, you have to hang in there!”
The third time doctors approached him, he agreed to try remdesivir. An interpreter read him a five-page consent form over the phone, and then the drug was administered intravenously.
After a day, his fever dropped. Soon, he no longer needed the oxygen.
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“The doctors were amazed,” he told the blog, adding that one asked if he felt his recovery was due to the medication or his own immune system. “I told him I think it was both. A calm, optimistic attitude also helped.”
Qian’s case was included in an encouraging study of remdesivir published in the New England Journal of Medicine last month. Fifty-three patients hospitalized for the virus were given the drug in various countries. Seven died. But 68% improved.
Despite continued concern of adverse effects, it is so widely used now that hospitals from India to San Francisco report shortages.
A vial of the drug remdesivir is shown at a news conference about the start of a study in Hamburg, Germany, in April. (Ulrich Perrey / AFP / Getty Images)
While Qian’s recovery was thrilling for the medical team, it didn’t mean he and his family could go home. Little was known about how long patients remained contagious. Grein said officials decided it was safest if he remained in isolation, and after 27 days at Cedars, he was moved to another secret medical facility.
The county kept close tabs on the airport first responders and Cedars employees who had contact with the family, looking for signs of illness. At the time, it was not yet known that asymptomatic people could spread the virus.
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Dr. Howard Chiou, a CDC epidemiologist, recalled being interrupted in the middle of a weekend dinner to help on Qian’s case. Chiou, who is fluent in Mandarin, worked directly with the family to develop a list of places and people for contact tracing.
“Case investigation and contact tracing is really hard, complicated work that requires building a strong relationship and trust in a very short amount of time,” Chiou said. “This case was a great reminder that language and cultural skills are critical in building trust and rapport.”
Public health officials reached out to their Mexican counterparts so the hotel could be made aware of the case. They also alerted passengers seated near the family on the flight from Mexico City as well as the plane crew.
In the end, no one is known to have been infected by Qian. Some healthcare workers developed respiratory symptoms, but tests came back negative.
‘It really helped us to think through the issues that people would face in isolation and quarantine, and especially travelers or people without safe places to stay.’ — CDC epidemiologist Dr. Howard Chiou
There has been no recurrence of the COVID strain that infected Qian among thousands of samples shared by researchers around the world, said epidemiologist David Engelthaler, the head of the infectious disease arm of Arizona’s Translational Genomics Research Institute. He said that absence suggests Qian did not infect others and was “a dead end” for the virus, though he cautioned that testing was limited. Most people working at Cedars then were not told a COVID patient was in their facility and were not offered testing.
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“I do not think there was spread,” Balter said. Public health officials say they believe the precautions Qian took while traveling and his request for help kept others safe.
“He was very good about wearing his mask when around [his family] and on the plane,” Balter said.
By mid-February, COVID had crept around the world and was starting to ravage South Korea and Italy, but Qian was still L.A.’s only known case. Worried about the toll the isolation was taking on Qian’s wife and son, public health workers bought toys for the boy and worked to make sure the family had food they liked.
Ferrer said they learned from the family that for people to isolate successfully, they need personalized support from health workers.
“It made a big difference. It wasn’t just that they got good clinical care,” she said.
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Chiou, the CDC epidemiologist, agreed, saying, “It really helped us to think through the issues that people would face in isolation and quarantine, and especially travelers or people without safe places to stay.”
On March 4, 42 days after Qian sought help at LAX, the county announced it had identified six more cases of COVID-19. In retrospect, public officials said, strict limitations on testing and ignorance of the virus’ asymptomatic spread prevented public health officials from detecting many people already infected.
“We clearly had other cases,” Ferrer said.
Qian was still in isolation when the story of his care in the U.S. was published in the Wuhan blog. Relations between China and the United States were stressed, and worsening. Some readers were cynical about the story’s favorable account of U.S. medical care.
An air traveler waits to leave for China in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on May 11. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
“This person was cured by remdesivir without paying a penny,” one poster wrote. “I highly doubt this article.”
It’s unclear whether Qian or the Chinese Consulate, which was kept informed of his case, paid anything. Cedars and the consulate declined to answer questions about his case, citing patient privacy.
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For his part, Qian was appreciative.
“He did send a very, very grateful thank you note to the department,” Ferrer said.
Times staff writer Alice Su in Beijing contributed to this report.