latimes--2020-08-19--When the pandemic hit, 26 new city homeless shelters opened. Only seven are left

As the summer heat crested in the late afternoon Monday , Royal Fahrner left the Pan Pacific Park recreation center with a large plastic bag and her backpack .
A long bus ride downtown to a storage facility was in her future .
The rec-center-turned-homeless-shelter , where she had been staying for several months , was scheduled to close Tuesday .
So she was getting ready to move to the Westwood Recreation Center along with 42 other people .
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began , she has shuttled among several shelters in Los Angeles city recreation centers .
Some legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the county , and since she had nowhere else to stay , Fahrner said these shelters had been a lifeline — and a salvation from staying on the streets .
“ It ’ s surprising .
Everyone thinks it ’ s going to be terrible , but it ’ s been pretty great , ” she said through a yellow mask with a tongue sticking out on it .
“ The community has been really nice.
” After The Times began inquiring about why this shelter was closing , a spokesman for Mayor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city had reversed course , and it would remain open .
Still as temperatures reach record levels in California , activists and homeless Angelenos are wondering why more Park Department gyms and recreation centers aren ’ t being used to get people off the streets .
When the pandemic began earlier this year , the city quickly opened up more than two dozen of these facilities to homeless people as it worked with the county to lease hotel rooms through a statewide program , Project Roomkey .
Garcetti said this effort would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at its peak in mid-May , when there were 26 parks and recreation facilities being used , their total sleeping capacity was only about 1,000 , according to data provided to an L.A. City Council office and shared with The Times .
On May 13 , 860 of the beds were occupied .
Now there are just seven sites open , including the Pan Pacific Park location , with a total of 166 available beds .
About 140 beds are occupied .
Local activists say the closures came too early , when the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We are in the middle of a viral pandemic , ” said Emily Kantrim of the Midtown Los Angeles Homeless Coalition .
“ This pulls people away from the medical care and support they were getting .
“ On May 12 , these shelters stopped taking new admissions , according to Los Angeles Homeless Services Agency ( LAHSA ) Executive Director Heidi Marston .
The city had previously said that it wanted to return these facilities to their original use by September .
Marston said her team has been working with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these sites into permanent housing or into hotel rooms through Project Roomkey .
“ The response [ from the mayor ’ s office ] that we have received is that these were always intended to be temporary programs , so let ’ s start to sunset them and let ’ s also do everything we can to be compliant with public health guidance , ” Marston said .
Comisar , the Garcetti spokesman , said : “ We ’ re consolidating sites and resources to make it easier for LAHSA and service providers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ housing.
” At first , Marston said there was a lot of concern about moving people into congregate settings like this and there have been coronavirus outbreaks in several of the shelters .
Since it opened , there have been eight confirmed cases of COVID-19 among the Pan Pacific Park shelter ’ s staff and residents .
There have been no deaths .
Joseph Manko and a friend who offered only his initials , N.N.
, sat on a park bench outside the shelter in the shade smoking cigarettes and chatting .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , within weeks of arriving , were forced to stay inside and isolate after a resident tested positive .
Manko , who had a stroke that left him struggling to use his left hand , had been living in a hotel but quickly ran out of money .
The bills for his healthcare piled up , and he moved into this shelter .
Manko and N.N .
said the staff had been very attentive and caring during a tough time .
Marston said concerns about social distancing remain , but it would still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open because it would mean fewer people on the streets .
At the beginning , the city and county and LAHSA were trying to build up a larger capacity of hotel rooms available .
Now that that ’ s in place , even though it ’ s less than desired , she said it would still be good to keep these facilities available .
“ Any option that we can have to offer folks is a valuable one as long as we ’ re maintaining social distancing , ” Marston said .
Amid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in downtown Los Angeles hovering near 100 degrees , six of the recreation centers have been turned into cooling centers for people who had no place to beat the heat .
But Genevieve Liang , a board member of the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition , which serves seven neighborhoods northeast of downtown , said the number of cooling centers is woefully inadequate and that the public has had to step up by making sandwiches and bringing ice water for people on the streets .
“ Where is the infrastructure the city is supposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of capacity and planning .
And where are these folks going to go ?
” Local outreach workers and activists such as Liang said that they felt in the dark about why these facilities had been closing as shelters and left to worry where homeless people would end up .
“ The only thing we heard early on was [ Deputy Mayor for Homelessness ] Christina Miller said the recreation centers have to go back to their original use , ” said Kantrim , noting that a large encampment sprang up around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cole Avenue shut down .
Miller recently announced her resignation , effective at the end of the month .
Kantrim said the use of this facility had been successful .
Giving homeless people the opportunity to stay indoors allowed them to stabilize and clean up after the trauma of the street , she said .
“ There is no reason for it to go .
There is no answer from our elected officials about what is the strategy , ” she said .
Arnali Ray , chief of strategy and programs officer at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agency has been going into Pan Pacific Park to link people staying there to medical care — and that often started with a shower and some food .
“ They ’ re hungry , thirsty and dehydrated .
It ’ s not great during a pandemic to be unhealthy , ” she said .
“ We ’ ve been going around in circles , not sure who has the plan , what is the plan ?
It seems to me no one has an answer , which leads me to believe there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rush to get the recreation and park centers back ?
” Back in the park , a man staying in the shelter sat in the shade cleaning out a pipe and waiting for his friend to return with cigarettes .
He declined to give his name but said he had been staying on the streets in South Los Angeles before this .
The shelter was safe and secure , he said , because the police kept a close eye and there were a nurse and staffers from the Department of Mental Health on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no surprise the shelter would be closing soon .
“ Rich people want their park back , ” he said .
“ You can ’ t blame them for that .
”

As the summer heat crested in the late afternoon Monday, Royal Fahrner left the Pan Pacific Park recreation center with a large plastic bag and her backpack.
A long bus ride downtown to a storage facility was in her future. The rec-center-turned-homeless-shelter, where she had been staying for several months, was scheduled to close Tuesday. So she was getting ready to move to the Westwood Recreation Center along with 42 other people.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, she has shuttled among several shelters in Los Angeles city recreation centers. Some legal trouble meant she couldn’t leave the county, and since she had nowhere else to stay, Fahrner said these shelters had been a lifeline — and a salvation from staying on the streets.
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“It’s surprising. Everyone thinks it’s going to be terrible, but it’s been pretty great,” she said through a yellow mask with a tongue sticking out on it. “The community has been really nice.”
After The Times began inquiring about why this shelter was closing, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Garcetti, Alex Comisar, said the city had reversed course, and it would remain open.
Still as temperatures reach record levels in California, activists and homeless Angelenos are wondering why more Park Department gyms and recreation centers aren’t being used to get people off the streets. When the pandemic began earlier this year, the city quickly opened up more than two dozen of these facilities to homeless people as it worked with the county to lease hotel rooms through a statewide program, Project Roomkey.
Garcetti said this effort would shelter as many as 6,000 people but at its peak in mid-May, when there were 26 parks and recreation facilities being used, their total sleeping capacity was only about 1,000, according to data provided to an L.A. City Council office and shared with The Times. On May 13, 860 of the beds were occupied.
Now there are just seven sites open, including the Pan Pacific Park location, with a total of 166 available beds. About 140 beds are occupied. Local activists say the closures came too early, when the need for emergency shelter is still great.
“We are in the middle of a viral pandemic,” said Emily Kantrim of the Midtown Los Angeles Homeless Coalition. “This pulls people away from the medical care and support they were getting. “
On May 12, these shelters stopped taking new admissions, according to Los Angeles Homeless Services Agency (LAHSA) Executive Director Heidi Marston. The city had previously said that it wanted to return these facilities to their original use by September.
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California L.A. falls far short of COVID-19 promise to house 15,000 homeless people in hotels An ambitious Los Angeles County plan to lease hotel and motel rooms for 15,000 medically vulnerable homeless people is falling far short of its goal and may never provide rooms for more than a third of the intended population.
Marston said her team has been working with service providers to get people staying in these sites into permanent housing or into hotel rooms through Project Roomkey.
“The response [from the mayor’s office] that we have received is that these were always intended to be temporary programs, so let’s start to sunset them and let’s also do everything we can to be compliant with public health guidance,” Marston said.
Comisar, the Garcetti spokesman, said: “We’re consolidating sites and resources to make it easier for LAHSA and service providers to prioritize placements in longer-term shelter and housing.”
At first, Marston said there was a lot of concern about moving people into congregate settings like this and there have been coronavirus outbreaks in several of the shelters. Since it opened, there have been eight confirmed cases of COVID-19 among the Pan Pacific Park shelter’s staff and residents. There have been no deaths.
Echo Park Community Center guards anticipate arrivals from Skid Row and other areas in March. This shelter has since closed. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Joseph Manko and a friend who offered only his initials, N.N., sat on a park bench outside the shelter in the shade smoking cigarettes and chatting. They both have been here since April and, within weeks of arriving, were forced to stay inside and isolate after a resident tested positive.
Manko, who had a stroke that left him struggling to use his left hand, had been living in a hotel but quickly ran out of money. The bills for his healthcare piled up, and he moved into this shelter.
Manko and N.N. said the staff had been very attentive and caring during a tough time.
“They handled it well,” N.N. said.
Marston said concerns about social distancing remain, but it would still be useful to have the recreation sites open because it would mean fewer people on the streets. At the beginning, the city and county and LAHSA were trying to build up a larger capacity of hotel rooms available. Now that that’s in place, even though it’s less than desired, she said it would still be good to keep these facilities available.
“Any option that we can have to offer folks is a valuable one as long as we’re maintaining social distancing,” Marston said.
Amid a brutal heat wave, with temperatures in downtown Los Angeles hovering near 100 degrees, six of the recreation centers have been turned into cooling centers for people who had no place to beat the heat. But Genevieve Liang, a board member of the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, which serves seven neighborhoods northeast of downtown, said the number of cooling centers is woefully inadequate and that the public has had to step up by making sandwiches and bringing ice water for people on the streets.
“Where is the infrastructure the city is supposed to provide? There is a lack of capacity and planning. And where are these folks going to go?”
Local outreach workers and activists such as Liang said that they felt in the dark about why these facilities had been closing as shelters and left to worry where homeless people would end up.
“The only thing we heard early on was [Deputy Mayor for Homelessness] Christina Miller said the recreation centers have to go back to their original use,” said Kantrim, noting that a large encampment sprang up around the corner when the Hollywood Recreation Center on Cole Avenue shut down. Miller recently announced her resignation, effective at the end of the month.
Kantrim said the use of this facility had been successful. Giving homeless people the opportunity to stay indoors allowed them to stabilize and clean up after the trauma of the street, she said.
“There is no reason for it to go. There is no answer from our elected officials about what is the strategy,” she said.
Arnali Ray, chief of strategy and programs officer at the Saban Community Clinic, said her agency has been going into Pan Pacific Park to link people staying there to medical care — and that often started with a shower and some food.
“They’re hungry, thirsty and dehydrated. It’s not great during a pandemic to be unhealthy,” she said. “We’ve been going around in circles, not sure who has the plan, what is the plan? It seems to me no one has an answer, which leads me to believe there is no real plan. What is the rush to get the recreation and park centers back?”
Back in the park, a man staying in the shelter sat in the shade cleaning out a pipe and waiting for his friend to return with cigarettes. He declined to give his name but said he had been staying on the streets in South Los Angeles before this. The shelter was safe and secure, he said, because the police kept a close eye and there were a nurse and staffers from the Department of Mental Health on site.
For him, it was no surprise the shelter would be closing soon.
“Rich people want their park back,” he said. “You can’t blame them for that.”


latimes--2020-08-19--'Why is this happening to us?': Coronavirus takes a toll on Latinos and funeral homes

Under a large canopy in the parking lot of the Continental Funeral Home in East Los Angeles , more than two dozen folding chairs carefully placed several feet apart faced the cherry wood casket of 59-year-old Felipe Juarez .
Juarez died of COVID-19 last month , four days after the same disease killed his younger brother .
And a month after it took the life of his sister in Mexico .
After such an unspeakable series of losses , the family felt forced to settle for a funeral that was nothing if not surreal .
Family members had gathered to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a passing ice cream truck and the noise of rush hour traffic on Beverly Boulevard .
Philip Juarez , 31 , felt like he was disrespecting his father , but knew the pandemic left the family no choice .
Still , he said , “ it ’ s hard to accept.
” The novel coronavirus has ravaged California ’ s Latino communities in relentless ways , with many people who are front-line workers catching COVID-19 and then spreading the disease to family and neighbors .
This grim cycle of illness and death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Mortuaries that serve Latino communities have been overwhelmed by families in need of help since March , with bodies in some cases stacking up as operators tried to improvise funerals that previously might have drawn extended family and mourners from far and wide .
The Juarez family was relatively fortunate because it was able to hold a small service outdoors .
Earlier in the pandemic , some people had to beg health officials to allow them to have funerals for their parents .
“ It ’ s been so difficult for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director of the funeral home .
“ They have been unable to express their condolences properly or participate in service.
” In California , Latinos make up 39 % of the state ’ s population but account for its 59 % of COVID-19 infections and 47 % of deaths , according to the Immigrants have been particularly hard-hit economically amid the pandemic , with many losing their jobs and facing financial collapse .
Maldonado sees these hardships at her funeral home .
Most of her clients are immigrants from Mexico and Central America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devoted to transporting bodies to their homelands because it ’ s less expensive to bury loved ones there .
When the coronavirus outbreak hit , a flood of bodies was sent to Maldonado ’ s funeral home .
The cold storage could hold only up to 25 at a time .
“ We were dealing with 35 to 40 bodies at one point in the month of March , ” she said .
To handle the overflow , she rented a small refrigerated storage container for $ 1,900 a month , which increased @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about 55 bodies .
It also helped separate the bodies of people who died of complications from COVID-19 from those who died of other causes .
She said capacity problems had more to do with the shutdowns .
Required paperwork from state and county offices that once took a few days was taking weeks .
The process to send a body back to Mexico stretched from a previous 10 days to two months .
Cremations that once took a day now had to be made by appointments .
“ It really caught us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Local governments didn ’ t know how to really manage this kind of emergency , and I don ’ t think anyone thought about all these other funeral problems we ’ d have.
” The pandemic has increased operating costs for Maldonado , which in turn hurts the families she ’ s been trying to serve .
The cost of transporting a body to Michoacan , Mexico , for example could grow to $ 4,200 ; in the past she could shave off about $ 1,500 if the family could not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she has reserved those discounts for only the neediest of families or consulates that are assisting people .
But the biggest challenge facing funeral homes is basic : How to give families a chance to mourn loved ones while keeping those who attend the funerals from getting sick .
Bob Achermann , executive director of the California Funeral Directors Assn.
, said funeral homes were relying on guidance from the state — but it became confusing to follow at times .
“ The rules were sometimes changing from week to week , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ When there were services , only 25 % of the space could be occupied and that you were social distancing.
” “ How do you not hug ?
How do you not touch during , you know , those those times of grief ?
” he added .
Several minutes before the Juarez family arrived , past rows of empty pews inside the Continental Funeral Home chapel , 40-year-old Iris Martinez stood three feet from her father ’ s casket .
“ Daddy !
” she cried out , placing her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Her best friend stood next to her , wrapping an arm around her for comfort .
In the casket , Rafael Martinez , who was 60 when he died , wore a Club America soccer jersey he received as a Christmas gift last year .
Her father ’ s death had been the nadir of a chain of hard months for Iris Martinez .
She had lost her job as a paralegal in February .
The following month , she contracted COVID-19 .
In June , her husband was laid off from his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ During this brutal period , three of her relatives died of COVID-19 — in Maryland , Oregon and Washington , D.C .
Meanwhile , her rent and bills — totaling $ 2,500 a month — piled up .
Martinez had to dip into the savings account she had set up to help pay for her teenage daughter ’ s college education .
Her 19-year-old daughter has been working at Target and is helping the family with bills .
“ That hit our hearts .
It hurts that we have to put a stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I feel broken.
” Her father was not accustomed to not providing for his family .
He had come from El Salvador to escape the civil war in his country during the 1980s .
He worked as a mechanic at a body shop until he was able to get green cards for his family .
Eventually , he worked and saved to own a body shop in Long Beach , but lost the business when his diabetes worsened .
Late last year , his feet were amputated .
Then last month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coughing and struggling to breathe .
On the phone he told his daughter he was going to get tested for COVID-19 .
“ He said : I love you and take care and take care of your mom , ” Iris Martinez said .
“ Those were the last words .
I was lucky enough to talk to him before he died.
” On July 21 , after being hooked up to a breathing machine , Rafael Martinez died as a result of complications from diabetes .
The test results showed he was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he died as a result of the virus or not — in death it did not matter .
His death unleashed the same chain reaction of heartaches and complications that many families are struggling with .
“ Sometimes I feel depressed because I ’ m like : what ’ s going on ?
” Iris Martinez said .
“ Why is all this happening ?
What ’ s happening to us ?
Why did this happen to us ?
“ She turned to friends and family to raise money to cremate her father @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somewhere between $ 7,000 to $ 9,000 .
Then she came across Continental Funeral Home , which offered to cremate the body for $ 3,500 .
Martinez said some funerals needed payment within 72 hours , but Continental gave her two weeks to come up with the money .
She said she raised about $ 6,000 .
“ The whole process has been devastating for me and my family , ” she said .
“ I feel that for us to heal , it ’ s going to be longer with all this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ p.m. on Aug. 5 when the Juarez family began making its way into the parking lot .
The family members sat in chairs , wearing masks ; some wore latex gloves .
A small table was set up for refreshments .
The casket sat open with a basket of red roses and sunflowers .
A small red ribbon read in Spanish : My beloved husband .
The most Rev .
Angel Velandia led everyone in a prayer before beginning his sermon .
He had just been with the family members a week ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Felipe ’ s brother , 55-year-old Medardo Juarez .
Now , he told the mourners , for the first time in his 17 years in Los Angeles , he was holding a Mass for a funeral service outdoors .
“ There are certain things in life we can ’ t make sense of , ” he said .
“ Even if we could make sense of things , we will never get back our brother , Felipe.
” By the end of the service , some family members dropped their guard against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
They hugged and stood near each other as they viewed the body that lay under an acrylic partition designed to protect them against an infection that could take even more .

Under a large canopy in the parking lot of the Continental Funeral Home in East Los Angeles, more than two dozen folding chairs carefully placed several feet apart faced the cherrywood casket of 59-year-old Felipe Juarez.
Juarez died of COVID-19 last month, four days after the same disease killed his younger brother. And a month after it took the life of his sister in Mexico.
After such an unspeakable series of losses, the family felt forced to settle for a funeral that was nothing if not surreal. Family members had gathered to say their goodbyes amid the melodic chime of a passing ice cream truck and the noise of rush hour traffic on Beverly Boulevard.
Philip Juarez, 31, felt like he was disrespecting his father, but he knew the pandemic left the family no choice. Still, he said, “it’s hard to accept.”
An outdoor service for Felipe Juarez at the Continental Funeral Home in East Los Angeles. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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The novel coronavirus has ravaged California’s Latino communities, with many people who are front-line workers catching COVID-19 and then spreading the disease to family and neighbors.
This grim cycle of illness and death ends at places like Continental Funeral Home. Mortuaries that serve Latino communities have been overwhelmed by families in need of help since March, with bodies in some cases stacking up as operators tried to improvise funerals that previously might have drawn extended family and mourners from far and wide.
Mourners at the funeral of Felipe Juarez, who died of COVID-19 last month. The disease also killed his brother and sister. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The Juarez family was relatively fortunate because it was able to hold a small service outdoors. Earlier in the pandemic, some people had to beg health officials to allow them to have funerals for their parents.
“It’s been so difficult for the families,” said Magda Maldonado, director of the funeral home. “They have been unable to express their condolences properly or participate in service.”
Iris Martinez weeps as she stands at the casket of her father, Rafael Martinez, while her friend Grace Salgado comforts her. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
In California, Latinos make up 39% of the state’s population but account for 59% of COVID-19 infections and 47% of deaths, according to the state Department of Public Health. Immigrants have been particularly hard-hit economically amid the pandemic, with many losing their jobs and facing financial collapse.
Maldonado sees these hardships at her funeral home. Most of her clients are immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and 60% of her business is devoted to transporting bodies to their homelands because it’s less expensive to bury loved ones there.
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The casket for Felipe Juarez is loaded onto a hearse after the memorial service at Continental Funeral Home. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
When the coronavirus outbreak hit, a flood of bodies was sent to Maldonado’s funeral home. The cold storage could hold only up to 25 at a time.
“We were dealing with 35 to 40 bodies at one point in the month of March,” she said.
To handle the overflow, she rented a small refrigerated storage container for $1,900 a month, which increased the funeral home’s capacity to about 55 bodies. It also helped separate the bodies of people who died of complications from COVID-19 from those who died of other causes.
Mortuaries that serve Latino communities like Continental Funeral Home have been overwhelmed since the start of the pandemic, with bodies stacking up. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
She said capacity problems had more to do with the shutdowns. Required paperwork from state and county offices that once took a few days was taking weeks. The process to send a body back to Mexico stretched from a previous 10 days to two months. Cremations that once took a day now had to be made by appointments.
Advertisement
“It really caught us all off guard,” Maldonado said. “Local governments didn’t know how to really manage this kind of emergency, and I don’t think anyone thought about all these other funeral problems we’d have.”
The pandemic has increased operating costs for Maldonado, which in turn hurts the families she’s been trying to serve. The cost of transporting a body to Michoacan, Mexico, for example could grow to $4,200; in the past she could shave off about $1,500 if the family could not pay the full amount. But now, she has reserved those discounts for only the neediest of families or consulates that are assisting people.
But the biggest challenge facing funeral homes is basic: How to give families a chance to mourn loved ones while keeping those who attend the funerals from getting sick.
Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Assn., said funeral homes were relying on guidance from the state — but it became confusing to follow at times.
“The rules were sometimes changing from week to week, location to location,” he said. “When there were services, only 25% of the space could be occupied and that you were social distancing.”
“How do you not hug? How do you not touch during, you know, those those times of grief?” he added.
Advertisement
A sign reminds people to stay six feet apart at the Continental Funeral Home. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Several minutes before the Juarez family arrived, past rows of empty pews inside the Continental Funeral Home chapel, 40-year-old Iris Martinez stood three feet from her father’s casket.
“Daddy!” she cried out, placing her hand over her Mickey Mouse mask.
Iris Martinez says goodbye to her father. “He said: I love you and take care and take care of your mom,” she said. “Those were the last words. I was lucky enough to talk to him before he died.” (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Her best friend stood next to her, wrapping an arm around her for comfort.
In the casket, Rafael Martinez, who was 60 when he died, wore a Club America soccer jersey he received as a Christmas gift last year.
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Continental Funeral Home attendant Miguel Peralta prepares to move the casket containing the body of Rafael Martinez. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Her father’s death had been the nadir of a chain of hard months for Iris Martinez. She had lost her job as a paralegal in February. The following month, she contracted COVID-19. In June, her husband was laid off from his job at a cardboard box manufacturer.
During this brutal period, three of her relatives died of COVID-19 — in Maryland, Oregon and Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, her rent and bills — totaling $2,500 a month — piled up. Martinez had to dip into the savings account she had set up to help pay for her teenage daughter’s college education.
Continental Funeral Home attendants prepare to move a body after its final viewing. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Her 19-year-old daughter has been working at Target and is helping the family with bills.
“That hit our hearts. It hurts that we have to put a stop to her dreams,” Martinez said. “I feel broken.”
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Her father was not accustomed to not providing for his family. He had come from El Salvador to escape the civil war in his country during the 1980s. He worked as a mechanic at a body shop until he was able to get green cards for his family. Eventually, he worked and saved to own a body shop in Long Beach, but lost the business when his diabetes worsened. Late last year, his feet were amputated.
Then last month he found himself at the hospital, coughing and struggling to breathe. On the phone he told his daughter he was going to get tested for COVID-19.
New coffins are delivered as demand grows at the Continental Funeral Home. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“He said: I love you and take care and take care of your mom,” Iris Martinez said. “Those were the last words. I was lucky enough to talk to him before he died.”
On July 21, after being hooked up to a breathing machine, Rafael Martinez died as a result of complications from diabetes. The test results showed he was not infected with COVID-19. But whether he died as a result of the virus or not — in death it did not matter. His death unleashed the same chain reaction of heartaches and complications that many families are struggling with.
“Sometimes I feel depressed because I’m like: what’s going on?” Iris Martinez said. “Why is all this happening? What’s happening to us? Why did this happen to us?“
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She turned to friends and family to raise money to cremate her father. She said the average cost was somewhere between $7,000 to $9,000. Then she came across Continental Funeral Home, which offered to cremate the body for $3,500.
Martinez said some funerals needed payment within 72 hours, but Continental gave her two weeks to come up with the money. She said she raised about $6,000.
A body is being delivered to Volaris Airlines for shipment back to Mexico. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“The whole process has been devastating for me and my family,” she said. “I feel that for us to heal, it’s going to be longer with all this going on.”
It was around 5 p.m. on Aug. 5 when the Juarez family began making its way into the parking lot. The family members sat in chairs, wearing masks; some wore latex gloves. A small table was set up for refreshments.
The casket sat open with a basket of red roses and sunflowers. A small red ribbon read in Spanish: My beloved husband.
Advertisement
The most Rev. Angel Velandia led everyone in a prayer before beginning his sermon. He had just been with the family members a week ago when they held a funeral service for Felipe’s brother, 55-year-old Medardo Juarez. Now, he told the mourners, for the first time in his 17 years in Los Angeles, he was holding a Mass for a funeral service outdoors.
The cost to ship bodies to Mexico has increased during the pandemic. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“There are certain things in life we can’t make sense of,” he said. “Even if we could make sense of things, we will never get back our brother, Felipe.”
By the end of the service, some family members dropped their guard against the virus that had taken so much from them.
They hugged and stood near each other as they viewed the body that lay under an acrylic partition designed to protect them against an infection that could take even more.
Mario Flores views the body of his godfather, Felipe Juarez, at Continental Funeral Home in East Los Angeles. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)


latimes--2020-08-19--Nearly 11,000 lightning strikes spark over 350 California fires, forcing thousands to flee

A series of fast-moving fires in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California — many caused by intense lightning storms — exploded overnight , burning homes and causing thousands to flee .
The newest fires stretched from wine country to the Santa Cruz Mountains , moving with ferocious speed amid an intense heat wave that also has brought rolling blackouts .
Smoke from the fires has caused terrible air quality across the region .
Many of the fires were believed to have been caused by lightning strikes .
Northern and Central California began experiencing an unusually active @ @ @ @ @ @ @ morning , the most widespread and violent in recent memory in the Bay Area on one of the hottest nights in years , according to Daniel Swain , a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research .
Over the last 72 hours , there have been some 10,849 lightning strikes throughout California , state officials said .
As of Wednesday afternoon , 367 major fires were burning statewide , according to Gov .
Gavin Newsom .
“ This fire season has been very active and , not surprisingly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of counties up and down the state , ” he said during a news briefing .
At this time last year , crews had responded to a total of 4,007 fires throughout the state , Newsom said .
They ’ ve already been dispatched to 6,754 this year .
More than 300,000 acres have burned statewide in 2020 , according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection .
By comparison , California wildfires charred about 270,000 acres in 2019 , the smallest number since 2011 .
The rapid outbreak of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s firefighting resources to their limit .
Jeremy Rahn , the lead Cal Fire public information officer for the LNU Lightning Complex fire , said Wednesday that the state had already requested 375 additional fire engines as well as additional hand crews from out-of-state agencies , and hired “ nearly all available private firefighting ‘ call when needed ’ aircraft in the western United States.
” “ The size and complexity at which these incidents are burning is challenging all aspects of emergency response , ” he said during a media briefing Wednesday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new fires continue to ignite.
” Newsom , however , expressed confidence that California is prepared to rise to the challenge and thanked the leaders of other states — including Arizona , Nevada and Texas — for their pledges to send additional resources .
California is “ putting everything we have on these fires , ” he said , and “ we ’ re now getting the support of some of our partners in the Western United States , and for that , again , we ’ re very grateful.
” The LNU @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than 46,000 acres , is composed of at least three major zones in Napa , Sonoma , Solano , Yolo and Lake counties .
The most serious fire in the complex appears to be the Hennessey fire , which began Monday morning on the eastern edge of Lake Hennessey in Napa County and marched into Solano and Yolo counties Wednesday morning , forcing residents to flee overnight and burning homes and other structures .
As of Wednesday morning , 50 structures had been destroyed , 50 more had been damaged and 1,900 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Officials have ordered the evacuation of the western edge of Vacaville — a city of 100,000 residents about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento .
The Vacaville Fire District also ordered evacuations of Pleasants Valley Road , which lies west of the city , and the English Hills and Gibson Canyon Road areas north of the city .
A KPIX-TV reporter tweeted a video of a home burning off Pleasants Valley Road .
The fire was also forcing the evacuations of some northern neighborhoods in the city of Fairfield west of Interstate 80 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jumped Interstate 80 , forcing it to shut down in both directions between Manuel Campos Parkway in Fairfield to Lagoon Valley Road in Vacaville , the California Highway Patrol said .
Evacuation orders and warnings were also issued for a stretch of Highway 121 in the Vaca Mountains northeast of the city of Napa , and in the mountains about eight miles northeast of St. Helena .
A second grouping of fires in the LNU Lightning Complex is north of Lake Berryessa , burning in northern Napa and southern Lake counties .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Morgan , Spanish and Green fires .
Officials Wednesday afternoon ordered evacuations for Lake County residents living around Hidden Valley Lake and Jerusalem Valley .
The third group of fires is in Sonoma County and has triggered evacuation warnings on both sides of the Russian River .
The Walbridge fire was burning north of Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve and the community of Guerneville on the Russian River .
South of the Russian River , evacuation warnings were issued as a result of the Meyers fire .
Vegetation throughout the area is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ severe drought , according to Cal Fire .
Officials said the Wallbridge and Meyers fires were likely to push southeast Wednesday as they burned through timber and the coastal forests ’ understory .
The complex ’ s northern fires — the Gamble , Green , Morgan and Spanish — were burning through brush and oak woodland and heading south toward Mount Vaca .
The Hennessey and Markley fires southwest of Lake Berryessa were moving toward Yountville and Oakville , pushed by winds going downslope over ridgetops .
Should those fires continues their march @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burn scars of the 2017 Atlas fire , one of several that tore through California ’ s wine country that year .
Burn scars from recent fires can make a significant difference in how a fire behaves .
Earlier this month , crews in Southern California caught a break when the western flank of the Lake fire — which is burning near Lake Hughes — hit an old 2013 burn scar and slowed to a crawl .
The fires have sent American Red Cross staff and county workers from across the Northern California @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said Denise Everhart , the Red Cross ’ Pacific Division disaster executive .
The Red Cross has set up between 10 and 15 temporary evacuation points where residents ’ needs are assessed before they ’ re sent to a hotel or motel .
Everhart said that while more than 100 families were placed in rooms Tuesday night — some driving up to an hour away for lodging — it ’ s not a sustainable model if the evacuations continue to expand .
The LNU Lightning Complex fire may trigger up to 35,000 more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ historically , between 1 % and 3 % of evacuees go to shelters .
She sought to assuage any concerns that going to a shelter could put people at risk of the coronavirus .
“ We ’ ve put precautions in place , ” she said .
“ If you ’ re told to go , go .
We ’ re all working together to keep people safe .
...
The fire is the risk.
” Though emergency officials have opened multiple evacuation centers in Vacaville , many of those forced to leave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night were setting up camp in parking lots instead of entering buildings .
Those with RVs had generators up and running and their front awnings open .
Others sat in folding chairs by their cars or in their front seats .
Still more had already checked into local hotels , where rooms were filling fast .
Shawnee Whaley and her 79-year-old mother , Sharon Whitaker , sat inside an evacuation center Wednesday afternoon wrapped in American Red Cross blankets .
Whaley said they had no warning that the fire might be a threat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But when Whaley was woken up by a phone call from a friend and saw that the power was out , she flung open her front door and “ saw the glow of the fire.
” She used a ladder to climb onto her roof and saw flames approaching .
Barefoot and still wearing pajamas , she ran across the street to her mother ’ s trailer to wake her .
Whaley grabbed a mask and her glasses but “ didn ’ t know what else to get ” in the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forgot her wallet , but left the front door open so her cat , Jitterbug , could hopefully escape .
Lloyd Broughton , 78 , evacuated after a firetruck came up his road at 3 a.m .
He , his wife Anne , 73 , and daughter Kristine , 35 , gathered their seven rescue cats and packed two cars .
All three suffer from breathing problems and , with a heavy layer of ash falling , they were already coughing and having trouble , Kristine said .
While evacuating during a fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s been made all the more so because of the coronavirus outbreak — which has raised new fears among displaced residents who would normally pack into closely quartered emergency shelters and created new challenges for the agencies that operate them .
“ No one is ready for it , “ Lloyd Broughton said of having to leave in the middle of a pandemic .
Meanwhile , Mary Smith had already booked a hotel room for herself , her husband and their Chihuahua mix , Coco , by noon , but were hanging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
Though she ’ s not overly concerned about the coronavirus , she said she doesn ’ t “ want to be around other people ” because she is older .
Evacuating from a fire in the middle of a pandemic is “ just one more thing in this year , ” she added .
“ It ’ s unbelievable.
“ Another rapidly growing fire was burning in the mountains southwest of Silicon Valley , on the border of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties .
Evacuations were ordered around Big Basin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Park , Butano State Park and Pescadero Creek Park .
The CZU August Lightning Complex — which consists of 22 fires — has burned at least 10,000 acres and forced the evacuation of more than 22,000 people , officials said Wednesday .
“ Last night , we saw a major increase in fire activity throughout both San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties , and we saw several of the fires merge together , ” Cal Fire Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox said during a briefing Wednesday morning .
Flames are generally burning toward the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line into Santa Cruz County , he said .
“ This is a very active timber fire burning in two counties , ” he said , “ with a serious threat to both public safety and for structures that are out in front of it.
” Additional evacuations were ordered early Wednesday in Santa Cruz County around Bonny Doon , including Pine Flat Road South .
An evacuation center has been set up at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville .
Rita Mancera , the executive director of Puente , a community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an evacuation center at Pescadero High School on Wednesday helping evacuees locate hotel rooms and provide logistics for pets and livestock .
Among those fleeing the CZU August Lightning Complex fires was Steve Cobb of Dearborn Park .
He evacuated his home Tuesday evening , with his wife , 14-year-old daughter , dog and two cats .
They packed into their camper , which was already stocked from a recent trip to Yosemite , and headed to the beach .
Cobb moved to Dearborn Park 17 years ago and said that as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never witnessed anything like what he ’ s seen in the past few days .
“ Those storms were not ordinary , ” he said .
“ They were tropical .
Like the ones I saw when I was in Belize on my honeymoon .
Constant flashes of light , crashing thunder and rain.
” On Tuesday , Gov .
Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency in order to help California respond to the .
Newsom ’ s office said the state had secured assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Monterey counties .
“ We are deploying every resource available to keep communities safe as California battles fires across the state during these extreme conditions , ” Newsom said .
“ California and its federal and local partners are working in lockstep to meet the challenge and remain vigilant in the face of continued dangerous weather conditions.
” The rash of fires has also led to a spike in traffic to Cal Fire ’ s website , overloading it and intermittently crashing it , officials said .
Cal Fire personnel were working with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to handle the crush of visitors .
Another blaze , dubbed the Dolan fire , has grown to an estimated 2,500 acres and prompted evacuations in Monterey County near Big Sur .
As of Wednesday morning , the fire was “ actively burning in all directions , ” according to Los Padres National Forest officials .
Because of the fire , Highway 1 has been closed from Ragged Point in San Luis Obispo County to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Monterey County , officials said .
The River fire , also in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 4,000 acres in steep mountainous terrain south of Salinas and has already destroyed six structures and damaged two others , according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection .
More than 1,500 structures remain threatened by the blaze , which has prompted mandatory evacuations .
The River fire was spreading to the north , fanned by downsloping winds and getting closer to homes on Las Palmas Parkway south of Salinas , said Greg Bertelli , the Cal Fire deputy incident commander .
It was also spreading to the south .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Carmel fire , fanned by winds from the northwest pushing flames to the southeast , Bertelli said .
A cluster of fires is also burning in sparsely populated , mountainous terrain east of Silicon Valley and the East Bay and west of the Central Valley .
This grouping , the SCU Lightning Complex fire , began early Sunday .
It has burned at least 85,000 acres in five counties — Alameda , Contra Costa , Santa Clara , Stanislaus and San Joaquin .
Another blaze , which authorities named the 3-4 fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Red Bank Road in Tehama County and has already burned 1,000 acres , according to Cal Fire .
To the southwest , in Glenn County , the August Complex fire rapidly grew overnight into Wednesday morning , and is now at least 30,000 acres , threatening the tiny town of Elk Creek , according to the U.S. Forest Service .
The August Complex fire , which consists of at least 35 blazes , was caused by lightning strikes on Sunday in the Mendocino National Forest .
The western section of Glenn County has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Smoke could be seen on Interstate 5 from Willows , the county seat of Glenn County , to Red Bluff , the county seat of Tehama County .
In Marin County , the 1,100-acre Woodward fire — also caused by lightning — was burning in the Point Reyes National Seashore west of Olema .
And in Fresno County , a firefighting helicopter crashed Wednesday morning while on a water-dropping mission for the 1,500-acre Hills fire , killing the pilot , according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state to help fight fires , and the crash sparked a brush fire that has grown to about 50 acres and is spreading toward the Hills fire , officials said .
The numerous fires are blanketing the Bay Area with smoke and ash , wreaking havoc on local air quality .
Those with lung disease , asthma or other respiratory conditions should be especially careful to avoid smoky air , as should older adults and young children , said Dr. Grant Colfax , San Francisco ’ s public health director .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to avoid outdoor air , ” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said .
The South Coast Air Quality Management District also has issued smoke advisories through Wednesday afternoon for residents in the area of the Ranch 2 fire , which is burning near Azusa , as well as the Lake fire near Lake Hughes .
Firefighters are battling flames amid a that began late last week and has set record-high temperatures across California .
On Sunday , the mercury in Death Valley reached 130 degrees — possible the in almost 90 years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ across California on Tuesday , with Woodland Hills hitting 112 , breaking a record last set for Aug. 18 in 1949 ; Burbank reaching 109 degrees , shattering a record last set in 1986 , when the mercury hit 100 ; and Santa Ana , which hit 106 degrees , breaking a record last set in 2010 , when the high for the day was 95 .
Death Valley also hit a record high for the date , reaching 126 degrees , breaking the high of 125 set in 2001 .
Other spots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ included Needles ( 118 ) , Barstow ( 113 ) , Paso Robles ( 111 ) , Sacramento ( 109 ) , Merced ( 107 ) , Modesto ( 106 ) , Anaheim ( 105 ) , Gilroy ( 104 ) , El Cajon ( 102 ) , Long Beach ( 100 ) , UCLA ( 97 ) , Camarillo ( 95 ) , Oxnard ( 90 ) and Newport Beach ( 87 ) .
Riverside hit 108 , tying a record for the day last set in 1950 .
Lin reported from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Money and Serna from Los Angeles .
Times staff writers Leila Miller and Colleen Shalby contributed to this report .

Rong-Gong Lin II, Luke Money, Anita Chabria, Joseph Serna, Taryn Luna, Susanne Rust

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 fires raging through five North Bay counties grew to more than 124,000 acres by Wednesday night, destroying more than 100 structures and threatening 25,000 others.
The firestorm was the largest of several fast-moving blazes in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in Northern California — many caused by intense lightning storms — that spread quickly overnight, burning homes and forcing thousands to flee.
The newest fires stretched from wine country to the Santa Cruz Mountains, moving with ferocious speed amid an intense heat wave that also has brought rolling blackouts. Smoke from the fires has caused terrible air quality across the region.
Many of the fires were believed to have been caused by lightning strikes. Northern and Central California began experiencing an unusually active sequence of largely dry lightning strikes Sunday morning, the most widespread and violent in recent memory in the Bay Area on one of the hottest nights in years, according to Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
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VIDEO | 01:18 Thousands evacuate as more than 30 major fires burn across California The LNU Lighting Complex fire has burned more than 46,000 acres in Northern California.
Over the last 72 hours, there have been some 10,849 lightning strikes throughout California, state officials said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 367 major fires were burning statewide, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“This fire season has been very active and, not surprisingly, that activity has taken shape in a number of counties up and down the state,” he said during a news briefing.
At this time last year, crews had responded to a total of 4,007 fires throughout the state, Newsom said. They’ve already been dispatched to 6,754 this year.
More than 300,000 acres have burned statewide in 2020, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. By comparison, California wildfires charred about 270,000 acres in 2019, the smallest number since 2011.
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The rapid outbreak of new blazes has stretched the state’s firefighting resources to their limit.
Jeremy Rahn, the lead Cal Fire public information officer for the LNU Lightning Complex fires, said Wednesday that the state had already requested 375 additional fire engines as well as additional hand crews from out-of-state agencies, and hired “nearly all available private firefighting ‘call when needed’ aircraft in the western United States.”
“The size and complexity at which these incidents are burning is challenging all aspects of emergency response,” he said during a media briefing. “Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite.”
Newsom, however, expressed confidence that California is prepared to rise to the challenge and thanked the leaders of other states — including Arizona, Nevada and Texas — for their pledges to send additional resources.
California is “putting everything we have on these fires,” he said, and “we’re now getting the support of some of our partners in the Western United States, and for that, again, we’re very grateful.”
The LNU Lightning Complex, which has burned at least 124,000 acres, comprises several fires in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Yolo and Lake counties.
The most serious fire in the complex is the Hennessey fire, which began Monday morning on the eastern edge of Lake Hennessey in Napa County and marched into Solano and Yolo counties Wednesday morning, forcing residents to flee overnight and burning homes and other structures.
As of Wednesday night, 105 structures had been destroyed, 70 more had been damaged and 25,000 were threatened, fire officials said.
Officials have ordered the evacuation of the western edge of Vacaville — a city of 100,000 residents about halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. The Vacaville Fire District also ordered evacuations of Pleasants Valley Road, which lies west of the city, and the English Hills and Gibson Canyon Road areas north of the city. A KPIX-TV reporter tweeted a video of a home burning off Pleasants Valley Road.
The fire was also forcing the evacuations of some northern neighborhoods in the city of Fairfield west of Interstate 80. By Wednesday afternoon, the fire jumped Interstate 80, forcing it to shut down in both directions between Fairfield and Vacaville. The interstate reopened later Wednesday night.
Evacuation orders and warnings have also been also issued for a stretch of Highway 121 in the Vaca Mountains northeast of the city of Napa, and in the mountains about eight miles northeast of St. Helena. On Wednesday night, evacuation orders extended closer to Napa Valley, and included the communities of Angwin and Deer Park north of St. Helena.
Mandatory evacuations were also ordered Wednesday night for non-essential personnel at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield.
And in Lake County, residents living around Hidden Valley Lake and Jerusalem Valley were ordered to evacuate as well.
The LNU Lightning Complex’s fires in Sonoma County triggered evacuation warnings on both sides of the Russian River. The Walbridge fire was burning north of Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve and the community of Guerneville on the Russian River. South of the Russian River, evacuation warnings were issued as a result of the Meyers fire.
Vegetation throughout the area is extremely dry and considered to be in severe drought, according to Cal Fire.
Officials said the Walbridge and Meyers fires were likely to push southeast Wednesday as they burned through timber and the coastal forests’ understory.
The complex’s northern fires were burning through brush and oak woodland and heading south toward Mount Vaca earlier on Wednesday.
California Lake fire raises concern as wildfire season heats up The explosive growth of the Lake fire in Los Angeles County has raised worries about the fall fire season
The fires have sent American Red Cross staff and county workers from across the Northern California region scrambling to prepare for evacuees, said Denise Everhart, the Red Cross’ Pacific Division disaster executive.
The Red Cross has set up between 10 and 15 temporary evacuation points where residents’ needs are assessed before they’re sent to a hotel or motel. Everhart said that while more than 100 families were placed in rooms Tuesday night — some driving up to an hour away for lodging — it’s not a sustainable model if the evacuations continue to expand.
The LNU Lightning Complex fire may trigger up to 35,000 more evacuations, Everhart said, explaining that historically, between 1% and 3% of evacuees go to shelters.
She sought to assuage any concerns that going to a shelter could put people at risk of the coronavirus.
“We’ve put precautions in place,” she said. “If you’re told to go, go. We’re all working together to keep people safe. ... The fire is the risk.”
Though emergency officials have opened multiple evacuation centers in Vacaville, many of those forced to leave their homes in the middle of the night were setting up camp in parking lots instead of entering buildings.
Those with RVs had generators up and running and their front awnings open. Others sat in folding chairs by their cars or in their front seats. Still more had already checked into local hotels, where rooms were filling fast.
Shawnee Whaley and her 79-year-old mother, Sharon Whitaker, sat inside an evacuation center Wednesday afternoon wrapped in American Red Cross blankets.
Whaley said they had no warning that the fire might be a threat when they went to sleep Tuesday night. But when Whaley was woken up by a phone call from a friend and saw that the power was out, she flung open her front door and “saw the glow of the fire.” She used a ladder to climb onto her roof and spotted flames approaching.
Barefoot and still wearing pajamas, she ran across the street to her mother’s trailer to wake her. Whaley grabbed a mask and her glasses but forgot her wallet. She left the front door open so her cat, Jitterbug, could hopefully escape.
Meanwhile, Lloyd Broughton, 78, evacuated after a firetruck came up his road at 3 a.m. He, his wife Anne, 73, and daughter Kristine, 35, gathered their seven rescue cats and packed two cars.
All three suffer from breathing problems and, with a heavy layer of ash falling, they were already coughing and having trouble, Kristine said.
While evacuating during a fire is always a stressful experience, it’s been made all the more so because of the coronavirus outbreak — which has raised new fears among displaced residents who would normally pack into closely quartered emergency shelters and created new challenges for the agencies that operate them.
“No one is ready for it,“ Broughton said of having to leave in the middle of a pandemic.
Numerous fires have broken out across the region since the lightning event a couple of day ago. Below is a snapshot of the fires currently burning in our area as well as a new start that was just detected along the Big Sur coast. #cawx #CAfires pic.twitter.com/36huYclMLE — NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) August 19, 2020
Another rapidly growing fire was burning in the mountains southwest of Silicon Valley, on the border of San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. The CZU August Lightning Complex fire — which consists of 22 fires — has burned at least 25,000 acres and forced the evacuation of more than 22,000 people, officials said Wednesday night.
Evacuations were ordered around Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Año Nuevo State Park, Butano State Park and Pescadero Creek Park. Other evacuations included the area around Bonny Doon. Evacuations centers were set up at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville and at Pescadero High School.
At least 20 structures, likely single-family homes, have been destroyed, officials said during a Wednesday evening press conference. In San Mateo County, the CZU August Lightning Complex fire was threatening the communities of Pescadero and La Honda. In Santa Cruz County, structures have been lost in the Swanton Road area, and a Cal Fire station was being threatened by flames.
Firefighters expressed worry about the fire reaching the communities of Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton, located northwest of Santa Cruz. The weather conditions for the next three days are grim, said Mark Brunton of Cal Fire.
“That makes that threat very direct and very real,” he said. “We’re doing everything we possibly can to protect life and property.”
Rita Mancera, the executive director of Puente, a community organization based in Pescadero, was at the evacuation center at Pescadero High School on Wednesday helping evacuees locate hotel rooms and provide logistics for pets and livestock.
Among those fleeing the CZU August Lightning Complex fire was Steve Cobb of Dearborn Park. He evacuated his home Tuesday evening, with his wife, 14-year-old daughter, dog and two cats. They packed into their camper, already stocked from a recent trip to Yosemite, and headed to the beach.
Cobb moved to Dearborn Park 17 years ago and said that as a Bay Area native, he’s never witnessed anything like what he’s seen in the last few days.
“Those storms were not ordinary,” he said. “They were tropical... Constant flashes of light, crashing thunder and rain.”
Some residents looked for ways to help others threatened by the fire.
At home with his wife, three kids and 40-acres of hay farm, Jeff Moorehead of Vacaville put out a message on a local Facebook group at about 6 a.m. inviting anyone with livestock to bring their animals to their place. Eventually, Moorehead had about 25 new animals at his farm.
“We got alpacas, miniature horses, a little bit of everything,” he said with a chuckle.
Offering relief to animal owners has become a regular part of his response to local wildfires, he said. In 2017, he helped shuttle animals from the Atlas fire in Napa County to Vallejo in Solano County.
“You have empathy for animals a lot of times and you have the same empathy for people,” he said.
Latest evacuation zones. Bonny Doon south of Ice Cream Grade, to include Pine Flat Road South is now under an evacuation order. (Zones CRZ7, CRZ8). Areas adjacent to the Bonny Doon and San Lorenzo Valley - Prepare to evacuate. - Aug 19, 7:00 am #LNULightningComplexfire #zonehaven pic.twitter.com/I42ZjArVMD — Zonehaven (@ZonehavenInc) August 19, 2020
On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency in order to help California respond to the outbreak of fires .
Newsom’s office said the state had secured assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond to fires in Napa, Nevada and Monterey counties.
“We are deploying every resource available to keep communities safe as California battles fires across the state during these extreme conditions,” Newsom said. “California and its federal and local partners are working in lockstep to meet the challenge and remain vigilant in the face of continued dangerous weather conditions.”
The rash of fires has also led to a spike in traffic to Cal Fire’s website, overloading it and intermittently crashing it, officials said. Cal Fire personnel were working with their technology department Wednesday morning to try to handle the crush of visitors.
By Wednesday, another blaze, dubbed the Dolan fire, has grown to at least 2,500 acres and had prompted evacuations in Monterey County near Big Sur.
As of Wednesday morning, the fire was “actively burning in all directions,” according to Los Padres National Forest officials. Because of the fire, Highway 1 was been closed from Ragged Point in San Luis Obispo County to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Monterey County, officials said.
The River fire, also in Monterey County, burned through more than 15,000 acres in steep mountainous terrain south of Salinas and destroyed six structures and damaged two others, according to Cal Fire. More than 2,750 structures remain threatened by the blaze, which has prompted mandatory evacuations.
The River fire was spreading to the north, fanned by downsloping winds and getting closer to homes on Las Palmas Parkway south of Salinas, said Greg Bertelli, the Cal Fire deputy incident commander. It was also spreading to the south.
Just south of the River fire is the Carmel fire, fanned by winds from the northwest pushing flames to the southeast, Bertelli said.
A cluster of fires is also burning in sparsely populated, mountainous terrain east of Silicon Valley and the East Bay and west of the Central Valley. This grouping, the SCU Lightning Complex fire, began early Sunday. It has burned at least 102,000 acres in five counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Joaquin. Officials have issued evacuation orders for all counties and established evacuation centers at Creekside Middle School in Patterson and the Milpitas Library.
Authorities reported 5% containment on that fire Wednesday night.
Another blaze, which authorities named the 3-4 fire, was reported Wednesday morning southwest of Red Bank Road in Tehama County and has already burned 1,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.
To the southwest, in Glenn County, the August Complex fire rapidly grew overnight into Wednesday morning, and by nightfall was at least 65,000 acres, threatening the tiny town of Elk Creek, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The August Complex fire, which consists of at least 35 blazes, was caused by lightning strikes on Sunday in the Mendocino National Forest.
The western section of Glenn County has been placed under a mandatory evacuation order. Smoke could be seen on Interstate 5 from Willows, the county seat of Glenn County, to Red Bluff, the county seat of Tehama County.
In Marin County, the Woodward fire — more than 1,000 acres — was burning in the Point Reyes National Seashore west of Olema.
And in Fresno County, a firefighting helicopter crashed Wednesday morning while on a water-dropping mission for the 1,500-acre Hills fire, killing the pilot, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The helicopter was privately owned and contracted with the state to help fight fires, and the crash sparked a brush fire that has grown to about 50 acres and is spreading toward the Hills fire, officials said.
The numerous fires are blanketing the Bay Area with smoke and ash, wreaking havoc on local air quality.
Those with lung disease, asthma or other respiratory conditions should be especially careful to avoid smoky air, as should older adults and young children, said Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s public health director.
“The best thing you can do is to avoid outdoor air,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District also has issued smoke advisories through Wednesday afternoon for residents in the area of the Ranch 2 fire, which is burning near Azusa, as well as the Lake fire near Lake Hughes.
Firefighters are battling flames amid a heat wave that began late last week and has set record-high temperatures across California. On Sunday, the mercury in Death Valley reached 130 degrees — possibly the highest temperature reading on Earth in almost 90 years.
Temperature records for the day were broken across California on Tuesday, with Woodland Hills hitting 112, breaking a record last set for Aug. 18 in 1949; Burbank reaching 109 degrees, shattering a record last set in 1986, when the mercury hit 100; and Santa Ana, which hit 106 degrees, breaking a record last set in 2010, when the high for the day was 95.
Death Valley also hit a record high for the date, reaching 126 degrees, breaking the high of 125 set in 2001.
Other spots that reached record temperatures for the day included Needles (118), Barstow (113), Paso Robles (111), Sacramento (109), Merced (107), Modesto (106), Anaheim (105), Gilroy (104), El Cajon (102), Long Beach (100), UCLA (97), Camarillo (95), Oxnard (90) and Newport Beach (87). Riverside hit 108, tying a record for the day last set in 1950.
Lin reported from San Francisco, Chabria from Vacaville, Rust from Pescadero, and Money and Serna from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Leila Miller and Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.


latimes--2020-08-20--Lightning-sparked Bay Area fires fill skies with smoke and force tens of thousands to flee

Already reeling from a pandemic and a record heat wave that has millions sweltering indoors , the San Francisco Bay Area is now besieged by fire , forcing tens of thousands to evacuate and leaving others inhaling air so smoky that experts warned of serious health risks .
Many residents say they ’ ve never seen such wildfire conditions , a product of high temperatures , strong winds and thousands of lightning strikes from unusual thunderstorms that started Sunday .
As of Wednesday afternoon , the Bay Area was home to several of the 23 major fires statewide , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to Gov .
Gavin Newsom .
“ Those storms were not ordinary , ” said Steve Cobb , a Dearborn Park resident and one of the thousands forced to flee their homes .
“ They were tropical … [ with ] constant flashes of light , crashing thunder and rain.
” As of late Wednesday , the most threatened area was Solano County , along the Interstate 80 corridor .
After a fire roared close to Vacaville , a city of 100,000 northeast of San Francisco , it was beaten back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ freeway in the afternoon .
Traffic was temporarily blocked in both directions as authorities worked to evacuate an area south of the interstate .
By Wednesday night , the fire and others in the area — collectively known as the LNU Lightning Complex — had burned more than 124,000 acres with zero containment .
Vacaville Fire Chief Kris Concepcion warned residents online of a “ long night ahead ” with unstable and unpredictable weather conditions .
Another branch of that complex menaced Napa , Sonoma and Lake counties , forcing the evacuation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of St. Helena and remaining largely out of control as night fell .
Farther south , a grouping of 20 fires threatened the Silicon Valley area , while the rural areas north of Santa Cruz also saw a blaze that drove people down hilly mountain slopes toward the ocean , with fire close behind .
Such conflagrations would challenge emergency responders even in normal times , but these come as the coronavirus complicates the job of running evacuation centers and camps for firefighters .
Early Wednesday , Shawnee Whaley escaped her north Vacaville @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whitaker , 79 .
A phone call from a friend woke her minutes before they realized they had to go .
When Whaley saw that the power was out , she said she flung open her front door “ and saw the glow of the fire.
” They made it to an evacuation center , only to be turned away because it was full .
They finally found shelter at the local cultural center , where they set up two cots away from others .
Asked if they were concerned about the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Getting burnt in a fire is way worse than getting COVID-19 at this point , ” said Whaley , wrapped in a Red Cross blanket .
With so many blazes burning at the same time , state officials acknowledged Wednesday that they needed help and had asked for equipment and assistance from other states .
“ We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven ’ t seen in many , many years , ” Newsom said at a news conference .
Jeremy Rahn , a public information officer with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Protection , said the state had already requested 375 additional fire engines as well as hand crews from out-of-state agencies , and hired “ nearly all available private firefighting ‘ call-when-needed ’ aircraft in the Western United States.
” “ Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite , ” he said during a media briefing Wednesday .
Officials say nearly 7,000 personnel from state , local and federal agencies are assigned to the California fires .
Sunday ’ s lightning bolts were the Bay Area ’ s most widespread and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struck on one of the hottest nights in years , said Daniel Swain , a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research .
They were the result of three separate weather phenomena : A high-pressure system that swirled hot desert air from Arizona and Nevada across the state ; moisture floating in from Tropical Storm Elida off the coast of Mexico ; and a thunderstorm in Sonora , Mexico , that sent a wave of uplifting pressure through the atmosphere , combining with the heat and moisture to create @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wednesday was Vacaville , in the path of part of the LNU Lightning Complex fire .
That complex comprises at least three major incidents in Napa , Sonoma , Solano , Yolo and Lake counties .
It jumped from 46,000 to more than 124,000 acres over the course of the day .
As of Wednesday night , 105 structures had been destroyed , 70 more had been damaged and 25,000 were threatened , .
In the Santa Cruz Mountains , nearly two dozen fires — known as the CZU August Lightning Complex — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 25,000 people , with at least 20 structures destroyed .
On Wednesday , a small but steady trickle of San Mateo County coast residents streamed into the evacuation center at the high school in Pescadero , a town south of Half Moon Bay .
Rita Mancera , the executive director of Puente , a local community organization , helped evacuees find hotel rooms and arrange accommodations for pets and livestock .
She said roughly 70 families had visited the center since Tuesday evening , when evacuations were ordered .
Lance Storm , 39 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were unlike anything he ’ d ever witnessed .
Storm lives on a communal farm in the Pescadero hills , and when the fire approached , he and six others decided to get out early — fearing a repeat of the people trapped in Paradise in 2018 .
“ I put everything I could into the bus , ” he said , standing by his vehicle and holding a kitten named Energy .
He said he set his two pigs , Delilah and Daisy , free — unable to get them into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had closed the Pescadero shelter as fires threatened the community and others to the south in Santa Cruz County .
In many areas , a layer of ash covered the ground , kicked up by winds and adding to the pollution that clouded much of the Bay Area .
The American Lung Assn .
warned that excessive heat , wildfire smoke and COVID-19 pose risks to those most vulnerable to respiratory problems .
“ The combination of uncontained wildfires and extreme heat has created conditions that put even healthy individuals at risk , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ association spokesman .
“ The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only makes these potential effects more serious.
” Intense smoke and heat trigger coughing and wheezing , worsen lung function and can lead to bronchitis or even death , he said .
“ The best thing you can do is to avoid outdoor air , ” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said .
Several cities set up cooling centers to help people without air conditioning .
In Redwood City , staff had equipped the Red Morton Community Center with air conditioning , bottles of water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ space to maintain physical distance .
But Wednesday afternoon , the only two occupants were employees from the city ’ s facilities department .
“ We think the site is just so new that nobody really knows about it , ” said Rachael Grant , a city employee .
The fires have sent American Red Cross staff and county workers from across Northern California scrambling to prepare for a potential wave of evacuees , said Denise Everhart , the Red Cross ’ Pacific Division disaster executive .
The Red Cross has set up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ residents ’ needs are assessed before they ’ re sent to a hotel or motel , Everhart said .
She said that the organization has put precautions in place against the coronavirus and that people should not hesitate to go to shelters .
“ If you ’ re told to go , go .
We ’ re all working together to keep people safe… .
The fire is the risk.
” In Vacaville , 78-year-old Lloyd Broughton evacuated with his family after a firetruck came up his road at 3 a.m .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and daughter Kristine , 35 , gathered their seven rescue cats and packed two cars .
All three suffer from breathing problems , and with a heavy layer of ash falling , they were already coughing and having trouble breathing , Kristine said .
“ No one is ready for it , ” Lloyd Broughton said of having to leave in the middle of a pandemic .
Times staff writers Luke Money , Colleen Shalby , Leila Miller and Maura Dolan contributed to this report .

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

Matt Nichols sprays water on his home as fire bears down on Vacaville, Calif., on Wednesday.
Already reeling from a pandemic and a record heat wave that has millions sweltering indoors, the San Francisco Bay Area is now besieged by fire, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate and leaving others inhaling air so smoky that experts warned of serious health risks.
Many residents say they’ve never seen such wildfire conditions, a product of high temperatures, strong winds and thousands of lightning strikes from unusual thunderstorms that started Sunday. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Bay Area was home to several of the 23 major fires statewide, a subset of the 367 blazes across California, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Those storms were not ordinary,” said Steve Cobb, a Dearborn Park resident and one of the thousands forced to flee their homes. “They were tropical … [with] constant flashes of light, crashing thunder and rain.”
As of late Wednesday, the most threatened area was Solano County, along the Interstate 80 corridor. After a fire roared close to Vacaville, a city of 100,000 northeast of San Francisco, it was beaten back but then blew up and jumped the freeway in the afternoon. Traffic was temporarily blocked in both directions as authorities worked to evacuate an area south of the interstate.
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By Wednesday night, the fire and others in the area — collectively known as the LNU Lightning Complex — had burned more than 124,000 acres with zero containment. Vacaville Fire Chief Kris Concepcion warned residents online of a “long night ahead” with unstable and unpredictable weather conditions.
Another branch of that complex menaced Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties, forcing the evacuation of a hospital in the wine country town of St. Helena and remaining largely out of control as night fell.
Farther south, a grouping of 20 fires threatened the Silicon Valley area, while the rural areas north of Santa Cruz also saw a blaze that drove people down hilly mountain slopes toward the ocean, with fire close behind.
Such conflagrations would challenge emergency responders even in normal times, but these come as the coronavirus complicates the job of running evacuation centers and camps for firefighters.
Early Wednesday, Shawnee Whaley escaped her north Vacaville trailer park with her mother, Sharon Whitaker, 79. A phone call from a friend woke her minutes before they realized they had to go. When Whaley saw that the power was out, she said she flung open her front door “and saw the glow of the fire.”
They made it to an evacuation center, only to be turned away because it was full. They finally found shelter at the local cultural center, where they set up two cots away from others. Asked if they were concerned about the virus, they said: not so much.
“Getting burnt in a fire is way worse than getting COVID-19 at this point,” said Whaley, wrapped in a Red Cross blanket.
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With so many blazes burning at the same time, state officials acknowledged Wednesday that they needed help and had asked for equipment and assistance from other states.
“We are experiencing fires the likes of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” Newsom said at a news conference.
California From ‘firenadoes’ to record heat, California extreme weather a glimpse of future As one of the worst heat waves in years continues to broil California, millions are experiencing the havoc that ensues with the type of extreme weather that is growing more frequent with climate change.
Jeremy Rahn, a public information officer with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the state had already requested 375 additional fire engines as well as hand crews from out-of-state agencies, and hired “nearly all available private firefighting ‘call-when-needed’ aircraft in the Western United States.”
“Firefighting resources are depleted as new fires continue to ignite,” he said during a media briefing Wednesday. Officials say nearly 7,000 personnel from state, local and federal agencies are assigned to the California fires.
Sunday’s lightning bolts were the Bay Area’s most widespread and violent in recent memory, and they struck on one of the hottest nights in years, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
They were the result of three separate weather phenomena: A high-pressure system that swirled hot desert air from Arizona and Nevada across the state; moisture floating in from Tropical Storm Elida off the coast of Mexico; and a thunderstorm in Sonora, Mexico, that sent a wave of uplifting pressure through the atmosphere, combining with the heat and moisture to create lightning strikes.
The most threatened city Wednesday was Vacaville, in the path of part of the LNU Lightning Complex fire. That complex comprises at least three major incidents in Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Yolo and Lake counties. It jumped from 46,000 to more than 124,000 acres over the course of the day.
As of Wednesday night, 105 structures had been destroyed, 70 more had been damaged and 25,000 were threatened, fire officials said .
In the Santa Cruz Mountains, nearly two dozen fires — known as the CZU August Lightning Complex — have prompted the evacuation of at least 25,000 people, with at least 20 structures destroyed.
On Wednesday, a small but steady trickle of San Mateo County coast residents streamed into the evacuation center at the high school in Pescadero, a town south of Half Moon Bay.
Rita Mancera, the executive director of Puente, a local community organization, helped evacuees find hotel rooms and arrange accommodations for pets and livestock. She said roughly 70 families had visited the center since Tuesday evening, when evacuations were ordered.
Lance Storm, 39, said the lightning storms and fires were unlike anything he’d ever witnessed.
Storm lives on a communal farm in the Pescadero hills, and when the fire approached, he and six others decided to get out early — fearing a repeat of the people trapped in Paradise in 2018.
“I put everything I could into the bus,” he said, standing by his vehicle and holding a kitten named Energy. He said he set his two pigs, Delilah and Daisy, free — unable to get them into the bus.
By late Wednesday, authorities had closed the Pescadero shelter as fires threatened the community and others to the south in Santa Cruz County.
In many areas, a layer of ash covered the ground, kicked up by winds and adding to the pollution that clouded much of the Bay Area.
The American Lung Assn. warned that excessive heat, wildfire smoke and COVID-19 pose risks to those most vulnerable to respiratory problems.
“The combination of uncontained wildfires and extreme heat has created conditions that put even healthy individuals at risk,” said Dr. Afif El-Hasan, an association spokesman. “The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only makes these potential effects more serious.”
Intense smoke and heat trigger coughing and wheezing, worsen lung function and can lead to bronchitis or even death, he said.
“The best thing you can do is to avoid outdoor air,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.
Several cities set up cooling centers to help people without air conditioning. In Redwood City, staff had equipped the Red Morton Community Center with air conditioning, bottles of water, free public Wi-Fi and plenty of space to maintain physical distance.
But Wednesday afternoon, the only two occupants were employees from the city’s facilities department.
“We think the site is just so new that nobody really knows about it,” said Rachael Grant, a city employee.
The fires have sent American Red Cross staff and county workers from across Northern California scrambling to prepare for a potential wave of evacuees, said Denise Everhart, the Red Cross’ Pacific Division disaster executive.
The Red Cross has set up 10 to 15 temporary evacuation points where residents’ needs are assessed before they’re sent to a hotel or motel, Everhart said. She said that the organization has put precautions in place against the coronavirus and that people should not hesitate to go to shelters.
“If you’re told to go, go. We’re all working together to keep people safe…. The fire is the risk.”
In Vacaville, 78-year-old Lloyd Broughton evacuated with his family after a firetruck came up his road at 3 a.m. He, his wife, Anne, 73, and daughter Kristine, 35, gathered their seven rescue cats and packed two cars.
All three suffer from breathing problems, and with a heavy layer of ash falling, they were already coughing and having trouble breathing, Kristine said.
“No one is ready for it,” Lloyd Broughton said of having to leave in the middle of a pandemic.
Times staff writers Luke Money, Colleen Shalby, Leila Miller and Maura Dolan contributed to this report.