Fire Update ***4

Evacuations have grown locally, as the fire spreads into areas that haven’t burned in more than 40 years. As many as 400 firefighters are attacking the 300-acre blaze at this hour Hundreds have been told to flee. Here’s the latest:


SIERRA MADRE, Calif. (AP) _ A wildfire that broke out in a popular hiking area blackened the steep slopes of foothills outside Los Angeles and led to evacuation orders for residents of about 550 homes, authorities said Sunday.

Hundreds of people around Sierra Madre were told to flee Saturday night and Sunday as the wildfire continued to burn through dense brush, said Elisa Weaver of the Arcadia Fire Department.

Sierra Madre is about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles and just east of Pasadena.

No homes were damaged, though a small outbuilding was destroyed, Weaver said.

More than 400 firefighters were attacking the 350-acre fire, aided by two helicopters with two water-dropping air tankers on the way. The fire was little contained and was expected to burn for another two or three days.

“This is pretty serious,” Weaver said. “Some of these areas have not burned in over 40 years.”

The cause of the blaze remained under investigation. It was first reported Saturday afternoon in a wooded area a few miles northeast of Pasadena. It was windy at the time and unseasonably hot, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees.

The flames also brought the evacuation of a Boy Scout camp Saturday and left about 100 hikers stranded in a parking lot near Chantry Flats. Most of the Scouts had already left the camp by the time the evacuation was ordered, Weaver said, and no injuries were reported.

Firefighters originally had hoped to have the blaze contained Sunday, but gusting winds late Saturday night kept the fire burning out of control and creeping toward nearby homes. The evacuation orders came shortly before 11 p.m. Two shelters have been set up for evacuees.

Flames outlined steep ridges about a mile above Sierra Madre, a San Gabriel Mountains foothill community of about 11,000 popular with artists.

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Fire Update ***3: Wedding Party

We’re hearing that a wedding party of about 50 people who were stranded about 3.5 miles from the Chantry Flat Ranger Station have been rescued.

They have been transported out of the area via helicopter. No one was injured.

We’re still not quite sure how they got there or if they were there before the broke out, but we’ll update when we have more details.

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Fire Update ***2: Video

AP FIRE VIDEO | Here’s video from the AP Click the link to watch. I’l be posting more video and photo throughout the day. We have a pretty full crew taking care of coverage. 

Ric Francis shot this photo for AP. It moved this morning.
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Here’s another Ric Francis AP Photo that just moved(12:19 pm)  with this caption: Susan Kelso, second from left, Jason Saracco, left, carrying their cat, and Debbie Engelhard, right, explain to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alvarez that they are returning to their homes Sunday, April 27, 2008, in Sierra Madre, Calif., after evacuating Saturday night because of awildfire. A wildfire burning on the steep slopes of the foothills near Pasadena forced a fresh round of mandatory home evacuations Sunday, authorities said. (AP Photo/Ric Francis)









PETS TO BE SHELTERED: FROM PSN:

PASADENA – The Pasadena Humane Society is offering shelter for pets whose owners have been evacuated from their homes due to the ongoing fire in the foothills.

The organization has cleared out its board room and other spaces to make room for the animals, which number about 30 at this point, Pasadena Humane Society spokeswoman Ricky Whitman said.

The pets were picked up beginning at 2:30 a.m. Sunday from American Red Cross shelters in Sierra Madre.

For more information, contact officials at the Red Cross shelters at Hart Park House, 222 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., and the Congregational Church 170 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. Red Cross officials will coordinate with the Humane Society to ensure pet owners find shelter for their animals.

Another local blog link: The sky is big in Pasadena. Photos here.

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Fire Update **1

EVACUATIONS:

The Sierra Madre city Web site is reporting about 200 homes have been evacuated. Here is a list of two sites where displaced residents can go:

 

Mandatory Evacuation
Go to:
Hart Senior Park House
222 W. Sierra Madre Blvd.

Congregational Church
170 W. Sierra Madre Blvd.

If you haven’t checked it out already, the Web site is a good resource for info. The last update was at 6:30 this morning.

 

 

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Fire coverage

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There’s lots of great writing about the Santa Anita Canyon fire out there. The blogs are doing great work!

On Foothill Cities, there’s a link to flickr photos as well as instant commentary by affected residents. 
There’s this comment from APOA on the site as well:


Everyone has contributed and has done a great job of covering all the aspects of the fire. A comment was left on Frazgos LA Met site about getting more info from the local blogs than from the AP Wire


Other sites include 91024, Aaron ProctorFrazgo on Metblogs 2020hindsight, and Monrovia City Watch. Additonally, the Star-News will have updates periodically during the day here.

Here’s a link to the SN photo gallery. 
Finally there’s this snippet of an email I received comparing this weekend’s fire to the Altadena/Sierra Madre fire in 1993. 

Here’s the letter: 


Too scary; looks like it could come all the way across the mountains again like the Altadena fire. 



Excuse the confusing changes in fonts, I’m using an Apple today and it automatically formats the entries.

Obviously, I’d like to know what your experiences of the fire are, and if there’s any links I’ve missed here, feel free to put em up in the comments section. 



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48 hours in the SGV

El Monte police found themselves in the middle of a bona-fide crime wave earlier this week. Bethania Palma pieced it all together for an article that ran in today’s Tribune. Crime Scene gotta give a shout out to Detective Ralph Batres, who rolled to all the incidents described below and found time to answer his telephone in the process.

Here’s an excerpt from Bethania’s report:

EL MONTE – A stabbing, a shooting, three search warrants leading to a major pot bust and a bomb scare involving 30 pounds of TNT.
It’s a roll call of major crime that sounds like it could fit neatly into a busy month for any police department.
But in El Monte, those calls made up part of a frantic 48 hours that saw police handle two homicides – making arrests in both cases; bust up a $2 million pot operation 15 miles away in Rowland Heights; and swiftly clear a neighborhood endangered by 30 pounds of TNT.
“We have a very active city,” said police Chief Ken Weldon. “It’s a challenge to stay on top of it.”

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California v Miller

Brian Miller pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of telephone harassment. A poster here the other day claimed Miller pleaded guilty in the case. The poster was wrong.

Here’s a portion of Dan Abendschein’s story:

POMONA – The ex-boyfriend of a woman who has disappeared with their three children was pleaded not guilty on Thursday to making annoying telephone calls to the fugitive’s father.

Brian Miller , the son of Rep. Gary Miller , R-Brea, allegedly made harassing calls to Jude Lopez of Diamond Bar, the father of Jennifer Dejongh, who had three kids with Miller .

The charge is for making repeated calls with “intent to annoy another person at his or her residence.”

Dejongh has been a fugitive for several months after disobeying a custody order and disappearing with the kids in November.

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A night on the town (*updated)(**updated)(***updated)(****updated)

Last night I attended a meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).
The group put together a distinguished panel of experts to discuss the new media, blogging and ethics.

On the panel were:
Attorney Terry Francke, of CalAware.
Writer Mickey Kaus, Kausfiles at Slate.com
Attorney Jack Lerner, a USC expert in intellectual property and technology law
Kevin Roderick, Pulitzer Prize winner and publisher of LA Observed.
**Roderick modestly points out he was editor on two undertakings that won the LA Times news staff Pulitzer Prizes.

There was heavyweight discussion on several issues. Francke suggested Thomas Jefferson would have been a top blogger, if blogs were around back in the 18th and 19th Centruies.
Kaus suggested SPJ’s ethics rules don’t necessarily apply in the digital age.
Lerner discussed recent case law, including the Apple vs Bloggers case.
Roderick talked about his blog, and how it got off the ground as a conservative political destination of choice when he leaked an LA Times editor’s memo on abortion.
Joel Bellman, former Her-Ex opinion page editor, who is now Zev Yaroslavsky’s press deputy, MC’d the deal. I like him because he’s admitted anonymous source and level-headed moderator, especially when the conspiracy kooks come out. (And they did)
***Bellman points out I promoted him above his pay grade at the Examiner.

“You inadvertently promoted me at the Her-Ex. I was an editorial writer and rotating op-ed columnist – I was NOT the opinion-age editor (that distinction belonged to Gary Spiecker, an excellent fellow and longstanding assistant editor of the LA Times Sunday Opinion section.)”

My big question of the night for the panel was what’s your home page? and what web sites do you regularly visit.

Got some interesting responses:
The Arts and Letter Blog is apparently well respected.
The Drudgereport got some notice, especially from Kaus who cited its more even-handed approach in recent years.
NYTimes.com also received kudos, especially from Bellman, who said it’s the best newspaper site out there.
“Loads fast,” he said.

Roderick also noted the healthy blog exchange taking place in the San Gabriel Valley. Noting that there are several “political blogs” and anonymous blogs getting a lot of attention.
* Looking at my notebook There were a couple of links I forgot.
* Kaus mentioned he was a fan of lukeford.net An LA area blog.
* Roderick mentioned the FOX 11 LA blogs, noting they are “mostly insipid.”
* He praised others like John Schwada’s.
****I should really work harder to check this stuff out before I post!
****From Bellman for Roderick:

…the site I meant to reference last night was not Arts & Letters Daily but Arts Journal, another very high quality site with many smart and interesting voices. The arts blogger whose name I couldn’t remember is Tyler Green., whose site is Modern Art Notes.

http://www.artsjournal.com/
http://www.artsjournal.com/man/

*****Just realized I don’t know how to spell Kevin Roderick’s last name. (It’s been changed to the proper spelling throughout)

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Accused coach denies charges

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Fred J Robledo is all over this on his prep sports blog, where there are some interesting comments, including one casting aspersions on Fred’s reporting ability.

For the record, we ran the story on the news side after Fred got a tip about Coberly. The same story ran in the Daily Bulletin. We weren’t “scooped.”

This from Tania Chatila’s story in today’s paper:

LA VERNE – Police are investigating allegations that a Bonita High School girls volleyball coach behaved inappropriately with a player, police and school officials said Wednesday.

La Verne police Lt. Jim Strona confirmed a complaint was filed, but declined to give more specific information.

School officials said the allegations were made against Morgan Coberly, who is also listed as a coach at the Claremont Colleges and at a private club in La Verne.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Coberly, who is from La Verne, denied the allegations.

“No, they are not true,” he said, “and I don’t want to talk about anything until the investigation is over.”

 

Here’s video from the web featuring Coberly and some of the Bonita players:

And don’t forget this famous shot from the Bonita-San Dimas Volleyball game:

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Thursday’s column

As first reported on the LA Observed Web site, there appears to be a shortage of matzoh this Passover season.
I was surprised.

So on Wednesday, I conducted an informal survey in our area, and stores in the region are in fact missing matzoh.
Not that it really matters now, since Passover Week is about over.

Whats really bugging me anyway this week is the severe lack of kosher Coke. I havent been able to find it anywhere since … well … before Easter.

This is a disturbing trend.

First of all, Im not a big soft drink guy kidney stones a decade ago cemented that decision. Im also not Jewish, so keeping kosher at Passover isnt a holy duty.

But, I gotta say this about stuff thats kosher (or hilal, which is apparently the same thing), you can trust it. Its been blessed. You know that whole higher authority thing.

For example, while pork links from the back of Satriales sure sound tasty, you never really know if you are getting pieces of Richie Aprille mixed in with the anise seed.

Picking up a package of Hebrew National franks on the other hand, pretty much assures purity and tastiness, even without the anise. Definitely without the body parts.

I often find myself looking for the pareve or U symbol on packaged foods much like I look for the letter grade on restaurants. A is great. B maybe. C never. D run before the vermin get you.

All of which probably explains part of the fixation on kosher Coke.

But theres something more to the story. See kosher Coke is made with real sugar. So in my opinion it tastes better.

My colleagues here in the newsroom have told me to get Mexican Coca-Cola, which also has real sugar. Im not convinced its the real thing. (Refer to my packaged food rules above.)

Anyway, Ill continue my search. Apparently Gelsons in Pasadena still has a case or so left.

This is probably all good preparation for the real food shortage on the horizon: rice, flour and cooking oil.

Sams, Costco, and other big box warehouse grocery stores have taken to rationing rice in recent days. Theres even talk about rationing flour and cooking oil.

The staples of home cooking are becoming more expensive and scarce at the same time.

We are moving into potentially scary times. Food shortages are not supposed to happen in the United States, much less California the worlds bread basket.

It wouldnt surprise me to learn that the mystery of the missing matzoh is somehow linked to all this.

So if youve been lucky enough to stumble upon kosher Coke or matzoh in the midst of all this I can only say,

Mazel tov.

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