Free Republic

BANGOR, Calif. — A Bangor woman, and suspected arsonist, was arrested for multiple charges including impersonating a firefighter, resisting arrest, and outstanding warrants. On July 1, CAL FIRE Butte Unit/Butte County Fire Department crews responded to the Swedes Fire in Bangor. When units arrived, they say they found a woman leaving the area on foot. Investigators arrived as crews were working to control the fire and searched for the woman. CAL FIRE says personnel then found her in the back of a department crew bus, dressed in a CAL FIRE uniform, and gathering personal belongings of firefighters. While being questioned...

45-year-old, Ari Gershman, a pulmonary doctor, was off-roading in a new four-wheel drive Jeep with his son Jack near Downieville when a gunman opened fire. The gunman killed Gershman, but his son escaped and called police. The fundraising page says the son hid for over 30 hours in the Tahoe National Forest before a search team found him. Deputies stated the gunman is believed to have shot two other people in the area on Friday. The two unidentified victims were taken to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries. After the victims were taken to the hospital the sheriff's office...

Update, 7:15 p.m. Thursday: The situation surrounding the damaged spillway at Oroville Dam has escalated into a crisis, with state water managers hoping they can dump enough water down the badly compromised structure to prevent the state’s second-largest reservoir from pouring over an emergency release point that has never been used before. Flow rates down the collapsing spillway were increased late Thursday morning to 35,000 cubic feet per second. The result was a spectacle of churning mud and water and the further damage to the concrete structure. [snip] Officials at the media briefing repeated further reassurances that the integrity of...

The salmon looked like shadows gliding silently beneath the surface of a pool between the foaming rapids of rugged Butte Creek. Suddenly, with a splash, a big glittering fish leaped out of the water, then another and another. The spring-run chinook were jumping this past week in the remote, forested gorge outside Chico. "This is the last best run of wild salmon in California," said Allen Harthorn, 56, the executive director of Friends of Butte Creek, who has been fighting for more than a decade to save the historic - and once sacred - spring run of chinook in this...