For more than a month after a wildfire raced through his lakeside community and destroyed his Napa County home, Kody Petrini couldn’t drink the water from the taps. He wasn’t even supposed to boil it. And, worried about harming his 16-month-old, Petrini wouldn’t wash his youngest son Levi with it. Instead, he took the extraordinary… Keep Reading
NAPA, Calif. (AP) — Will Abrams and his family packed their pickup truck with laptops, clothes, sleeping bags and a tent and quickly left their rental home in California’s wine country after seeing flames on a hill about a quarter-mile away Monday morning. It was their third hurried fire evacuation in as many years. In… Keep Reading
Swiftly moving wildfires roared into parts of Santa Rosa, Calif., overnight and Monday morning, causing damage in the eastern parts of the community and sending tens of thousands fleeing during hasty nighttime evacuations. Additional evacuations were ordered throughout the day Monday. The fires have erupted during yet another in a series of heat waves that have shattered… Keep Reading
SANTA ROSA, Calif. — The largest wildfire in California history is threatening the country’s biggest marijuana-growing region, and authorities are warning people to protect themselves — not their crops — if it comes time to evacuate. The August Complex Fire has burned through more than 1,100 square miles across five counties in Northern California and… Keep Reading
Most Sonoma County residents now have the option to text 911 in an emergency, as part of a new service intended to help people with certain disabilities or anyone who might not be able to safely call for help. Police departments in Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Healdsburg launched the service Tuesday to comply… Keep Reading
Finley Community Center remains closed to the general public, but passersby might spy children playing around the Santa Rosa complex on weekday afternoons. One recent day, a group of children were out on the grass, gleefully throwing freshly sanitized dodgeballs, supervised by a pair of adults. A few yards away on the other side of… Keep Reading
The Active 20-30 Club of Santa Rosa #50 teamed up with other local chapters, Healdsburg #205 and Redwood Empire #1029, to produce a successful 2020 Children’s Shopping Spree, an annual joint project that provides back-to-school items to local youth in need. The aim of Children’s Shopping Spree is to better equip children for their first day… Keep Reading
The Bay Area’s bizarre conditions — with a thick blanket of smoke atop the natural layer of morning fog — confounded the National Weather Service’s forecasting models on Wednesday. The result, meteorologist Drew Peterson acknowledged, is that the predicted high of 86 degrees in Santa Rosa is way off the mark. At about 1 p.m.,… Keep Reading
Five artists with vastly different ideas for capturing the essence of Santa Rosa in a sculpture have been named as finalists in the city’s competition to create a prominent piece of public art downtown in Old Courthouse Square. Santa Rosa’s plan to install public art on the north side of the square at Mendocino Avenue… Keep Reading
Ironman is out of Sonoma County, canceling two triathlons that previously were postponed, with no plans to return in 2021. The pullout by the biggest brand in competitive triathlon comes after Ironman said it would no longer run its full-distance race from Lake Sonoma to Santa Rosa after 2020. As of late August, Ironman had… Keep Reading
