California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s governor on Friday threatened a possible takeover of the troubled utility blamed for sparking deadly wildfires across the state with its outdated equipment unless it can emerge from bankruptcy ahead of next year’s wildfire season with a plan focused on safety.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called all sides to a meeting early next week, saying he would personally try to mediate a solution involving Pacific Gas & Electric.

ORINDA, Calif. (AP) — Four people were killed and at least four injured at a Halloween party shooting at a Northern California home rented by a woman who falsely claimed she wanted the Airbnb so her asthmatic family members could escape wildfire smoke, police and a person with knowledge of the transaction said Friday.

Gunshots were reported at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday at the large home in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Orinda where more than 100 people had gathered, police said.

ORINDA, Calif. (AP) — A woman who rented a San Francisco Bay Area home where four people died in a Halloween party shooting lied to the owner, saying she only wanted to keep family members away from the smoke of a wildfire, according to police and a person with knowledge of the transaction.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- An explosive wildfire broke out in San Bernardino in U.S. state of California early Thursday morning, burning into neighborhoods and forcing hundreds of residents to flee.

The wind-driven 200-acre (about 809,371 square meters) hillside fire erupted around 1:38 a.m. local time. At least six homes and two outbuildings have been destroyed in hours, according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

NOVATO, Calif. (AP) — One woman in her 80s tripped over another resident who had fallen on the landing in a steep stairwell. Others got turned around, even in their own apartments, and cried out for help.

At least 20 seniors with wheelchairs and walkers were essentially trapped, in the dark, in a low-income apartment complex in Northern California during a two-day power shut-off aimed at warding off wildfires.

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Santa Ana winds were expected to linger for a final day Thursday after driving more than a dozen wildfires through California, sending thousands fleeing and burning nearly up to the walls of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Firefighters managed to tamp down or at least partially corral fires that for the past few days surged through tinder-dry brush in both the north and south, destroying dozens of homes.

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — A 13-year-old complained to an administrator that he was being bullied at his Southern California middle school days before the assault that killed him, the boy’s family said.

Juana and Felipe Salcedo, the aunt and uncle of Diego Stolz who raised the boy since his parents died, filed a legal claim against the Moreno Valley Unified School District, the Los Angeles Times reports Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Electrical equipment caused two Southern California wildfires — one that killed three people and destroyed more than 1,600 homes last year — and another still smoldering in the well-heeled hills of Los Angeles, where thousands of people including Arnold Schwarzenegger fled homes in the dark, utilities said Tuesday.

The two findings add more examples of electric lines sparking major wildfires as utilities in California increasingly resort to drastic power outages as a precaution to prevent devastating blazes.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power lines may have started two wildfires over the weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area, the utility said Monday, even though widespread blackouts were in place to prevent downed lines from starting fires during dangerously windy weather.

The fires described in PG&E reports to state regulators match blazes that destroyed a tennis club and forced evacuations in Lafayette, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of San Francisco.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Crews fought Tuesday to drown, slash and smother wildfires that have incinerated dozens of homes in Northern and Southern California before returning windstorms can blow them back into furious life.

In California’s wine country, firefighters worked to reinforce fire lines in western Sonoma County while rushing to shore up the eastern side that could be the new focus as winds switched direction.