On April 29, 1992, a jury in Simi Valley, California, acquitted four Los Angeles police officers charged with assault and using excessive force in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King; the verdicts were followed by six days of rioting in Los Angeles that destroyed hundreds of businesses and resulted in over 60 deaths.
Officials say a volunteer firefighter has died battling a wildfire in Florida, while two large fires in Georgia have destroyed more than 120 homes. The sheriff's office in Nassau County, Florida, said Friday that volunteer firefighter James "Kevin" Crews died Thursday after suffering an unspecified medical emergency while suppressing a brush fire. Meanwhile, crews are battling two large fires in southeast Georgia that Gov. Brian Kemp says have destroyed 120 homes and threaten nearly 1,000 more. Kemp said no other wildfire in Georgia's history have burned so many homes. He said investigators believe the fire in rural Brantley County was sparked by an aluminum party balloon touching power lines.
Wildfires are intensifying across the southeastern U.S. They've destroyed about 50 homes in Georgia. The fires also have forced evacuations. Some of the biggest blazes are along Georgia's coast and around Jacksonville, Florida. Drought and strong winds are fueling the fires. Georgia's two largest wildfires have burned over 31 square miles. In Brantley County, more evacuations were ordered Wednesday on top of 800 evacuations that had taken place. So far, there have been no major injuries reported. In Florida, firefighters are battling 131 wildfires that have burned 34 square miles. The National Weather Service warns that low humidity and winds will keep the fire danger elevated.
Cool temperatures and widespread rain are expected across the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast on Monday, with wet conditions continui…
Wildfires used to die down and even stop at night with cooler temperatures and increased humidity. But a study released Friday says climate change is making burning weather more around the clock in North America because night is becoming warmer and drier. Canadian fire scientists say potential burning hours for fires have increased 36% in the last 50 years. California now has about 550 more fire-friendly hours a year than it did in the 1970s. North American summer nights are warming faster than days, evening relief is evaporating for forests and that means the area of land burned is soaring.
A super typhoon steadily battered a pair of remote U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean with ferocious winds and relentless rains, shredding tin roofs and forcing residents to take cover from flying tree limbs. Super Typhoon Sinlaku pounded the Northern Mariana Islands for hours before daybreak Wednesday, slowing just to inflict more damage across the islands of Tinian and Saipan, home to nearly 50,000 people. The National Weather Service says the tropical typhoon was packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph when it made landfall on the islands. The weather service says tropical force winds and torrential rainfall also led to flash flooding on Guam, a U.S. territory to the south with several U.S. military installations and about 170,000 residents.
A satellite image of Super Typhoon Sinlaku approaching the Mariana Islands and Guam over the Pacific Ocean Monday.
This weekend’s rain should be tapering off going into the week, with water levels for the year looking close to normal, according to the Natio…
March has been the hottest month on record for the continental United States in 132 years, according to federal weather data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that March's average temperature was 50.85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 9.35 degrees above the 20th-century norm. This surpasses the previous record set in March 2012. Climate Central meteorologist Shel Winkley highlights the unprecedented nature of this heat, noting the sheer volume of records broken. More than 19,800 daily temperature records were shattered, and 2,200 places set monthly highs. Experts predict that a brewing El Nino could intensify global warmth.
Dry and warmer-than-normal conditions across the Bay Area are expected to give way to several days of rain and possible thunderstorms later th…
