LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control is caring for several dogs rescued from the Sulphur fire area and looking to reunite them with their families, while it continues to offer many other dogs for adoption.
The dogs taken in from the Sulphur fire are at the top of the featured listings; they will not be up for adoption to the general public until mid-November in order to give their owners the opportunity to reclaim them.
The dogs in the general shelter population available for adoption this week include mixes of American Bulldog, Belgian Malinois, cattle dog, Chihuahua and German Shepherd.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
SULPHUR FIRE DOGS
This female cream-colored Labrador Retriever-poodle mix is in kennel No. 4, ID No. 8694. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Labrador Retriever-poodle mix
This female cream-colored Labrador Retriever-poodle mix was found on Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake on Oct. 9.
She is in kennel No. 4, ID No. 8694.
This young male German Shepherd mix is in kennel No. 5, ID No. 8693. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. German Shepherd mix
This young male German Shepherd mix was found on Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake on Oct. 9.
He is unaltered and has a medium-length black and brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 5, ID No. 8693.
This female border collie is in kennel No. 8, ID No. 8730. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Border collie mix
This female border collie was found on Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake on Oct. 12.
She has a medium-length black and white coat and is not spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 8, ID No. 8730.
This female boxer mix is in kennel No. 12, ID No. 8736. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female boxer mix
This female boxer mix was found on Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake Park on Oct. 13.
She has a short red and white coat. She is not spayed.
She is in kennel No. 12, ID No. 8736.
OTHER DOGS AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION
This female Chihuahua is in kennel No. 7a, ID No. 8758. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female Chihuahua
This female Chihuahua has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 7a, ID No. 8758.
This male Chihuahua is in kennel No. 7b, ID No. 8759. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 7b, ID No. 8759.
“Dave” is a Belgian Malinois in kennel No. 10, ID No. 8745. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Dave’
“Dave” is a Belgian Malinois with a long red and black coat.
He’s in kennel No. 10, ID No. 8745.
This female German Shepherd is in kennel No. 11, ID No. 8783. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female German Shepherd
This female German Shepherd has a medium-length tan coat.
She already has been spayed.
She’s in kennel No. 11, ID No. 8783.
This female cattle dog is in kennel No. 13, ID No. 8775. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female cattle dog
This female cattle dog has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 13, ID No. 8775.
This male shepherd mix is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 8721. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male shepherd mix
This male shepherd mix has a long black and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 15, ID No. 8721.
This male American Bulldog is in kennel No. 16, ID No. 8762. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male American Bulldog
This male American Bulldog has a short black and white coat.
He’s in kennel No. 16, ID No. 8762.
“Pedro” is a male shepherd mix in kennel No. 17, ID No. 8746. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Pedro’
“Pedro” is a male shepherd mix.
He has a short tan and white coat.
Shelter staff said he gets along with other dogs.
He’s in kennel No. 17, ID No. 8746.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Edgewater Resort has been there for Lake County fire victims each of the past three years.
Owner Ken McPherson and Edgewater are stepping up again, offering highly discounted rates for Sulphur fire survivors.
Some who lost docks may particularly appreciate that RV sites and cabins are complete with a boat slip.
Pets are also welcome and stay for free at Edgewater, up to two dogs per RV site or cabin.
“As a dog lover, I am particularly pleased that Edgewater Resort is providing safe harbor at an affordable price for all members of the family,” said Carol Huchingson, county administrative officer and disaster recovery authority. “In each of the disasters since 2015, we have seen how valuable it can be for animals and owners to have the opportunity to recover together.”
RV sites are available for the all-inclusive price of $750 per month, through April 1, 2018. These sites offer water, power (50 amp), sewer, wi-fi and high definition cable television, among many amenities.
Edgewater also has three cabins available through April 1, 2018, priced at $1,000 per month. Each has two primary rooms, one with a queen size bed, and one with two twins; maximum occupancy is four people per cabin.
Additionally, cabins have a standard bathroom and fully equipped kitchen, with everything needed to prepare and serve meals. Water, power, wi-fi and high definition cable television are included in Edgewater’s cabin rentals, as well.
“We welcome the opportunity to help Sulphur Fire Survivors get back on their feet,” shares McPherson, “Edgewater is right on Soda Bay, and offers a peaceful setting that has been restorative and healing to many travelers. We hope our resort can aid the recovery of some of those impacted by wildfire.”
Mars has an invisible magnetic “tail” that is twisted by interaction with the solar wind, according to new research using data from NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft.
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) spacecraft is in orbit around Mars gathering data on how the Red Planet lost much of its atmosphere and water, transforming from a world that could have supported life billions of years ago into a cold and inhospitable place today.
The process that creates the twisted tail could also allow some of Mars’ already thin atmosphere to escape to space, according to the research team.
“We found that Mars’ magnetic tail, or magnetotail, is unique in the solar system,” said Gina DiBraccio of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s not like the magnetotail found at Venus, a planet with no magnetic field of its own, nor is it like Earth’s, which is surrounded by its own internally generated magnetic field. Instead, it is a hybrid between the two.” DiBraccio is project scientist for MAVEN and is presenting this research at a press briefing Thursday, Oct. 19 at 12:15pm MDT during the 49th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences in Provo, Utah.
The team found that a process called “magnetic reconnection” must have a big role in creating the Martian magnetotail because, if reconnection were occurring, it would put the twist in the tail.
“Our model predicted that magnetic reconnection will cause the Martian magnetotail to twist 45 degrees from what’s expected based on the direction of the magnetic field carried by the solar wind,” said DiBraccio. “When we compared those predictions to MAVEN data on the directions of the Martian and solar wind magnetic fields, they were in very good agreement.”
Mars lost its global magnetic field billions of years ago and now just has remnant “fossil” magnetic fields embedded in certain regions of its surface.
According to the new work, Mars’ magnetotail is formed when magnetic fields carried by the solar wind join with the magnetic fields embedded in the Martian surface in a process called magnetic reconnection.
The solar wind is a stream of electrically conducting gas continuously blowing from the Sun’s surface into space at about one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per hour.
It carries magnetic fields from the Sun with it. If the solar wind field happens to be oriented in the opposite direction to a field in the Martian surface, the two fields join together in magnetic reconnection.
The magnetic reconnection process also might propel some of Mars’ atmosphere into space. Mars’ upper atmosphere has electrically charged particles (ions). Ions respond to electric and magnetic forces and flow along magnetic field lines.
Since the Martian magnetotail is formed by linking surface magnetic fields to solar wind fields, ions in the Martian upper atmosphere have a pathway to space if they flow down the magnetotail.
Like a stretched rubber band suddenly snapping to a new shape, magnetic reconnection also releases energy, which could actively propel ions in the Martian atmosphere down the magnetotail into space.
Since Mars has a patchwork of surface magnetic fields, scientists had suspected that the Martian magnetotail would be a complex hybrid between that of a planet with no magnetic field at all and that found behind a planet with a global magnetic field.
Extensive MAVEN data on the Martian magnetic field allowed the team to be the first to confirm this. MAVEN’s orbit continually changes its orientation with respect to the Sun, allowing measurements to be made covering all of the regions surrounding Mars and building up a map of the magnetotail and its interaction with the solar wind.
Magnetic fields are invisible but their direction and strength can be measured by the magnetometer instrument on MAVEN, which the team used to make the observations.
They plan to examine data from other instruments on MAVEN to see if escaping particles map to the same regions where they see reconnected magnetic fields to confirm that reconnection is contributing to Martian atmospheric loss and determine how significant it is.
They also will gather more magnetometer data over the next few years to see how the various surface magnetic fields affect the tail as Mars rotates.
This rotation, coupled with an ever-changing solar wind magnetic field, creates an extremely dynamic Martian magnetotail.
“Mars is really complicated but really interesting at the same time,” said DiBraccio.
The research was funded by the MAVEN mission. MAVEN began its primary science mission on November 2014, and is the first spacecraft dedicated to understanding Mars’ upper atmosphere.
SOUTH LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Officials said Friday that several agencies are working together to soon reopen a portion of Highway 29 over Mount St. Helena near Middletown that was closed due to the region’s wildland fires.
The closure, which has variously been implemented at Western Mine Road and more recently Bradford Road, went into effect on Oct. 10 as a result of the Central LNU Complex burning in Napa and Sonoma counties, as Lake County News has reported.
Highway 29 between Middletown and Napa County is a crucial commuter route for many south Lake County residents. Due to the closure, it’s estimated that commuters now have several additional hours to travel to reach jobs in neighboring counties.
The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office was asked by Cal Fire to close the road, said Sgt. Steve Krul.
Krul said Friday that crews have been working to make repairs and remove debris every day on Highway 29 over Mount St. Helena, with the highway expected to reopen within the next few days.
Cal Fire officials told Lake County News that the closure was requested due to the need to mitigate a safety hazard.
In the video above, which shows a drive over Mount St. Helena coming from Napa County on Friday evening, fire and Caltrans crews could be seen working along the highway, with large amounts of prunings from trees and brush lying on the roadside.
While the closure is on the Lake County side of the highway, Phil Frisbie, spokesman for Caltrans District 1 – which covers the Lake County area – said the closure was being controlled by Caltrans District 4, which includes Napa County, and Cal Fire.
Vince Jacala, Caltrans public information officer for Napa and Solano counties, told Lake County News on Friday that Caltrans is working closely with Cal Fire on reopening the highway.
“At this point, I’m told that stretch of SR-29 could be reopened to motorists as early as Saturday, Oct. 21, or as late as Sunday, Oct. 22,” Jacala said.
In response to the fires, which Cal Fire said are nearing full containment, crews also are clearing hundreds of dead trees along Highway 128, a crucial route between Calistoga and Sonoma County, Caltrans reported.
Highway 128 has remained closed to allow that tree removal work to take place, according to Jacala, who is featured in a Caltrans video on that work on that highway that can be seen below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Lake County Board of Supervisors and County staff are working alongside Sulphur fire survivors and the entire Lake County community, seeking to ensure that unfair treatment and business practices do not compound the disastrous effects of wildfire.
In the wake of the Rocky, Jerusalem and Valley fires of 2015 and the Clayton fire of 2016, the county received reports of rent gouging; property owners significantly raising rents or even evicting tenants in order to take advantage of reduced housing supply and lucrative insurance reimbursements.
Housing costs increased for many Lake County residents, only some of whom had lost homes to wildfire.
California Penal Code Section 396 provides consumer protections during a declared state of emergency or local emergency.
The law provides that prices of essential goods, including housing, must not be raised to a level greater than 10-percent above the average market price in the period immediately before the disaster, unless those increases are directly related to a business owner’s actual increased costs.
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, the Lake County Board of Supervisors acted strongly on behalf of Lake County residents, unanimously passing Ordinance No. 3067.
The language of this Ordinance builds upon Penal Code Section 396, making it unlawful to evict an existing tenant in order to rent a dwelling unit, in the unincorporated areas of Lake County, for more than the “average retail price.”
The average retail price for housing is the rental price for the dwelling unit during the 31- period immediately preceding the state of emergency.
Violation of Ordinance No. 3067 is a misdemeanor, punishable by fine, up to $20,000.
Violation of California Penal Code Section 396 may also result in up to one year in jail, a fine of $10,000 or both.
Such violations can also lead to civil enforcement action. Unlawful business practices and acts of unfair competition can warrant additional penalties of up to $6,000 per violation.
Reports of violations will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office for investigation.
"We are a close-knit community,” said County Administrative Officer Carol J. Huchingson. “When one person is impacted, the echoes and consequences are felt by us all. We need to face the Sulphur fire as we have all recent disasters; together, as one Lake County community.”
Added District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown, “As we respond together, landlords have to do their part."
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Sulphur fire was a federally declared disaster that damaged or destroyed 166 structures within either the City of Clearlake or the unincorporated area north of Clearlake.
Due to the amount of damage and the number of people impacted, the city of Clearlake and the county of Lake partnered with community, state, and national service and relief organizations to provide a one-stop local assistance center, or LAC, to provide information and assistance to the community.
The LAC was originally scheduled to close on Saturday, Oct. 21, but based on the number of people who are using the LAC on a daily basis, the LAC will remain open until Wednesday, Oct. 25.
The LAC will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Clearlake Community Center (senior center), located at 3245 Bowers Ave.
A wide-ranging array of services and expertise is available, including food, assistance accessing medical care, or advice regarding temporary and permanent housing.
If you have concerns about your animals or even insurance matters, there will be people on site at the LAC to help. If you need replacement copies of vital records, or a new driver’s license, come to the LAC.
The California Office of Emergency Services, or CalOES, and other state and federal agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration will be available to offer assistance.
Lake County Environmental Health has representatives available to assist those trying to navigate the removal of debris from their property.
“The LAC has been serving over 100 individuals on a nearly daily basis and it appeared that the need was still there to continue serving the community, so in consultation with Lake County, CalOES and FEMA, the decision was made to continue operation of the LAC until next Wednesday,” said Clearlake City Manager Greg Folsom. “Hopefully everyone who has been impacted will be able to at least make some initial contact with the LAC during that time.”
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