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MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. – Mendocino National Forest fire managers announced that it is time to prepare for prescribed burning on the Grindstone Ranger District.

Prescribed fires are conducted to help reduce the potential for future severe wildfires, increase firefighter safety, remove hazardous fuels, and protect communities and watersheds.

Prescribed fires may be implemented through the fall and winter pending appropriate conditions.

The ignition of all projects is dependent on the availability of personnel and equipment, favorable weather, conditions that minimize smoke impacts as best as possible and California Air Resources Board approval. 

The local air quality district manages the number of acres available to burn during allotted burn days based on the amount of projects proposed.

Burns are conducted within a “prescription” that is determined by appropriate fuel moisture, temperature, humidity, wind, and ventilation. 

Fire crews implement, monitor, and patrol each project to ensure it meets the goals and objectives outlined in the prescribed burn plans.

Forest officials said they strive to keep the public informed of planned prescribed fires as smoke may be visible at different times across the forest.

Forest visitors should contact the appropriate ranger district for prescribed fire information before beginning their trip to the forest.

These are the prescribed burning projects on the Grindstone Ranger District that may occur this year:

· Grindstone Type Conversation – 2,710 acres, units in Glenn and Colusa counties.
· Alder Springs Underburn – 2,241 acres, approximately 16 miles from Elk Creek.
· Ivory Mill Underburn – 1,056 acres, ten miles west of Elk Creek.
· Oak Ridge Underburn – 868 acres, 15 miles west of Paskenta.
· Little Stony Underburn – 2,975 acres, 43 miles southwest of Willows, and eight miles southwest of the community of Ladoga.
· Pacific Ridge Underburn – 1,324 acres (1,203 on Forest Service land and 121 acres on private land), within the South Fork Stony Creek watershed and in the Upper Little Stony Creek watershed.
· Grindstone Pile Burns – 1,514 acres, across the district within Colusa County, Glenn County and Tehama counties.
 
As projects are implemented, updates will be posted on the forest Web site, http://www.fs.usda.gov/mendocino .

NASA's Opportunity Mars rover will drive down a gully carved long ago by a fluid that might have been water, according to the latest plans for the 12-year-old mission.

No Mars rover has done that before.

The longest-active rover on Mars also will, for the first time, visit the interior of the crater it has worked beside for the last five years.

These activities are part of a two-year extended mission that began Oct. 1, the newest in a series of extensions going back to the end of Opportunity's prime mission in April 2004.

Opportunity launched on July 7, 2003, and landed on Mars on Jan. 24, 2004 (PST), on a planned mission of 90 Martian days, which is equivalent to 92.4 Earth days.

"We have now exceeded the prime-mission duration by a factor of 50," said Opportunity Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Milestones like this are reminders of the historic achievements made possible by the dedicated people entrusted to build and operate this national asset for exploring Mars."

Opportunity begins its latest extended mission in the "Bitterroot Valley" portion of the western rim of Endeavour Crater, a basin 14 miles in diameter that was excavated by a meteor impact billions of years ago.

Opportunity reached the edge of this crater in 2011 after more than seven years of investigating a series of smaller craters. In those craters, the rover found evidence of acidic ancient water that soaked underground layers and sometimes covered the surface.

The gully chosen as the next major destination slices west-to-east through the rim about half a mile (less than a kilometer) south of the rover's current location. It is about as long as two football fields.

"We are confident this is a fluid-carved gully, and that water was involved," said Opportunity Principal Investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. "Fluid-carved gullies on Mars have been seen from orbit since the 1970s, but none had been examined up close on the surface before. One of the three main objectives of our new mission extension is to investigate this gully. We hope to learn whether the fluid was a debris flow, with lots of rubble lubricated by water, or a flow with mostly water and less other material."

The team intends to drive Opportunity down the full length of the gully, onto the crater floor. The second goal of the extended mission is to compare rocks inside Endeavour Crater to the dominant type of rock Opportunity examined on the plains it explored before reaching Endeavour.

"We may find that the sulfate-rich rocks we've seen outside the crater are not the same inside," Squyres said. "We believe these sulfate-rich rocks formed from a water-related process, and water flows downhill. The watery environment deep inside the crater may have been different from outside on the plain -- maybe different timing, maybe different chemistry."

The rover team will face challenges keeping Opportunity active for another two years. Most mechanisms onboard still function well, but motors and other components have far exceeded their life expectancy.

Opportunity's twin, Spirit, lost use of two of its six wheels before succumbing to the cold of its fourth Martian winter in 2010. Opportunity will face its eighth Martian winter in 2017.

Use of Opportunity's non-volatile "flash" memory for holding data overnight was discontinued last year, so results of each day's observations and measurements must be transmitted that day or lost.

In the two-year extended mission that ended last month, Opportunity explored the "Marathon Valley" area of Endeavour's western rim, documenting the geological context of water-related minerals that had been mapped there from orbital observations.

Last month, the rover drove through "Lewis and Clark Gap," a low point in the wall separating Marathon Valley from Bitterroot Valley. A recent color panorama from the rover features "Wharton Ridge," which extends eastward from the gap.

This week, Opportunity is investigating rock exposures next to "Spirit Mound," a prominent feature near the eastern end of Bitterroot Valley.

The third main science goal of the new extended mission is to find and examine rocks from a geological layer that was in place before the impact that excavated Endeavour Crater.

The science team has not yet determined whether the mound area will provide rocks that old.

Opportunity and NASA’s next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, as well as three active NASA Mars orbiters, and surface missions to launch in 2018 and 2020 are steps in NASA's Journey to Mars, on track for sending humans there in the 2030s.

JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, built Opportunity and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .

NORTH COAST, Calif. – The Mendocino Eagles are off to their best start in six years with last Saturday’s 32-18 win over College of the Redwoods, the Eagles have improved their record to 3-1.
 
On Sept. 14, Mendocino College’s own Joceice Cannon was awarded Offensive Player of the Week honors in the American Division of the Northern California Football Conference.

Following an explosive 204 receiving yards on five catches, three of them for touchdowns, in the previous weekend’s 52-39 win against Reedley College.
 
On Sept. 22, Mendocino College athlete, Charlie Reid also was awarded Offensive Player of the Week honors in the American Division of the Northern California Football Conference.

Reid had 11 catches for 138 yards and a touchdown in the match against College of the Redwoods, ending in a 32-18 win.
 
Mendocino Eagles Head Coach Frank Espy is incredibly proud of the team this year.

“This team is really coming together early in this season,” said Espy. “They are working hard on and off the field to bring home each of these wins. We’re coming off of the success of last year’s recruitment of Jamar King by Alabama, and these young men are fulfilling their own dreams while playing for Mendocino College. I couldn’t be more proud of the athletes being built here.”
 
For a full schedule of the upcoming Mendocino Eagles Football games as well as scores from previous games, visit www.mendocino.edu .

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake reported a 19.7-percent rate of low-risk caesarean births among first time pregnant women in 2014, achieving the federal government’s Healthy People 2020 target of 23.9 percent or less six years early.

The trend continued in 2015, with a rate of 14 percent.
 
“Our goal is to provide quality care that helps families grow and flourish,” said Colleen Assavapistkul, the hospital’s vice president of Patient Care. “As a mom myself, I am very proud that we are encouraging women with low risk to avoid unnecessary surgeries.”
 
Although cesarean, or C-section, births can be lifesaving when medically needed, national reports show that they are performed for other reasons in some hospitals.

The statistics around low-risk cesarean births prompted the federal government to set ambitious goals to reduce these types of procedures as part of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s Healthy People 2020 targets.
 
“The rise in these procedures has resulted in significant health, social and economic costs for American women, their babies and the general public,” explainedthe California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, a partnership of more than 40 public and private agencies focused on improving maternal and infant health outcomes.
 
The hospital’s Women’s Care Unit staff is proud of how it collaborates with families, physicians, and the team providing prenatal and childbirth education services at St. Helena Family Health Centers throughout Lake County to avoid unnecessary C-sections.
 
“Childbirth is a natural process, and we work with mothers to optimize this amazing moment in their lives,” said Dr. Kimberly Fordham, family medicine and obstetric physician at St. Helena Family Health Center-Middletown. “Sometimes cesareans are necessary for the mom and/or baby’s health, and we certainly intervene when needed, but our Women’s Care Unit staff and providers have many skills and tools to help most women deliver naturally.”
 
St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake’s Women’s Care Unit provides labor and delivery services to more than 300 women and their infants each year.

The unit is staffed by highly-trained doctors, Certified Nurse Midwives, experienced labor and delivery nurses and other professionals focused on providing the specialized care pregnant women and newborns need.

Growing families can learn more about St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake’s family birth services, including childbirth education classes, at www.sthelenahospitalclearlake.org in the Services section.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Curtis Van Buren Atwood, 75, of Clearlake, passed away on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016.

He was born in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Oct. 3, 1941, to the late Alton Curtis Atwood and Dorothy Van Buren Atwood.

Curtis graduated from Modesto High School and received a bachelor's degree in accounting from San Jose State University.

Curtis enjoyed working with his best friend of 40 years, Richard Wilson. He also enjoyed playing tennis, golfing, riding his motorcycle, sitting in the sun and hanging out with his grandkids.

Curtis is survived by his daughter, Jennifer Perez; her husband, Trey Perez; and his three grandsons, Will, Cody and Jonah Perez of Hidden Valley Lake, Calif.

Funeral service will be held at Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary, 1625 N. High St., Lakeport, on Friday, Oct. 14, at 11 a.m., with interment at Kelseyville Cemetery, 3375 Bell Hill Road, to follow.

For further information please contact Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary at 707-263-0357 or 707-994-5611, or visit www.chapelofthelakes.com .

Winter driving can be dangerous due to changing climatic conditions such as rain, snow, colder temperatures, and less daylight.

Motorists often put off needy repairs until it is too late, and find themselves, as many other millions of drivers throughout the nation, calling for roadside assistance.

October is designated as AAA Car Care Month, and is the perfect time to get your vehicle’s seasonal check-up to maintain safety and maximize efficiency while on the road.
 
“Preparing your vehicle properly for the upcoming winter season is essential for the safety of all passengers, and will greatly decrease your chances of breaking down while on the road,” said Cynthia Harris, AAA Northern California spokesperson. “Having your vehicle checked out by a reliable mechanic, and abiding by a regular maintenance schedule, can prevent major expenses and breakdowns.”
 
During the AAA October Car Care Month, AAA recommends a simple checklist to determine a vehicle’s fall and winter maintenance needs.  

Battery and charging system: Have the battery and charging system tested by a trained technician. A fully charged battery in good condition is required to start an engine in cold weather. AAA members can request a visit from a AAA Mobile Battery Service technician who will test their battery and replace it on-site, if necessary.

Battery cables and terminals: Make sure the battery terminals and cable ends are free from corrosion and the connections are tight.

Drive belts: Inspect the underside of accessory drive belts for cracks or fraying. Many newer multi-rib “serpentine” belts are made of materials that do not show obvious signs of wear; replace these belts at 60,000-mile intervals.

Engine hoses: Inspect cooling system hoses for leaks, cracks or loose clamps. Also, squeeze the hoses and replace any that are brittle or excessively spongy feeling.

Tire type and tread: In areas with heavy winter weather, installing snow tires on all four wheels will provide the best winter traction. All-season tires work well in light-to -moderate snow conditions provided they have adequate tread depth. Replace any tire that has less than 3/32-inches of tread. Uneven tire wear can indicate alignment, wheel balance or suspension problems that must be addressed to prevent further tire damage.

Tire pressure: Check tire inflation pressure on all four tires and the spare more frequently in fall and winter. As the average temperature drops, so will tire pressures – typically by one PSI for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The proper tire pressure levels can be found in the owner’s manual or on a sticker typically located on the driver’s side door.

Air filter: Check the engine air filter by holding it up to a 60-watt light bulb. If light can be seen through much of the filter, it is still clean enough to work effectively. However, if light is blocked by most of the filter, replace it.

Coolant levels: Check the coolant level in the overflow tank when the engine is cold. If the level is low, add a 50/50 solution of coolant and water to maintain the necessary antifreeze capability. Test the antifreeze protection level annually with an inexpensive tester available at any auto parts store.

Lights: Check the operation of all headlights, tail lights, brake lights, turn signals, emergency flashers and back-up lights. Replace any burned out bulbs.

Wiper blades: The blades should completely clear the glass with each swipe. Replace any blade that leaves streaks or misses spots. In areas with snow, consider installing winter wiper blades that wrap the blade frame in a rubber boot to reduce ice and snow buildup that can prevent good contact between the blade and the glass.

Washer fluid: Fill the windshield washer fluid reservoir with a winter cleaning solution that has antifreeze components to prevent it from freezing.

Brakes: If there is any indication of a brake problem, have the system inspected by a certified technician to ensure all components are in good working order.

Transmission, brake and power steering fluids: Check all fluids to ensure they are at or above the minimum safe levels.

Emergency road kit: Carry an emergency kit equipped for winter weather. The kit should include: Mobile phone, pre-programmed with rescue apps and important phone numbers including family and emergency services, and car charger. Other items are drinking water, first- aid kit, snow shovel, blankets, warning devices (flares or triangles), and basic tool kit.

Android and iPhone users can download AAA Mobile, AAA’s mobile smartphone app that provides AAA services for all motorists, such as mapping and gas price comparison, as well as member-exclusive benefits including roadside assistance and discounts. For more information on AAA Mobile, visit www.AAA.com/Mobile .