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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A thunderstorm earlier this week sparked several small wildland fires in the Mendocino National Forest.
The storm, which passed through the region late Wednesday and early Thursday, contributed to thousands of lightning strikes around Northern California, as Lake County News has reported.
Tamara Schmidt, public affairs officer for the Mendocino National Forest, said the lightning set off several small fires in the forest.
She said there were six lightning fires resulting from the storm on the forest's Grindstone Ranger District, all of which are now contained.
The largest was the Anderson Fire, which burned six acres, while Schmidt said the remaining fires were all less than one-tenth of an acre.
On the Upper Lake Ranger District, just one lightning-caused fire was identified, which also has been contained, Schmidt said.
“We are continuing to watch for additional smoke as conditions dry out, so more fires could be potentially identified in the coming days,” Schmidt told Lake County News.
Elsewhere around Northern California, more than 750 acres have been burned by 24 fires sparked by the week's lightning storms, according to Cal Fire.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Clear Lake Area California Highway Patrol will offer free “Start Smart” traffic safety classes for teenage drivers and their parents/guardians.
The two-hour classes will be offered at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 25; Wednesday, Aug. 21; and Wednesday, Sept. 18, at the CHP office, located at 5700 Live Oak Drive in Kelseyville.
The leading cause of death for Americans 15-20 years old is motor vehicle collisions, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the CHP's goal is to reduce the death rate among teenagers as the result of these collisions.
The CHP’s Start Smart program is aimed at helping newly licensed and future licensed teenage drivers understand the critical responsibilities of driving and to understand that accidents happen, but collisions are 100-percent preventable.
The program is designed to provide teens and their parents/guardians with an interactive safe driving awareness class which will illustrate how poor choices behind the wheel of a car can affect the lives of numerous people.
Start Smart also focuses on responsibilities of newly licensed drivers, responsibilities of parents and guardians, and collision avoidance techniques.
“The CHP wants to make our resources available to parents and teens when they have questions or issues about new driver development. We want to make ourselves available to the public to allow them to call or come down to talk face to face regarding any issue,” said Lt Greg Baarts. “This is a valuable program for parents and their newly licensed or soon to be licensed teen.”
Space is limited for this class. For more information or reservations, call Officer Kory Reynolds at the CHP office, 707-279-0103.
Parents with a child who has developmental disabilities face different challenges during the life of their disabled child. These can be grouped into four different stages based on age. Let us consider what is important at each stage.
Stage 1, from birth till age 3, involves the “Individual Family Services Plan” (“IFSP”).
The IFSP is developed with a service coordinator in order to identify individualized supports and services that enhance the child’s development. It is about creating opportunities for learning interventions in everyday family routines and typical family activities.
Stage 2, between ages 3 and 15, involves the Individualized Education Plan (“IEP”). School districts are required to offer the child “free appropriate public education.”
After the child’s needs and abilities are assessed, an IEP is developed to assist the child’s unique needs to meet educational objectives.
The IEP takes the collaboration of the disabled student, the student's parent(s) or guardian(s), a special education teacher, case manager, at least one regular education teacher, a representative of the school or district who is knowledgeable about the availability of school resources, and an individual who can interpret the instructional implications of the child's evaluation results (such as the school psychologist).
Stage 3, from age 16 to 21, involves the transition to high school and college. This is a very critical stage because this is when the child attains majority at 18.
Let’s consider what age 18 means. First, for a disabled child to receive the generous support of the local Regional Center client, the child must be diagnosed as developmentally disabled prior to turning 18.
If diagnosed as developmentally disabled, the child qualifies for Regional Center programs that provide substantial lifetime assistance.
It is very important, therefore, for the parents of children who may qualify as developmentally disabled to apply timely to their local Regional Center for a determination of eligibility.
Second, the parents must consider whether a limited or general conservatorship is needed to oversee issues relating to the child’s estate (income, assets, and legal matters) and the child’s person (health and welfare issues).
Once the child turns 18, the parents no longer have the control over these issues as they did when the child was a minor. That reality is sometimes overlooked due to ignorance of the law.
Third, at age 18, a disabled child is also likely to become eligible for SSI/Medi-Cal because the parents’ resources are no longer deemed as the child’s resources for eligibility purposes – as they are prior to age 18.
Moreover, a special needs trust may now become necessary in order to prevent any non exempt assets received by the child as gifts or inheritances from being counted as available non exempt assets subject to the $2,000 non exempt asset limitation.
Fourth, at age 18, a disabled child will no longer be allowed to live at a home for minors with disabilities. They will now move to a supervised adult home for the care of persons with disabilities.
Stage 4, at age 22 onwards, involves the transition to adult living. Special education entitlement ceases at age 22. Now, the disabled child must seek residential, vocational, and transportation services.
If the child is a developmentally disabled client of a Regional Center, the child will be assisted in these regards.
Clearly, it is important for families to get their child diagnosed as developmentally disabled and apply for enrollment at a regional center prior to age 18. An oversight in diagnosing developmental disability prior to age 18 cannot be rectified with a determination after age 18.
Clearly parents must look down the road and plan ahead. Not planning can result in missed opportunities and hardships. Planning, however, can allow smoother transitions at each stage.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at
A film director looking for a location where a movie about Mars could be shot might consider the Atacama Desert, one of the harshest landscapes the planet has to offer.
Due to the accidents of its geography, Atacama – located in South America – is the driest place on Earth.
Some scientists believe there was no rain to speak of in part of the Atacama between 1570 and 1971. With little moisture in the air its salt lakes, sand dunes and lava flows broil or freeze and are blasted by ultraviolet radiation.
The conditions make the Atacama a splendid place to test instruments for future Mars missions.
“If you're practicing to find life on Mars, you don't want to go to a lush environment,” said Alian Wang, PhD, research professor in the earth and planetary sciences Washington University in St. Louis and a participant in NASA's ASTEP program to advance the technology and techniques used in planetary exploration.
This month, under the auspices of ASTEP, a Carnegie-Mellon University rover named Zoe set out into the Atacama.
It is scheduled to spend the next four weeks traveling between waypoints with interesting geology and analyzing soil samples, both ones from the surface and ones dredged up from deep underground.
Subsurface samples pulled up by a meter-long drill and dumped into sample cups carried by a carousal to be examined by a laser Raman spectrometer called the Mars Microbeam Raman Spectrometer, or MMRS.
Wang, the principle investigator for the spectrometer, also remotely operates it from her office in St. Louis. Her colleague Jie Wei, PhD, a research scientist in earth and planetary sciences, is traveling with the rover in the Atacama.
Wang said they are hoping Zoe will drive 40 to 50 kilometer and drill 10 to 15 boreholes.
Ready for prime time
The MMRS in its current compact, robust configuration is the culmination of 18 years of work at WUSTL and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), led first by former WUSTL professor Larry Haskin, and now by Wang.
The MMRS was originally scheduled to ride on the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity but after NASA lost two missions on approach to Mars – the Polar Lander and the Climate Orbiter – the MER rovers were downsized and offloaded. The Raman spectrometer, because it was the newest analytical instruments on the rovers, was a casualty of this process.
However, it is now the top candidate among instruments being considered for a 2020 mission to Mars and Wang has just received $3 million from NASA to make sure that it will be mission ready.
What's special about Raman? The spectrometer shines a laser on the sample and measures the energy of the photons the sample scatters back.
“Compared to other spectroscopies,” Wang said, “Raman spectroscopy returns a very clear spectrum. So if you analyze a mixture (rock or soil) you see peaks for each mineral phase and organic molecule. You don't have to do complicated spectral processing to identify what's in the sample. So compared to other spectroscopies, it's very diagnostic.”
Don't fail me now
The journeys in the Atacama are intended is to test the MMRS (and other instruments) until they fail.
If a power system is going to fail on Mars, it will probably fail as well in the Atacama. And far better it should fail while still Earth-bound, than when it is 34 million miles away on the Martian surface.
Last year Wang was part of a team that tested instruments in the desert, without the rover, boring holes with hand-held equipment and operating the instruments manually.
Wang was the PI for three of the instruments. “We found some problems we never expected,” she said.
“The heat generated by cooling the Raman spectrometer's detector is dissipated by a cooling fan. When we came to the Atacama we were sometimes as high as 4,500 meters (14,800 feet) above sea level. The air is so thin at that altitude, the fan labored to get rid of the heat. That's one lesson we learned.”
“Of course it will be different on Mars,” she said, “where the atmosphere is much thinner, but we learned where the instrument is vulnerable.”
On the other hand the laser in the Raman probe has to stay within a certain temperature range to operate properly.
“But when we came to Laguna Lejia suddenly we weren't getting a strong enough signal,” Wang said. “We started checking and discovered the laser power was only a fifteenth of its normal value. It was so windy and cold the laser couldn't warm up. We had to run it longer before taking measurements to get a good signal. So we learned we had to work out a better temperature control for this laser.”
Both discoveries were invaluable since they will allow the team to safeguard against these problems so that they don't occur on Mars.
It's alive!
After the Viking landers failed to find evidence of life on Mars in the late 1970s, a group of scientists took duplicate instruments into the Atacama, where they, too, failed to find evidence life.
They did, however, encounter oxidizing soil conditions in the Atacama that destroyed organic molecules, a leading hypothesis for the apparent sterility of the Martian soils.
The Atacama soil tests done last year confirmed the presence of microorganisms in the desert soils. The presence of life in the Atacama does not of course guarantee its presence on Mars. But it does show that if there is subsurface life, the instruments will be able to detect it.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Two women suffered major injuries late Wednesday when they were struck by a vehicle in Middletown.
Misty Myers, 30, and Elicia Mendoza, 36, were injured in the late night crash, which occurred at 11:55 p.m. on Highway 29 at Armstrong Street, according to a Friday California Highway Patrol report.
Gerardo Garces Barahona, 22, of San Mateo was driving his 2010 Chrysler Sebring southbound on Highway 29, approaching the intersection with Armstrong Street, the report said.
Myers and Mendoza were traveling across the intersection in a westerly direction and were hit by Barahona's car, the report stated.
Both women had major injuries and were transported by REACH air ambulance to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, the CHP said. The CHP did not have an update on their condition.
The CHP said alcohol may have played a factor in the crash.
The crash remains under investigation, the CHP said.
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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A teenager who escaped from Lake County Juvenile Hall in May has been arrested and now will be charged as an adult for the escape.
Isaiah Dominguez, 18, was arrested by Probation Officer Kevin O’Brien and Senior Probation Officer Dennis Reynolds at the Cache Creek Apartments in Clearlake shortly after 5 p.m. Friday, according to the Lake County Probation Department.
Dominguez escaped from the Lake County Juvenile Hall on May 14, the day after his 18th birthday, as Lake County News has reported.
He was in custody for a property crime, and during a mandatory school session scaled a perimeter fence and fled on foot, with a subsequent search of the area failing to locate him, authorities said.
Over the last few weeks, Probation Officer Wendy Mondfrans received numerous tips and reports of sightings of Dominguez in the Clearlake area, Probation Department officials reported.
Several checks were made by the Probation Department and Clearlake Police Department at locations where Dominguez was suspected of staying, officials said.
Acting on recent information, Probation Department officers located Dominguez at the apartment complex Friday and took him into custody without incident, the agency said.
Because Dominguez now has adult status since turning 18, Probation Department officials said Dominguez was being transported to the Lake County Jail early Friday evening for booking pursuant to an arrest warrant issued as a result of his escape.
The Lake County Probation Department said it was grateful for the cooperation received from citizens in the community and for the assistance of the Clearlake Police Department.