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The fire was first reported shortly before 3:30 p.m. off of Highway 20 near the Oasis roadhouse.
Radio reports indicated that dispatchers received numerous cell phone reports of the fire in different locations, but Northshore Fire Deputy Chief Pat Brown said there was just one fire that was located in Colusa County.
He said it was located off the roadway, and measured about 100 feet by 100 feet in size.
Williams Fire sent two engines and a water tender, Northshore Fire Protection District sent three engines and a water tender, and Cal Fire responded with a hand crew, said Brown.
He said the first engine on scene – from Northshore Fire’s Spring Valley station – put the fire out within about 10 minutes.
Brown said Cal Fire is trying to determine the fire’s cause.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
Disabled retirees, reserve component members, surviving spouses and active forces all benefited from flush wartime budgets and a Congress attuned after 9/11 to America’s deepening appreciation of current and past generations who risk life and limb in our nation’s wars.
But amid a deepening debt crisis and return of all U.S. forces from Iraq, the 2012 defense authorization bill (HR 1540) approved week before last shows priorities shifting, toward controlling defense spending and preparing to drawdown forces.
Restored are some old authorities needed to “reduce end strength in a responsible manner,” explained a House-Senate conference report on the bill.
These include:
– Temporary Early Retirement Authority, TERA, to allow select members a reduced annuity if released after 15 years but less than 20;
– Voluntary retirement incentive pay, payable to “no more than 675 officers’ with 20 to 29 years of service can be encourage to leave in return for payments of up to 12 months of basic pay;
– Voluntary separation pay and benefits for select enlisted members or officers who have more than six years’ service but fewer than 20.
– Expansion from three months to one year the period that an enlisted member can be discharged early without incurring a loss of benefits. But no pay or allowances would be paid for obligated time not served.
The Army and Marine Corps saw the steepest force increases during the Iraq war and expect to make the deepest post-war cuts.
Army end strength in 2012 will fall by 7400 soldiers, to 562,000, by October. That’s still up 77,000 from 2003.
Marine strength will hold at 202,100 but plans are to cut the Corps to 186,800 or even lower as cost-cutting pressure intensifies.
The Navy is down 54,400 sailors since wartime strength peaked at 383,000 in 2002. It will lose another 3000 to reach 325,700 by fall.
The Air Force is to gain 600 airmen for total active duty strength of 332,800. Though it is down 40,000 airmen since a wartime peak in 2004, Air Force exceeded its authorized level by 1,200 last October.
The new defense bill authorizes the modest TRICARE Prime enrollment fee increases that took effect Oct. 1 for working-age retirees, the first bump since TRICARE began 16 years ago.
It also directs retiree Prime fees be raised annually by the percentage hike in retired pay through annual cost-of-living adjustments or COLAs. Pharmacy co-payments will be allowed to rise.
Effective back to Oct. 1, the services must prorate imminent danger pay and hostile fire pay of $225 a month based on number of days spent in designated danger areas.
Previously, any part of a day in a war zone qualified a member for the full monthly payment. Only if there’s exposure to hostile fire will a day in theater now trigger full payment.
The Obama administration, military leaders, prominent lawmakers and various debt commissions have signaled deeper cost-sharing ahead for military beneficiaries including a first-ever enrollment fee for TRICARE for life and a dampened COLA formula for all federal entitlements.
So beneficiaries have reason to be wary of the defense budget to be unveiled in February with all accounts, including personnel, facing spending cuts.
Killed during final negotiations between House-Senate conferees on this defense bill was a provision to end reductions in survivor benefit annuities for surviving spouses to match dependency and indemnity compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Also killed was a provision to ease the impact of this SBP-DIC offset by increasing amounts paid under the interim Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance.
Progress also has stalled on other entitlement reforms including lifting the ban on concurrent receipt of both retired pay and VA disability compensation for all disabled retirees.
Still being impacted by the ban are retirees with disability ratings of 40 percent or less and disabled veterans forced by health conditions to leave service short of 20 years. President Obama at one time endorsed these benefit expansions but no more.
Military associations don’t brag of gains over the past decade, probably to protect them and to the fight effectively for others. But even a partial list is impressive.
Older retirees today have TRICARE for Life, a prized supplement to Medicare that didn’t exist before. All beneficiaries have access to a mail-order drug program and a vast retail pharmacy network.
Many thousands of retirees with serious or combat-related disabilities now draw full retired pay plus VA disability compensation because Congress ended for them the century-old ban on concurrent receipt.
The Survivor Benefit Plan is more valuable since Congress ended a deep reduction in annuities at age 62 when surviving spouses become eligible for social security.
The gratuity for combat-related deaths was raised six-fold to $100,000 and maximum Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage rose from $250,000 to $400,000.
Congress also approved a lump sum Traumatic SGLI payment of up to $100,000 to assist the most severely wounded with immediate financial challenges.
A decade ago careerists faced a reduced retirement plan, Redux, and an anemic post-service education benefit.
Congress restored for them the traditional retirement plan of “half” base pay at 20 years with full COLA or annual cost-of-living adjustments.
In 2009, a far more valuable Post-9/11 GI Bill took effect for those with active service since Sept. 11, 2001.
A perceived military pay gap with the private sector was closed over a decade with a string of annual raises that exceeded private sector wage growth, and out-of-pocket housing costs fell sharply as Basic Allowance for Housing was raised enough to cover members’ average rent and utility costs.
Reserve personnel also saw gains including premium-based TRICARE coverage while in drill status and the lowering of the age-60 reserve retirement tied to length of wartime deployments after January 2008.
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The fire was reported shortly before 10 p.m. on El Camino Real, according to Lake County Fire Assistant Chief Willie Sapeta.
Firefighters were dispatched and on the scene within seven minutes, Sapeta said.
Sapeta said he responded along with an engine, water tender, two medics and a total of 20 fire personnel.
When they arrived the older doublewide mobile home was 50 percent involved, he said.
“We had control of it in about 45 minutes,” he said, adding that firefighters had mopped up and been released from the scene within two hours.
He said they were aided in fighting the blaze by the fact that a fire hydrant was located just across the street.
Neighbors told firefighters that they thought the woman who lived in the home was there when the fire broke out, but Sapeta said three complete searches yielded no sign of her.
Firefighters did, however, find two dogs and a cat that died as a result of the fire, he said.
The home was destroyed, said Sapeta, noting that what the fire didn’t damage the smoke and heat did.
He said the cause is still under investigation.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
The school’s administration successfully applied for a California Partnership Academy and Renewable Energy Grant for 2011-12 from the California Department of Education.
Upper Lake High was among 21 schools in the state to receive the funding, according to Patrick Iaccino, Upper Lake High’s principal and superintendent.
Iaccino called getting the grant – which focuses on alternative energy and sustainable agriculture – “unbelievable.”
“We’re really excited about it because it really is going to provide our kids with some opportunities, we believe, down the road,” Iaccino said.
According to grant documents, SBX1 1, a bill that passed the California Legislature this year, provides support for the development and operation of “California Partnership Academies” to prepare students for careers in the clean technology and renewable energy fields.
Among the industry sectors identified in the grant application as most aligned with SBX1 1’s intent are agriculture and natural resources, building trades and construction, energy and utilities, engineering and design, manufacturing and product development, transportation, and marketing, sales and services.
Upper Lake High School has received a $15,000 planning grant, which Iaccino said will be used to plan how to structure an academy to prepare students for clean technology and sustainable agriculture jobs.
The grant wants recipient schools to try to have between 120 and 150 students involved in the academy over a three- to four-year period, Iaccino said.
For every student enrolled in the academy, the school receives $1,000, for a maximum amount of $45,000 in the first year, $80,000 in the second, $120,000 in the third year and $150,000 in the fourth year, according to grant documents. The funding is available through 2017.
Iaccino said he worked with John Woods, the school’s science department chair, and agriculture teacher Erica Boomer to put together the grant application.
The application was helped by the support letters written by about 20 businesses, organizations and individuals, Iaccino said.
Among those who wrote in support of the proposal were Mendocino College, the Lake County Office of Education and Lake County District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing, he said.
Rushing, who has worked in clean tech for most of her adult life, said that up until now there has not been a focused clean technology training/job preparation program in California schools, which have been focused on college preparation and standardized testing, not vocational preparation.
She said that educational gap has been filled at the high technology end by the industry itself, with the advantage going to the very large companies who can build training campuses.
In addition, the Solar Living Center in Hopland has trained small scale operators and individuals in skills ranging from solar design and installation to ecological gardening, training programs that community colleges recently have begun to offer, she said.
Rushing said the grant is significant for Lake County, and it offers students a chance to prepare for an industry that she said is going to continue to grow.
The grant also will benefit the county, further positioning Lake County – which in recent years has won Green California leadership awards for innovation and solar infrastructure – as a leader in developing the state’s green economy, Rushing said.
The community support Upper Lake High received in making its grant application, along with the feasibility of having a four-year college locate at the Lucerne Hotel – where Marymount College is working with the county on an agreement to locate a campus – has created an atmosphere of optimism for Upper Lake’s educators.
Iaccino said the school believes they can create a program to prepare students for successful, and well paying, careers.
The grant arrives as the school has been putting together a school farm and community garden on a two-acre section at the back of the campus. Iaccino said they just put in a well for the farm and garden this year.
Iaccino believes the academy will eventually serve up to 50 percent of the school’s 330 students.
That high of a percentage of involvement appeared to intrigue the state, Iaccino said.
As part of the planning, Iaccino said he, Woods, Boomer and Upper Lake High’s head counselor, Rebecca Carter, will travel to Sacramento for a training that takes place Feb. 12-15.
When they get back from the training, Iaccino said they will start to piece the academy together.
Part of their planning will involve visiting Lucerne Elementary School and Upper Lake Middle School, where Iaccino said they will talk to eighth graders about their interests.
The goal is to roll out the academy in the next school year, involving not just incoming freshmen but some sophomores, Iaccino said.
Another program goal is to have students in their senior year fulfill an internship with a local agricultural or clean technology business or organization, Iaccino said.
Woods teaches classes on the environment and biology, and Iaccino said Woods is interested in alternative energy from an environmental perspective. “We’re going to try to marry the two if we can.”
Scheduling will be a challenge, with freshmen and sophomores at the school – who already are required to take two to three science courses – only getting one elective in each of those years. Iaccino said Carter will help figure out how to put the schedules together.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
On Dec. 14, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a survey revealing that nearly one in two women – or 44.6 percent – and one in five men, or 22.2 percent, experience sexual violence other than rape throughout their lifetime.
The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey shows an increased need for rape crisis centers and rape prevention programs, with approximately 1.3 million women reported being raped in the 12 months prior to taking the survey.
According to LeMon Perales, program manager for the Lake Family Resource Center Rape Crisis Center, classically low reporting rates for this sexual violence make it extremely difficult to calculate an accurate rate of sexual violence in Lake County.
However, Perales said there were more than 200 such cases reported in 2010 in Lake County.
“It is always difficult, especially with the economy as it is currently, but this report clearly demonstrates that California must commit to supporting funding for rape crisis center programs that work to reduce the incidence of and provide support and treatment of sexual crimes. In the end, the dollars spent up front on prevention, early intervention, and treatment will reduce long term negative health consequences which, in turn, will save the state money in the long run,” said Lake Family Resource Center Executive Director Gloria Flaherty.
The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey is an ongoing, nationally representative survey that assesses experiences of sexual violence, stalking and intimate partner violence among adult women and men in the United States.
It confirms what advocates and educators already know about the prevalence of sexual violence, intimate partner violence and stalking. It also sheds new light on the scope and context of these forms of violence.
The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey revealed that close to 22 million people are victims of rape; more than two million of these survivors live in California.
In 2010-11, about 30,000 people accessed crisis intervention services from one of California’s 63 rape crisis centers, according to the findings.
A majority of funding dedicated to rape crisis centers is delivered from the federal budget, not from the state budget. The state of California only dedicated $45,000 to sexual violence programs, which means that the state of California allotted $1.50 for each individual who accessed services.
In order to decrease rates of violence and foster healthier communities, the study concludes that it is imperative that California develops a funding initiative for rape crisis centers.
The California Coalition Against Sexual Assault said that social norms that contribute to violence and the response to violence can be changed, and rape crisis centers and other anti-violence programs need support to help create that transformation.
Such agencies need resources to continue to provide counseling, legal advocacy, community education, prevention programming, shelter and policy advocacy, CALCASA reported.
“Rape crisis centers are doing phenomenal work to support survivors and prevent sexual violence, but there is still so much more that needs to be done,” said CALCASA’s Executive Director Sandra Henriquez. “It’s essential that advocates have the resources and capacity to reach more survivors and to create communities that are healthier and free from interpersonal violence.”
The federal budget crisis has resulted in a 40 percent reduction to rape prevention education awards, which has undermined critical efforts in California to prevent sexual assault throughout the state, according to the organization. California’s rape crisis centers and service providers could stand to lose more than $800,000 as a result of federal budget disputes.
Lake Family Resource Center said it’s a crucial time for its rape crisis center to reach out to members of community on the issues raised in the report.
Perales said Lake County is classified as a rural, underserved area with multiple “at risk” populations for sexual violence. Children, elderly, disabled, ethnic, mentally ill and economically disadvantaged all are at high risk of becoming victims of violence, especially sexual violence.
The prevention and intervention of rape must be a priority in Lake County, California and throughout the nation, according to Perales.
Lake Family Resource Center’s Rape Crisis Center Advocates are available 24 hours/day, seven days per week to serve families in Lake County.
They have received extensive training to enable them to share accurate information about trauma, victim rights and community resources and will support the victim and the family as they deal with this crime. There is no charge and no time limit for these services.
Lake Family Resource Center also operates the Community Crisis Line – 1-888-485-7733 – which is available 24/7.
The center can be visited online at http://lakefrc.org/.
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The Clear Lake Area California Highway Patrol will offer a free “Start Smart” traffic safety classes for teenage drivers and their parents.
The class will run approximately two hours and will be offered on Monday, Jan. 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the CHP office, located at 5700 Live Oak Dr., at the corner of Highway 29 and Live Oak Drive in Kelseyville.
Traffic collisions are the No. 1 killer of teenagers in America.
Nationally about 5,000 teens will die in automobile crashes. About 10 percent of those deaths are in California alone.
In California in 2009, there were 61,029 collisions involving teenage drivers statewide, of which 346 resulted in fatalities, the CHP reported.
In Lake County during that time period, there were 41 injury or fatal crashes involving teen drivers, of which 34 of those teen drivers were ruled at fault, according to the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System. Among those crashes, there was one fatality.
The Start Smart program aims to help future and newly-licensed teenage drivers learn the responsibilities that accompany the privilege of being a licensed driver.
The program is an educational tool for parents and teens to reduce the number of teen injuries and deaths resulting from traffic collisions.
It provides information on defensive driving, state traffic laws, dynamics of traffic collisions, tips on avoiding collisions and DUI awareness.
Space is limited for this class. For more information or reservations, call Officer Kory Reynolds at the CHP office, 707-279-0103.
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