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Firefighters stop progress on brush fire in Pittsburg

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Firefighters have successfully contained a vegetation fire in Pittsburg that began flaring up on Friday following weeks of smoldering in a peaty marsh, Contra Costa County’s fire department said.

The fire, which began in the city’s marshland area in late May, most recently flared up in mid-June, burning approximately 122 acres and forcing hundreds of families to evacuate their homes. Firefighters managed to contain the blaze without any damage to people or property, but did not fully extinguish it.

By Saturday afternoon the fire, which was burning near the 700 block of Willow Pass Road, had begun advancing toward a decommissioned NRG power plant, according to Contra Costa County Fire. The agency said in a tweet that it would be calling “additional firefighting resources” to the scene to prevent the blaze from reaching the power plant.

Smoke from the fire also began pouring into the nearby cities of Antioch and Oakley, according to Cal Fire’s camera monitoring system.

But as the evening progressed, the agency announced it was able to stop the fire’s forward progress after it had burned through roughly 200 acres.

“ Con Fire units stopped forward progress of Marsh Fire. Firefighters will remain on scene through the night mopping up numerous hot spots,” the agency tweeted Saturday evening. “200 acres burned. No structures damaged. No firefighters injured.”

Cleared

From Page A3

21 witnesses, including administrators, teachers and current and former students. Investigators found that Caldeira and Baraki did not “stalk” or monitor students’ online activities to recruit students for the club.

Knorr said the two teachers, like their colleagues, used GoGuardian, a program that allows schools to see students’ computer screens, but “did not use the reports for club recruitment. The two teachers did plan to invite one student to the club after they noticed the student click on an LGBTQIA+-related link in class on approximately March 31, 2020. However, they ultimately did not invite that student to the club.”

The teachers did not “coach” students about changing their gender identity, the investigation found, and did not use “mind tricks” on students or any other tactics to avoid parent complaints. Right-wing pundits and others have asserted, without evidence, that young people are being coerced into becoming transgender.

The fight over the LGBTQ club isn’t over. Before the investigation was completed, a former parent at the school, Jessica Konen – who had criticized the district at the December meeting – filed a lawsuit against the board, the two teachers and the principal, arguing they harmed her by not informing her that her child had chosen to use a different name and pronouns at school.

“Defendants denied Ms. Konen of that right during a crucial phase of A.G.’s development, choosing for themselves how to direct A.G.’s upbringing regarding the major life decision of A.G.’s gender identity, and concealing critical facts from Ms. Konen, her parent,” the complaint states, echoing the language of other parental rights suits around the country that focus on issues from teachings on race to sexuality and gender.

The school, the complaint says, had a policy that teachers and staff would not tell parents if children expressed confusion or a desire to change gender identity unless the student expressly asked that the parents be informed.

The district and the two teachers declined to comment on the lawsuit. But California law does not require teachers to inform parents about students’ gender identities. In fact, doing so could be considered discrimination on the basis of sex, if staff members tell parents only when their child is identifying as transgender, said UC Hastings general counsel John DiPaolo, who has no involvement in the Spreckels case.

The California Department of Education says that school staff should not disclose information about students’ gender identity without student permission under Assembly Bill 1266, which protects transgender students’ rights and went into law in 2014.

“A transgender or gender nonconforming student may not express their gender identity openly in all contexts, including at home. Revealing a student’s gender identity or expression to others may compromise the student’s safety. Thus, preserving a student’s privacy is of the utmost importance,” the education department’s guidance says.

Cathy Chu, the director of youth organizing for the national Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network, which supports such clubs at schools, said that in situations where parents have tried to keep their children from attending meetings, “the school administrators said that they could communicate this request but they had no actual authority to stop a student from attending a GSA club or to let their parent know if they were attending.”

Konen’s lawsuit, which alleges causes of action including intentional infliction of emotional distress, details her belief that Caldeira “coached” her child into changing her name and pronouns. The suit says Caldeira did not properly tell Konen, while acknowledging that the teacher eventually did disclose the information in a meeting with the parent and her child.

The complaint says that during the remote learning of the pandemic, Konen’s child “began to return to her original self.” The child now attends another school, and her mother says she has resumed using female pronouns. “ Ms. Konen and her daughter have sought guidance from their pastor in attempting to overcome the harm set forth herein, and they are likely to continue seeking such guidance in the future, among other potential mental health treatment,” the suit states.

Yosemite using aerial tankers, chemicals against wildfire

Why that’s ‘a big deal’ for park

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

Tinder-dry conditions in Yosemite National Park have prompted firefighters battling the Washburn Fire to call in both air tanker planes to drop fire-retardant chemicals on the wildfire and bulldozers to help create containment lines.

Both the tankers and the ’dozers are considered unusual for firefighting efforts in a national park, where the vast majority of the acreage is designated as wilderness, said Nancy Phillipe, a fire information spokeswoman for Yosemite National Park.

“Obviously this is a full-suppression fire for us,” Phillipe told The Fresno Bee on Sunday. “For us, using retardant (chemicals) is a huge deal because this is wilderness.” National wilderness laws contain strict rules for when such chemicals can be used, she added, and the same is true for the bulldozers.

But both measures were deemed necessary to protect not only the iconic Mariposa Grove of giant sequoia trees that is threatened by the fire, but also the residential enclave of Wawona, inside the park boundaries, where a mandatory evacuation order has been in effect since Friday.

The Wawona community is about three miles from Washburn Fire, which grew in size from about 1,100 acres on Saturday evening to almost 1,600 acres by Sunday morning – an increase of almost 50% overnight. Containment of the fire remained at 0% on Sunday morning.

Between the air tankers and almost a dozen helicopters dropping water on the fire, “it’s been quite an aerial show over Wawona,” Phillipe said.

By Saturday night, about 360 firefighters were working to contain the fire, an increase of about 150 from Friday. Those include hand crews building containment lines around the fire, along with engine crews. That number was expected to keep increasing Sunday as more teams from local, state and federal agencies arrive in the park, Phillipe said.

Dead conifer trees, both standing and down, as well as dry brush on the forest floor after years of drought in the Sierra Nevada are contributing to the fire’s spread.

The fire was first reported Thursday afternoon along the Washburn Trail in the Mariposa Grove, and the grove near the southern entrance to the park from Highway 41 remains evacuated and closed because of the continuing threat of the fire’s spread.

Within the Mariposa Grove, rangers have set up portable sprinkler systems to protect one of the park’s most well-known giant sequoias, the Grizzly Giant. In addition to moistening the forest floor around the tree, Phillipe said, the sprinklers also raise the humidity in the grove to reduce the dry conditions that could fuel flames.

The Mariposa Grove is the largest stand of massive giant sequoias in Yosemite, with more than 500 mature speciments of the iconic trees. The grove was the first area of what is now Yosemite National Park when President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation in 1864 to protect Mariposa Grove.

Rangers opted against wrapping the base of the Grizzly Giant – a 209-foot-tall, 3,000-yearold sequoia described as the second largest in the grove – and other giant sequoias within Mariposa Grove with a foil-like retardant material for fear of creating more of a “baked potato” effect if flames did sweep through the area, Phillipe said. But, she added, the wrapping was used to envelop a historic cabin in the grove.

Firefighters said that previous prevention efforts within the grove, including prescribed burns and other measures to reduce fuels, could prove beneficial in minimizing the Washburn fire’s threat.

Eric Paul Zamora/Tribune Content Agency Fire retardant is dropped on the Washburn Fire as it burns in late afternoon light near the south entrance of Yosemite National Park near Fish Camp, Saturday.

Bay Area babies and toddlers getting vaccinated at faster clip than state, nation

Tribune ConTenT AgenCy

In late June, when pediatrician Dr. Nelson Branco opened up Covid vaccine appointments for his youngest patients – babies and toddlers under 5 years old – parents raced to book some 250 slots within the first 48 hours.

By late last week, nearly 20% of Branco’s roughly 1,500 patients in this age group had gotten their first shot. The doctor, who practices in Larkspur and Novato, anticipates that over the next few weeks, it will double to 40%.

The brisk pace of vaccination at Tamalpais Pediatrics offers a glimpse into a now-familiar pattern since Covid vaccines first became available in the United States last year. Vaccine uptake among babies and toddlers in the Bay Area appears to be far outpacing statewide and national rates, according to early figures provided by several local health departments.

Nearly three weeks since shots became available for babies and tots, 12% of children under 5 in San Francisco have gotten their first shot – comparable to the rate among kids 5 to 11 at the same stage of the rollout, the San Francisco Department of Public Health said.

In Marin, San Mateo and Alameda counties, 16%, 12% and 10% of babies and toddlers have gotten their first shot, respectively, local data show. Napa and Sonoma counties report 6% and 5% uptake, respectively.

Health officials in some counties had hoped for better. In Marin, for example, officials expected the number to hit about 33% at this stage based on uptake with the 5-11 age group.

But all the Bay Area numbers are higher than the 2.4% rate in California as a whole and just 1.5% nationwide, according to new figures from the state Department of Health Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It was faster than we expected, which is a good thing,” said Desi Kotis, chief pharmacy executive at UCSF, which is administering shots for the under-5 set at clinics in San Francisco and Oakland. “Within the first four or five days, we were probably 20% to 30% greater than what we expected.”

Kotis attributes the higher-than-anticipated early uptake to several factors. Children are out of school, so it may be easier for parents to bring them in right away. Many families are going on summer vacations and want to get their youngest children vaccinated before they depart.

Locally, many parents appear to prefer the quicker Moderna vaccine protocol over Pfizer’s more prolonged alternative for their under-5 children. In Marin County, 65% of first shots given to kids under 5 have been Moderna. At UCSF’s pediatric vaccine clinics, 55% of the shots given to young children have been Moderna, compared with 45% Pfizer.

Dr. Jayme Congdon, who took her 4-yearold son, Jude, to get his shot on the first day UCSF opened its Laurel Heights pediatric clinic, is one such parent. The family is traveling in August, and Congdon, a pediatrician at UCSF, wanted to get Jude fully vaccinated as soon as possible. Moderna’s two shots, given four weeks apart, would accomplish that sooner than Pfizer’s three shots, given over 11 weeks.

“Every pediatrician I know is lining up to get their own kids vaccinated, and encourage patients to do the same,” Congdon said. “The sooner kids get vaccinated, the sooner they’re protected.”

Similar to the two previous pediatric groups – kids 5 to 11, and adolescents and teens 12 to 17 – the most eager parents are taking their kids for shots first. But unlike the two older groups, some pediatricians believe demand among the youngest children will peak sooner and taper off faster, giving way to a slow trickle of shots between now and the winter.

Many will probably be given at the same time babies and toddlers come in for their regularly scheduled appointments for checkups or other childhood vaccinations, or when accompanying an older sibling for a visit, Branco said. This is in sharp contrast to last year, when older children and teens were getting their first shots at large school clinics and mass vaccination sites, sometimes at a volume of hundreds a day.

“I think what we’ll see is a slow, steady increase but at a much slower pace after the first month,” Branco said. “What will drive that will be the beginning of the school year, the beginning of virus season in the winter, perhaps another wave of Covid that’ll prompt parents to bring their kids in to be vaccinated.”

But even in Marin County, with its higherthan-average uptake so far, the path forward is more unpredictable and complicated for the youngest children than any other group before it – a phenomenon that is playing out nationwide.

The county’s public health officer, Dr. Matt Willis, said just a month ago that he expected a third of children under 5 to get their first shot within the first month.

“We’ll see whether or not we reach that,” Willis said. “It really changes, even week by week, the parameters for these decisions. . . . If this had rolled out even three months ago we would’ve had higher uptake.”

By comparison, three weeks after vaccines became available for children aged 5 to 11 in Marin County, 40% of kids in that age group had gotten their first shot – a much higher proportion than the 16% of children under 5.

Many parents have reasons for waiting to get their young children vaccinated, he said. A lot of babies and toddlers have gotten Covid in the last few months since the highly contagious omicron variant and its even more transmissible subvariants became the dominant circulating strains. So those children now have some level of immunity from Covid, at least temporarily.