Press release from the incident management team:

• Acres: 12,907
• Crews: 25
• Containment: 43%
• Engines: 47
• Detection Date: August 9, 2024
• Dozers: 7
• Cause: Under investigation
• Helicopters: 11 + 2 UAS
• Total resources: 886
• Fixed wing: available as needed

Headlines

•Traffic control remains in place along the Salmon River Road between Butler Flat and Nordheimer Flat for the safety of firefighters and residents. Expect up to 30-minute delays. Incident personnel driving vehicles with more than two axels will not be allowed on the road.

•Fire information phone: (707) 572-4860 or email at 2024.Boise@firenet.gov

•Get all your Boise Fire information in one mobile-friendly place! See this link.

•Evacuations are in place for residents near the fire area in Humboldt County. For the most current evacuation information please visit the Boise Fire linktree or visit— or visit—

✓Humboldt County: Link.

✓Siskiyou County: Link.

Leader’s Intent

The Boise Fire is being managed with a full suppression strategy.

Operational Update: On the west side of the fire, firefighters continue to mop up, patrol, and chip vegetation along the roadways. Some damaged roads have been repaired to allow crews to access the fire’s edge. Two new spike camps have been created along the east side of the fire to decrease the travel time for crews. Additionally, new heli-spots have been created to facilitate the movement of equipment and personnel. Multiple crews are being inserted into the China Creek area to create handline along the fire’s edge.

Weather and Fire Behavior:

Drier and warmer weather is expected to return to the area. With the recent moisture, no significant fire movement is expected. As conditions continue to dry, fire activity may pick up.

During Zuleima Baquedano’s first year as a teacher, she faced an important choice.

One of her students had difficulty controlling her emotions. One day, she had a meltdown and kicked Baquedano down.

The principal asked Baquedano if she wanted to call the police, because the incident legally counted as assault. But not long before, the student had moved in with her family after being in and out of foster care, was beginning the diagnostic process for her disability and had been working with Baquedano on coping mechanisms.

“Any contact with police would have really put all of that in jeopardy,” Baquedano said. “Calling the police, getting Child Protective Services involved and all that would have completely just ruined any kind of progress she’d made.”

Baquedano decided against calling the police. “I’m never going to regret advocating for her, despite the fact that several teachers told me I couldn’t let her get away with it, and that she did this on purpose when they didn’t even know her,” she said.

She had a choice because she worked at a charter school in Los Angeles. Staff at traditional public schools don’t have the same freedom: Under California law, they are required to make a police report if a student assaults them — and can be prosecuted if they don’t.

A bill before the Legislature in its final week would change that.

But what supporters see as a common sense bill, opponents see as going too far, raising partisan tensions in an election year in which crime and education are top of mind for many voters.

A difficult path to the Senate

Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat, has been trying to get similar legislation passed for four years.

“The data very clearly shows that when law enforcement is required to come onto campus, those that they choose to arrest are disproportionately people with disabilities and students of color,” Kalra said in an interview.

A 2021 study by the ACLU of Southern California found that students with disabilities make up 26% of school arrests, despite being 11% of total enrollment. According to a 2024 report by the California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, students of color are handcuffed by police at a disproportionate rate — 20% of Black students compared to 9% of white students.

“This bill is really a turning point in addressing issues around school climate,” said Oscar Lopez, an associate managing attorney at Disability Rights California, a sponsor of the bill.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra at the state Capitol in Sacramento on June 13, 2023. Photo by Semantha Norris, CalMatters

This is the first time Kalra’s bill has made it to the Senate, and it wasn’t easy. It barely squeaked out of the Assembly by a vote of just 41-22, with seven Democrats voting “no.”

“It’s unfortunate that a common sense bill like this has struggled so hard to make it through the Legislature,” Kalra said.

And opposition is organizing.

Last week, Senate Republicans released their own bill analysis, listing concerns about school safety, drug possession and the relationship between schools and law enforcement.

“The bottom line is this is going to make our school campuses less safe,” Senate GOP Leader Brian Jones of San Diego told CalMatters. “It’s going to endanger our students, teachers, administrators and even the law enforcement professionals who have to serve on these campuses.”

Law enforcement officials worry that AB 2441 could open the door to eliminating school resource officers.

“School officials and law enforcement should work together, especially when it comes to pupils whose behavior violates the law and puts school safety in jeopardy,” said Cory Salzillo, legislative director of the California State Sheriffs’ Association. “Removing requirements just runs counter to that notion.”

If AB 2441 were to pass, there would still still be times when staff are required to call the police. Under federal law, local education agencies must call law enforcement if a student has a firearm or is caught selling controlled substances.

“School officials and law enforcement should work together, especially when it comes to pupils whose behavior violates the law and puts school safety in jeopardy.”
— Cory Salzillo, legislative director of the California State Sheriffs’ Association

Some opponents have also raised concerns about school administrators’ ability to discern between students who are selling controlled substances or just possessing them — a task they think should be left to law enforcement, particularly amid the fentanyl crisis.

“Schools are not isolated in the community, so when there are crimes being committed, even if it’s simple possession of a controlled substance, that’s something that law enforcement should be aware of,” Salzillo said.

The California Department of Public Health plans to announce a new fentanyl education campaign on Wednesday.

“Fentanyl is so dangerous that we need to be all hands on deck on dealing with that crisis on our school campuses,” Jones said. “Removing this requirement of reporting is just unbelievable to me at this point in time.”

Because of an amendment to the bill, staff would also need to notify law enforcement if someone needed immediate medical attention.

After the Senate Republican Caucus released its analysis — and sent it to its entire press list for the first time — supporters of the bill accused them of fear mongering and spreading misinformation.

“There’s been a lot of untruths shared and promoted by the opposition to this bill,” said Rachel Bhagwat, legislative advocate at ACLU California Action, a bill sponsor.

Jones denied that’s what’s happening.

“California voters and taxpayers are fed up with the criminal justice system in California right now,” he said. “They’re fed up with the progressive wing that’s continuing to decriminalize crime.”

Preventing the school-to-prison pipeline

Research has shown that when young people face severe discipline at school — such as police interaction, suspension or expulsion — they are less likely to graduate high school and more likely to go to prison.

“The interpretation of normal, age-appropriate behaviors as being threatening and criminal and dangerous is leading to a situation where young people are not getting educational opportunities in school, and they’re being funneled into further criminal contact and the criminal system,” Bhagwat said.

Under current state law, staff are required to try other methods — such as meeting with parents, speaking with a psychologist, creating an individualized education plan or restorative justice programs — before resorting to something more severe.

“Between counseling and other programs, there are methods to use that don’t involve punitive consequences such as a misdemeanor crime,” Naj Alikhan, senior director of marketing and communications for the Association of California School Administrators, wrote in a statement to CalMatters.

The bill would also get rid of a clause that makes it a crime to “willfully disturb” public schools and meetings. Under this provision, students could be criminally prosecuted for running in hallways or knocking on doors.

“It’s somewhat of a vague term,” Kalra said, “and it’s been used against students who might have behavior issues. There’s a lot of different reasons why a student may be causing a disturbance and we want to give schools the ability to decide how they want to handle those situations.”

“There’s an assumption that we’re going to stop calling the police, and that’s not the case. The idea that we wouldn’t have that common sense is a little insulting.”
— Zuleima Baquedano, a charter school teacher

An amendment to the bill would make it an infraction for someone to prevent a school staff member from calling the police.

Baquedano — who testified on the bill before the Senate education committee in July and now teaches in Santa Ana — said that if the bill passes, there are serious situations, like having a deadly weapon or being in possession of drugs, where she would still call.

“There’s an assumption that we’re going to stop calling the police, and that’s not the case,” she said. “The idea that we wouldn’t have that common sense is a little insulting.”

It’s a decision Baquedano said teachers deserve to have.

“People should trust us — the professionals in the situation, who’ve been trained, who’ve gone through education to do this — they should be trusting our judgment,” she said. “We’re the ones who best know our students. We spend all these hours with them a year, sometimes more than parents do.”

Kalra remains optimistic that AB 2441 will pass the Senate this week and make it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

“You would hope,” he said, “that legislators would understand the need for us to support all students, and I’m hopeful that at least we can get this bill through to see that it’s not going to create some doomsday outcome.”

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

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This story, produced by CalMatters, is published jointly with San Diego Magazine.

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Colorful collages line the hallways of Best Start Birth Center in San Diego, the squishy faces of hundreds of newborns carefully cut out and framed. A picture of executive director Karen Roslie’s son, born in 2003, hangs among the smiling, crying and squinting babies.

Thirty years ago, Roslie’s mother, Roberta Frank, opened Best Start after training to become a certified nurse midwife. Since that time, state agencies and national organizations have recognized the birth center as a model for alternative birth practices. The Canadian health ministry even visited in the 1990s as it developed plans to fund midwifery services, Roslie said.

But in March, Best Start closed its doors, unable to keep up with escalating costs. TRICARE, a major military insurer and Best Start’s biggest contractor, wouldn’t pay for licensed midwives — only nurses, who can make much more money in a hospital. In a community where the Navy is a major employer, it was a debilitating blow to the birth center. The photos Roslie meticulously framed over the years will most likely have to be destroyed to avoid any medical privacy violations — evidence of more than 5,600 births shredded.

“It feels like I’m mourning a death,” Roslie said, gazing at the pictures.

Best Start was the first licensed and accredited birth center in California, and even those credentials couldn’t save it. In fact, they may have hindered the birth center’s survival, requiring expensive renovations that many midwives say aren’t relevant to the care they provide or the safety of their practice. Its closure was one of at least 19 birth center shutdowns and service reductions in the past four years, according to the California chapter of the American Association of Birth Centers.

Those closures deepen a crisis of declining women’s health services across California. More than 50 California hospital labor and delivery wards have closed in the past decade, creating maternity care deserts in rural communities and overburdening the remaining labor wards in cities and suburbs.

Health experts have pointed to birth centers as a way to expand capacity in communities where hospitals no longer deliver babies. The midwife-run clinics handle low-risk births and direct higher-risk pregnancies to hospitals.

Left to right, Founder Roberta Frank and Executive Director Karen Rosalie at the Best Start Birthing Center in San Diego on March 20, 2024. Photo by Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters

But California has some of the toughest licensing requirements in the country, according to the American Association of Birth Centers, and facilities such as Best Start have long argued that California’s onerous regulations and an uncooperative Public Health Department prevent them from succeeding.

Only six operating birth centers are licensed in California. Another 26 are unlicensed. Licensure isn’t required, but it helps enable a practice to work with insurance plans and serve lower-income families who can’t pay birthing costs out of pocket.

Increasingly, only wealthy families who pay cash can afford a midwife.

“The system is just a mess. It’s flawed. It’s set up to prevent providers that can provide really good care from even getting started,” Frank, the founder of Best Start, said.

While most California births happen in hospitals, birth centers serve a small but growing number of families. Planned out-of-hospital births attended by midwives have doubled over the past decade even as birth rates overall declined, according to data from the Medical Board of California. And a statewide survey conducted in 2018 by the California Health Care Foundation indicated that more than one-third of pregnant people would be interested in having a midwife for a future birth.

Frequently, those who seek the services of midwives and birth centers cite the desire for more personalized care, or poor experiences with previous hospital births. Studies show that for low-risk pregnancies, midwife-led deliveries at birth centers are safe and lead to fewer interventions such as cesarean sections.

“Women deserve this,” Frank said. “Every human deserves to find their own strength, find their place, exercise their initiative, and I wanted to share it.”

But even as demand for out-of-hospital births increases, birth centers across the state are shutting their doors, unable to withstand the joint battering ram of financial and regulatory challenges.

Last year, the Santa Rosa Birth Center stopped delivering babies, reducing options in a Wine Country community that recently lost a hospital maternity ward and another birth center.

A Sacramento midwife closed her birth center in February and left the country because she said California’s health system was too unfriendly to make ends meet. Another Sacramento birth center is also on the verge of closure because it cannot get a state license.

Midwife Madeleine Wisner measures and checks Chloé Mick’s belly during a maternity care consultation at Mick’s home in Sacramento on Feb. 6, 2024. Photos by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

In September, Monterey Birth and Wellness Center will close, citing high costs and poor insurance reimbursement.

The California Public Health Department refused multiple requests for an interview about licensing, responding only to emailed questions. Licensing requires facilities to meet “minimum standards” for patient care, which include regulations about proper equipment and staff competency, the department said in an unsigned statement.

“We cannot speculate or comment on any reason why providers chose to close these facilities, aren’t seeking licensure for new (birth centers), or what could be done to improve the process,” the department statement said.

Years-long wait for a health department license

Nancy Myrick, a co-founder of the San Francisco Birth Center, said it took four-and-a-half years of back-and-forth with the state health department to obtain a license. In one instance, Myrick said, she asked for a list of items an inspector would check and the health department referred her to regulations that had not yet been written.

“In the process of opening, the state bureaucracy was like the Great Wall of China. It was such a horrible barrier,” Myrick said.

It wasn’t until Myrick called her state assemblymember’s office to complain about the inability to get licensed and see Medi-Cal patients that the application was approved, she said. The birth center was licensed in 2020.

“It literally took calling in the political dogs to get it done,” Myrick said.

Many providers noticed that getting a license became much more difficult after the state centralized the process under the public health department in 2018. Since then, nearly all birth center applications — 11 out of 13 — have been rejected, according to department-provided data.

The department said in a statement the change was necessary to improve “standardization and consistency” in licensing multiple kinds of facilities. Previously, the department’s 14 regional offices processed applications and approved 11 out of 12 applications.

Yet midwives and advocates say obstacles continue to plague the process. It’s slow, often taking years; it’s expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars to retrofit buildings and maintain a license; and the standards are frequently at odds with midwives’ scope of practice. What results is a “de facto ban” on birth center licensure in California, said Sandra Poole, a lobbyist with the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Without licensing reform, more birth centers will close, said Bethany Sasaki, president of the state chapter of the American Association of Birth Centers.

Sally K., right, thirty-eight weeks pregnant, talks to midwife Andrea Bergleen, left, during a check-up at the Best Start Birthing Center in San Diego on March 20, 2024. Photo by Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters

A key problem, Sasaki said, is that birth centers are expected to comply with building standards designed for hospitals. For example, the standards include negative pressure rooms for infection control and cast iron plumbing for water supply and drainage.

Many midwives argue the standards don’t make sense because their patients are legally required to be healthy with low-risk pregnancies. Any condition that would require the additional medical intervention the standards are meant to accommodate, such as surgery, would force the patient to be transferred to a doctor or hospital, Sasaki said.

“There’s no reason to hold a birth center to the same standards as a hospital because it’s not a hospital, and that’s the whole point, Sasaki said.

According to the state Department of Health Care Access and Information, which sets building codes for health facilities, it would take legislative changes to make exceptions for birth centers. Poole and a number of groups representing midwives and Black maternal health advocates tried to introduce a bill earlier this year that would ease licensing requirements but were unable to find a legislator to carry it.

The state denied Sasaki’s licensure application for Midtown Nurse Midwives in Sacramento in 2020. The holdup is the building’s ventilation system, which doesn’t meet hospital building code.

In March, Sasaki requested an appeal and emergency license after TRICARE, the same insurer that Best Start relied on, stopped contracting with unlicensed facilities. As of mid-July, she has not received a response from the state, though the department told CalMatters the appeal deadline for Sasaki’s application had passed.

Without the TRICARE contract, which made up about 30% of her clients, Sasaki said the birth center will close by November.

“We’ve had to turn away so many people that we stopped answering our phone, because I don’t want to listen to another person cry,” Sasaki said.

Birth centers must get licensed for Medi-Cal

Why is licensure such a stumbling block for birth centers? Medi-Cal, the state’s public insurance program for low-income families, pays for half of all births in the state, and it requires birth centers to be licensed.

“The single biggest thing that will help with sustainability is if birth centers can take Medi-Cal and if Medi-Cal can actually reimburse appropriately,” Sasaki said.

The majority of Medi-Cal births — more than 80% — are babies of color. A statewide survey also indicates that people of color, particularly Black women, want alternative birth support such as midwives and doulas more than any other demographic group. White women and those with private insurance were the highest users of midwives, the survey shows. While those who wanted a midwife but didn’t use one most commonly cited lack of insurance coverage as a barrier.

Birthing rooms at the Best Start Birthing Center in San Diego on March 20, 2024. Photos by Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters

Caroline Cusenza, a midwife and owner of the Monterey Birth and Wellness Center, said taking insurance allowed her to serve a more diverse population in the working class Latino enclave where the birth center is located. She wanted to take Medi-Cal patients, but couldn’t. Cusenza applied for licensure twice but was also rejected because the building didn’t meet ventilation standards.

The birth center will close in September after seven years.

“It was a hard decision to walk away, but we really just could see no path forward,” Cusenza said.

The Western Center for Law and Poverty has pointed to accreditation as a possible alternative to licensure. The Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers is the national organization that sets standards for birth center quality and safety. California regulators have used accreditation to help license other kinds of health facilities, but health department officials see no need to provide birth centers with alternate options. They argue, in an email to CalMatters, that very few have tried to get a license in the first place. Only 23 birth centers have applied in the past decade.

Holly Smith, a certified nurse midwife and co-lead of Midwifery Access California, contends the low number of applicants reflects the difficulty of the process. Midwives know licensure is nearly impossible, so they don’t bother applying, Smith said.

“If (the Public Health Department) can be much more involved in figuring out solutions to help birth centers exist and be licensed should they want to be, then we would see a greater proliferation of it,” Smith said.

Midwifery Access California is working with another state agency to improve access for low-income patients, Smith said. The advocates hope to convince the Department of Health Care Services to increase Medi-Cal payments to midwives. Right now a licensed birth center gets about $1,300 per birth while the midwife gets $400.

At those rates, some birth centers say even Medi-Cal wouldn’t be enough to save them.

“If our birth center were to accept Medi-Cal, we would go bankrupt,” said Trisha Wimbs, owner of the California Birth Center in Rocklin.

Wimbs’ facility was one of only three birth centers to get licensed since the public health department took over and tightened building codes. It was licensed in 2023. Wimbs said it cost $1 million to build the “hospital grade facility” to code, including $80,000 to move a fire hydrant two feet closer to the building. The birth center does not take Medi-Cal because it pays too little to recoup expenses. Instead, the birth center caters to cash pay and commercially insured clients in the affluent suburb of Sacramento. Licensure was essential to securing commercial insurance contracts, Wimbs said.

To sustain birth centers, Medi-Cal needs to pay around $8,000 per birth, Smith said. At that price point, delivering at a birth center would cost less than half as much as a hospital delivery.

Saying goodbye to Best Start

Eighteen years ago, Ellary Alonso was born at Best Start Birth Center when her mom, a former labor and delivery nurse, sought a more personalized birth experience. Alonso, who was 21 weeks along in March, wanted to deliver her son in the same place, surrounded by midwives she knew, maybe even in a bath. She wanted the emotional support of the team, she said, because her husband is a Marine, and there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to make it to the birth.

But a week before her first prenatal appointment at Best Start, Alonso got a call that the center was closing permanently. No other birth centers in Southern California take her insurance.

“In this time when everything is about choice, you can choose not to have a baby, but you can’t choose how to have your baby,” Alonso said. “Hospitals are the only option.”

Ellary Alonso, right, 18 years old and twenty-one weeks pregnant, with her mom Hannah Fraley, left, at the Best Start Birthing Center in San Diego on March 20, 2024. Fraley had two of her kids at the center. Photo by Ariana Drehsler for CalMatters

Compared to a hospital room, Best Start offers a homey atmosphere and the promise that the midwife attending each birth will be familiar to the laboring client. The birthing rooms come with queen-sized beds, floral duvets, and white porcelain tubs for water births. A marble-topped “crash cart” sits in each room. With the doors closed, the cart looks just like an end table that matches the decor. Inside it’s filled with medical supplies for emergency resuscitations or to stitch up lacerations. The rooms are homey, but bear the hallmarks of a by-the-book clinic. Boxes of nitrile gloves are in each room, hazardous waste bins are mounted discreetly to the wall. Best Start was the only birth center in the state to have a licensed clinical laboratory to confirm water breakage.

It has never lost a mother or baby, Roslie said. Its transfer rate for cesarean sections was less than half the statewide target set for low-risk births. In the past five years, no episiotomies have been performed. And 96% of newborns are exclusively breastfed before leaving Best Start compared to the statewide hospital rate of 69%.

Despite the center’s recognized success, keeping it running has always been a labor of love, Roslie said.

“It’s never been a thriving business,” Roslie said. “Roberta’s gone without pay. I’ve gone with reduced pay. That’s what it takes to run a birth center.”

When Roberta Frank, Roslie’s mother, graduated from UC San Diego with her nursing midwifery degree in 1981, she was told “San Diego will never accept midwives.”

Sometimes — in the face of Best Start’s closure — it still feels that way.

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Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

With grieving hearts, we announce the sudden passing of Benjamin Jared Ward, age 54, on Monday, August 19, 2024 at his home in Eureka from a heart attack. Ben was born on July 28, 1970 in Oakland to Brutus and Linda Ward. He was the second of seven children.

Ben spent most of his childhood in Richmond and attended El Cerrito High School there. He was an explorer and loved to go hiking in the nearby Wildcat Canyon. Ben was a natural born athlete and played basketball, football and baseball. He loved to roller skate and he and his sister Beth put on little skating exhibitions in the backyard for the neighborhood children. Ben always loved to cook.

Ben was a handsome man. He was tall — 6’ 4” — and had thick brown hair. When the family moved to Eureka, he made lots of new friends. Ben joined Job Corps and increased his cooking skills. He was able to attend the Maritime Culinary Institute on Treasure Island, where he earned the title of Chef. He has cooked in many restaurants over the years.

On a trip to Idaho he met Shelly Gerry and together they welcomed a daughter, Jordynn, into their lives. Eventually Ben moved back to Eureka and met Tracy Marshall. They were married and have four beautiful daughters.

Ben had lived in Hoopa and for a brief while in Tennessee. He lived in Eureka for the last 13 years after his divorce and took care of his mother. Ben learned how to identify all the safe mushrooms and some of his favorite times were spent out in the woods hunting for mushrooms. He enjoyed volunteering at Reggae on the River and loved reggae music. He loved to go crabbing with his daughters and taught them how to cook and bake. His specialty was baking chocolate chip cookies and chocolate crinkles. He taught the fine art of cooking a good steak to his children and to several of his nephews and nieces. Ben gave cooking demonstrations in Church activities. Ben was a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Ben loved to sing and his favorite song that he sang to his children was “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” He enjoyed writing poetry and reciting it to others. Ben had an infectious laugh and everyone knew when he entered a room. He gave the greatest hugs. He liked to sit on his front porch and greet all the passersby and made many more friends that way. He knew the neighbors and enjoyed chatting with them.

Ben’s great love was his family. He would say that whenever they spoke on the phone they would always close with the words “I love you.” He didn’t like to hold grudges and was into forgiving others.

Ben is survived by his mom Linda of Eureka and his father Brutus and step-mother Linda of Kneeland; his siblings Dan and his wife Lisa, Beth and her husband Mike, Jenni and her husband Wayman, Matt and his wife Melanie, Rachel and her husband Pete, and his sister Dorothy; and his Uncle Robert and Aunts Jeannie and Lulu.

Ben leaves behind his five daughters; Jordynn, Michaela, Madelyn, Cameryn, and Ava (Sage); his nephews Chase, Jasper, Trevor, Oscar, Israel, Isley, Connor, Teddy, Elijah, Terrance, Daedrick, and Homer; his nieces Tessa, Teardra, Taylor, Bella, Isaylia, Isareina, Seraphina, and Tiffany (Blu); and many great-nephews and great-nieces.

We would also like to include his many friends and especially his friend Ulysses Yount who has been a brother to him for many years.

Ben, we will miss you so much. We weren’t ready to say good-bye so soon. We will carry you in our hearts always.

We would like to invite his friends and family to his funeral and celebration of life on Saturday, August 31, 2024 at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2806 Dolbeer St, Eureka, CA 95501 (next to St. Joseph Hospital). The viewing will be at 10 a.m., with a service at 11 a.m. A reception/luncheon will follow. Please feel free to come and share your memories of Ben.

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Ultra-endurance bicycle racer Lael Wilcox is passing through Humboldt County today on her journey to become the fastest woman to circumnavigate the globe via bicycle.

At the end of May, Wilcox set off from Chicago on a monumental mission to cycle 18,000 miles around the world in just 110 days, aiming to break the current Guinness World Record held by Scottish cyclist Jenny Graham, who completed the feat in 124 days, 10 hours and 50 minutes. As of this writing, Wilcox has biked over 15,500 miles.

“I want to invite people living near the route to ride with me,” Wilcox wrote on her website. “I’m not just riding through places but also people’s lives.”

The Outpost contacted Wilcox via email to learn more about her journey but, as you can imagine, she’s a little preoccupied. We’ll update this post if we hear back.

You can track Wilcox’s progress in real-time at this link. It looks like she just passed through Eureka.

How ‘bout that rain, eh?

Yesterday’s “almost winter-like” weather broke rainfall records here on the North Coast. Our friends at the National Weather Service’s Woodley Island office say Aug. 23, 2024, was the wettest Aug. 23 ever recorded in Eureka and Crescent City. 

As it turns out, this whole month has been wetter than usual. 

“The normal precipitation for the whole month of August is usually around .18 inches here at Woodley Island. So far this month, we’ve gotten 1.34 inches,” NWS meteorologist Johnathon White told the Outpost this morning. “It’s not unheard of to have a winter storm come in this early, but it’s definitely not normal. Looking back at other records that were broken in August, we found about six other days where we received about an inch or more.”

Still, it’s pretty rare to get this much rain so early in the season, which doesn’t usually start until late September or October. 

We can expect “summery-type” weather for the rest of the month, White said. Temperatures are expected to drop in some interior areas this evening, but the rest of the weekend and next week should be mostly sunny. Get out there and enjoy that sunshine while you still can, Humboldt!

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Wildfires are burning across many parts of California, including in Humboldt County.* Fires are complicated. Fire is somewhat paradoxical. It is both a natural phenomenon and necessary for forest health, yet some large fires are unnatural. The way to reduce big bad fires may be more, smaller fires.

Complicated things are difficult to understand and even harder to discuss well in public. Luckily, the EcoNews Report has Lenya Quinn-Davidson, Director of the University of California Agricultural and Natural Resource’s Fire Network, who is both thoughtful and a good communicator about fire. Listen in and up your fire knowledge!

Are you a property owner and interested in returning fire to your land? Check out calpba.org/ to find your local prescribed burn association or check out the Fire Network to learn more!

*Note, this interview occurred on Friday August 16th and our discussion of the Boise Fire and other fires in California reflect the fire conditions as they existed on that day.