California officials are bracing for the potential of another drought and an early and more intense wildfire season amid a record-breaking warm and dry February.

February is shaping up to be driest on record for much of the state, with chances of light showers on the horizon on March 1 and then not again until March 10.

(TNS) — San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the city Tuesday amid heightened concerns of the new coronavirus' spread around the globe.

But why has the city made this declaration when there aren't any confirmed cases among city residents?

In the interview below, Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of S.F.'s Department of Emergency Management, answers that question. She also addresses many other questions and concerns residents may have as the city prepares for a potential outbreak of the pneumonia-like virus.

Pacific Gas & Electric has fired a contractor hired to haul debris from the site of a deadly 2018 Northern California wildfire, saying the company was over-billing the utility and paying “large sums of money and gifts” to two utility supervisors.

PG&E Chief Executive Bill Johnson said in a memo to employees that the two supervisors “are no longer with the company,” The Sacramento Bee reported.

(TNS) — Ten miles north of Monterey and a world away from Santa Cruz, Bruce Delgado gazed up a towering sand dune. Careful not to step on the beach buckwheat that protects rare butterflies or the sea lettuce that survives only in stable habitats, he wound his way toward the ocean.

At the top, slightly out of breath, he marveled at the sandy beach that stretched for miles along the bay. Big surf broke into rhythmic cusps by the shore. A red-tailed hawk soared over his town of Marina, where despite its name, no dock or pier exists to interrupt this view.

Pacific Gas and Electric says it expects to become more profitable than ever after it emerges from bankruptcy and pays off more than $25 billion in losses sustained in catastrophic wildfires ignited by its outdated equipment.

The nation’s largest utility shared its rosy outlook this week, along with its sobering results for 2019.

(TNS) — Insurance companies fleeing high-risk fire zones would have to stay put and even offer discounts if homeowners in those areas prepare for wildfires on a community-wide scale, under a new bill proposed in Sacramento on Tuesday.

The bill, AB 2367, has the backing of state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. It would mandate that starting in 2021, insurers would have to renew policies and continue to write new ones in communities that meet state standards for firescaping, or home hardening, that would be established before the law takes effect.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.0 shook California’s central coast on Wednesday but no damage or injuries were immediately reported, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed.

The quake that hit at 7:33 p.m. on the San Andreas Fault was centered several miles south of Tres Pinos, according to the USGS.

Tres Pinos is an unincorporated

(TNS) - In late January, as the coronavirus continued spreading across the globe, the Foothill Community Health Center in San Jose, Calif., had a problem.

The center, a nonprofit network of medical and dental clinics, was running low on N95 masks — the respirator mask that officials recommend health care workers wear when coming in contact with patients who may have coronavirus.

“There’s a huge shortage,” said Umer Murtaza, the safety manager and facilities coordinator for Foothill’s clinics. Staff normally wear surgical masks during flu season, but with the coronavirus starting to spread beyond China, Foothill wanted to upgrade to N95s. It had some, but not enough.

For most of the 20th century, the insurance industry considered wildfires to be little more than a benign nuisance. They occurred frequently but rarely resulted in more than a handful of claims, and underwriters priced for them in the same way as other attritional sources of loss like theft, breakage and sewer back-up.

Then in 1991, everything changed.

(TNS) — Smoke quickly fills a room the size of a shipping container while two bodies lie on the floor. Within seconds, they completely disappear from view — though not for personnel with the Glendale Fire Department.

The smoke actually came from a fog machine and the bodies were firefighters who volunteered to act as stand-ins as the agency demonstrated its new thermal-imaging cameras on Wednesday. Although the firefighters could no longer be seen with the naked eye, their thermal signatures could be seen as clear as day through the cameras.