LOS ANGELES — Firefighters continued to build containment around several destructive wildfires burning in California on Sunday, though one stubborn blaze in the northern part of the state grew significantly and crossed the border into Oregon.
The blaze on the California-Oregon state line known as the Klamathon Fire grew to 48 square miles and leapt into Oregon overnight. It was 25 percent contained.
The fire, one of many in the drought-ridden West, killed one person at home and destroyed 72 structures, including houses. It also injured three firefighters, including one who had severe burns to his face, according to a Gofundme page.
The state’s largest blaze, the 138-square-mile County Fire, was 57 percent contained. It has destroyed 10 structures since it broke out June 30.
Meanwhile in heat-stricken Southern California, crews have built at least 80 percent containment on two major wildfires — one that destroyed 20 homes in Santa Barbara County and a central San Diego County fire that burned 18 structures. Other major fires in the state were close to being fully contained.
In Utah, more residents were allowed back into their homes Sunday after being driven out by a wind-fueled fire. The blaze burning near a popular fishing lake 80 miles southeast of Salt Lake City was 30 percent contained, according to Duchesne County sheriff’s officials.
15 PEOPLE TREATED AFTER PORCH COLLAPSE
HARTFORD, Conn. — A porch collapsed at a Connecticut home, sending over a dozen people to the hospital.
Approximately 20 people were on a second-floor balcony in Hartford on Saturday night when the floor gave way. Hartford police said 15 people were taken to Hartford Hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening. Among the injured were infants and young children.
Police said some had head injuries and lacerations. Some have left the hospital since Saturday night.
Assistant Police Chief Rafael Medina said people were gathered “on the second-floor porch for a family celebration.”
PARKING LOT CROWD CONFRONTS SENATE CHIEF
A group of Democratic Socialists and other protesters slowly pursued Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell through a restaurant parking lot in Kentucky on Saturday, berating him with a mixture of immigration rhetoric and personal insults — and at one point an apparent threat to visit his home.
“If the Leader comments on being called a fascist and a supporter of ICE by a small handful of extremist protesters then I will let you know,” McConnell’s spokesman, David Popp, wrote to The Washington Post after the incident.
McConnell was having lunch Saturday at the Bristol Bar & Grille in Louisville.
As it happened, hundreds of people were protesting outside Louisville’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, just a few miles from the restaurant. So when someone spotted McConnell at the restaurant and asked for help confronting him, the socialist group helped spread the word on social media. At least half a dozen people, several with cameras, were waiting in front of the restaurant when McConnell walked out.
MOURNERS EULOGIZE SLAIN EDITORIAL WRITER
OLNEY, Md. — A shy man who expressed his brilliant intellect through his editorials, Gerald Fischman wrote hundreds of thousands of words for the Capital Gazette before a gunman burst into the newsroom and killed him and four other co-workers.
Capital Gazette editor Rick Hutzell wiped away tears Sunday as he read aloud some of those words for more than 150 relatives, friends and co-workers who gathered for Fischman’s funeral service and burial at Judean Memorial Gardens cemetery. Hutzell said his friend and 61-year-old colleague dedicated his life to telling “hard truths,” no matter the topic. And the small-town editorial page editor tackled a broad range of subjects, from local politics and civil rights to annual takes on Mother’s Day and high school graduations.
“His voice as a writer will be greatly missed. His wisdom cannot be replaced,” Hutzell sai