WEED, Calif. (AP) — The fire-stricken Northern California town of Weed has long been seen by passersby as a whimsical spot to stop along Interstate 5 and buy an ironic T-shirt, but residents say they've grown edgy in recent years due to a new danger: Dark skies, swirling ash and flames that race so quickly they leave little time for escape.
Former President Donald Trump responded to President Joe Biden's condemnation of "MAGA Republicans" by calling the president an "enemy of the state" during a Saturday rally in Pennsylvania.
Across the United Kingdom, businesses and households are warning that they won't make it through the winter without help from the government. That sets up enormous challenges for the incoming prime minister, who will be announced this week.
An energy 'catastrophe'
Overlapping crises
Biden spoke on "threats to American democracy" he said were being peddled by ardent supporters of Trump during a prime time speech at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on Thursday.
"MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards. Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love," Biden said. "They promote authoritarian leaders and fan the flames of political violence."
Biden's speech came days after he railed against the "MAGA philosophy," which he described as "semi-fascism."
Their fears exploded to life again in recent days as California’s latest inferno burned homes and buildings and forced evacuations in the small community about 280 miles (451 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.
At the rally Trump replied, saying the speech was "vicious, hateful and divisive" and accusing the president of not even remembering his speech the next morning.
"This week, Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president. Vilifying 75 million citizens... as threats to democracy and as enemies of the state, Trump said. "You're all enemies of the state. He's an enemy of the state."
Among the thousands of people displaced was Naomi Vogelsang. Her home destroyed, dog missing, and 10-year relationship with her boyfriend recently ended – all she could do on Saturday was sit outside a wildfire evacuation center with $20 in her pocket, waiting for a ride to the casino.
“It can’t be any worse,” she said.
The day before, flames raced from Roseburg Forest Products, which makes wood products, into Weed's Lincoln Heights neighborhood where a significant number of homes burned and residents had to flee for their lives. The blaze known as the Mill Fire had spread to more than 6.6 square miles (17 square kilometers) by Saturday evening and was 25% contained.
After fleeing the fire, 63-year-old Judy Christenson remembered a similar escape 40 years ago when, as a young parent, she had to rush her children out of a burning home. Last summer, a wildfire forced her to evacuate and leave her pets behind. Now, Christenson says she leaves harnesses on her pets all the time so she can grab them at a moment’s notice and leave.
The Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin endorsed by Donald Trump is calling for people to take up “pitchforks and torches” in reaction to a story that detailed his giving to anti-abortion groups, churches and others — rhetoric that Democrats say amounts to threatening violence.
Tim Michels, who co-owns the state’s largest construction company, faces Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the battleground state. If Michels wins, he will be in position to enact a host of GOP priorities passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature leading into the 2024 presidential election. Evers has vetoed more bills than any governor in modern state history and is campaigning on his ability to serve as a check on Republicans.
Michels, a multimillionaire, this week reacted strongly to a story published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailing charitable giving by him and his wife’s foundation, some of which went to anti-abortion groups and churches that have taken anti-gay positions.
Since the story’s publication, Michels has gone after not just Evers and Democrats, but also the Journal Sentinel and, more broadly, all reporters.
“I believe people should just, just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how love the liberal media has become,” Michels said Thursday on a conservative talk radio show.
“People need to decide: ‘Am I going to put up with this? Am I going to tolerate this, taking somebody that gives money to churches or cancer research and use that as a hit piece in the media?’ I’m appalled. It’s disgusting.”
That’s further than he went in a campaign website posting on Thursday when he encouraged people to “Get involved. Push back. Speak up. Volunteer. Donate. Vote.”
Evers’ spokesman, Sam Roecker, tweeted Friday that Michels had gone too far.
“Instead of explaining why he’s funding groups working to ban access to abortion and contraception, Tim Michels is encouraging violence,” Roecker wrote. “He’s too radical for Wisconsin.”
Hannah Menchoff, a Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson, accused Michels of threatening violence in an “extreme attempt to pander to Donald Trump and the MAGA base.”
Michels’ campaign spokesperson, Anna Kelly, on Friday downplayed his comments.
“Only political hacks and media accomplices would freak out about Tim using a figure of speech to emphasize the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s ridiculous characterization of his donations to churches, nuns, and charitable causes as ‘radical,’” she said.
Michels, who has used the Journal Sentinel article in fundraising pleas, posted a lengthy response to the piece on his campaign website Thursday. He accused Evers and the “corrupt media” of turning his charitable giving and faith “into something malicious.”
“I will never, ever apologize for giving to charitable causes, or for being a Christian,” Michels wrote. “However, the Journal Sentinel should be ashamed of their anti-religious bigotry.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel executive editor George Stanley defended the article, noting that the paper ran a piece on the same day about security costs for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate that his Republican opponent was urging people to read.
“Whenever this happens, I get really bad,” Christenson said from the front seat of a car at an evacuation center in Yreka as Felix, her orange cat, napped in the backseat. “I can’t think straight.”
Nestled in the shadow of Mt. Shasta — a 14,000-foot (4,267-meter) volcano that is the second-highest peak in the Cascade Range — Weed is no stranger to wildfires.
Strong winds in the area that fan flames drew the town's founder for a very different reason. Abner Weed, a Civil War soldier who is said to have witnessed the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender before moving to California, chose to put a sawmill there because the wind would dry out the timber, according to Bob West, a lifelong resident who co-owns Ellie’s Espresso and Bakery, a coffee and sandwich shop that contains some historical items of the town’s past.
At a Pennsylvania rally supporting senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, the first since the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago residence, Trump briefly fixated on the chief executive of Facebook's parent company.
"Last week, the weirdo — he's a weirdo — Mark Zuckerberg came to the White House, kissed my ass all night," Trump said during the speech, going on to mimic their alleged conversation: "'Sir, I'd love to have dinner, sir. I'd love to have dinner. I'd love to bring my lovely wife.' All right, Mark, come on in. 'Sir, you're number one on Facebook. I'd like to congratulate you.' Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it."
Trump has previously made similar comments about Zuckerberg. Last year, following his suspension from Facebook, he said the executive "used to come to the White House to kiss [his] ass" and called Zuckerberg "sick" for deplatforming him.
The winds make Weed and the surrounding area a perilous place for wildfires, whipping small flames into a frenzy. Weed has seen three major fires since 2014, a period of extreme drought that has prompted the largest and most destructive fires in California history.
That drought persists as California heads into what traditionally is the worst of the fire season. Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Dominique Mathes, 37, said he’s had some close calls with wildfires since he has lived in Weed. But he’s not interested in leaving.
“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Everybody has risks everywhere, like Florida’s got hurricanes and floods, Louisiana has got tornadoes and all that stuff. So, it happens everywhere. Unfortunately here, it’s fires.”
Evacuation orders were quickly put in effect Friday for 7,500 people – including West, who is 53 and has lived in Weed since he was a 1-year-old. He had never had to evacuate for a fire, but now he’s had to do it twice.
“It’s way worse than it used to be,” he said. “It affects our community because people leave because they don’t want to rebuild.”
Cal Fire Siskiyou Unit Chief Phil Anzo said crews worked all day and night to protect structures in Weed and in a subdivision to the east known as Carrick Addition. He said about 100 structures were destroyed.
Two people were brought to Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta. One was in stable condition and the other was transferred to UC Davis Medical Center, which has a burn unit.
“There’s a lot at stake on that Mill Fire,” Anzo said. “There’s a lot of communities, a lot of homes there.”
Evacuees and firefighters quickly filled up local hotels while others rushed to stay with family and friends outside of the evacuation zone.
Vogelsang was not as fortunate. She said she slept on a bench in Weed until she could get a ride to the evacuation center. She said she’s spent most of the time crying about Bella, her 10-year-old English bulldog who — despite her best efforts — would not follow her out of the fire and is lost.
“My dog was my everything,” she said. “I just feel like I lost everything that mattered.”
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Associated Press journalist Stefanie Dazio contributed from Los Angeles.