Motorists flee as wildfire races across California freeway

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A fast-moving wildfire swept across a Southern California freeway in a mountain pass, destroying 20 vehicles and sending motorists running to safety before burning at least four structures. Two people suffered minor injuries, authorities said Friday.

The fire started in the Cajon Pass along Interstate 15 — the main highway between Southern California and Las Vegas — and quickly chewed through bone-dry brush. As flames closed in, drivers and passengers ran from their vehicles.

Cars are shown burning on the Interstate 15 freeway in the Cajon Pass, California in the frame grab from KNBC video …

A firefighter told everyone to take cover. Andrade, four other men, and two elderly women got inside the back of a semi-truck. One of the women had been separated from her family began crying, and everyone was terrified.

"You could hear the explosions from people's vehicle tires popping from the heat," Andrade said. "You could hear crackling, smoke was coming in every direction. You could feel the heat. We just waited it out and prayed to God."

Russell Allevato, 45, of Southgate, Michigan, was traveling from Las Vegas to Los Angeles with his two teenage daughters, his nephew and his nephew's girlfriend.

Their rental car was among those destroyed.

"All our stuff was charred and gone," Allevato said by phone as he rode in the back of a California Highway Patrol vehicle.

Television helicopters carried the scene live as the flames leapt from vehicle to vehicle while water-dropping helicopters and then firefighters on the freeway battled to get control. In the midst of the chaos, fire officials said aircraft sent to douse the flames were briefly delayed after five drones were spotted above the blaze.

It was the fourth time in a span of a month that a drone disrupted efforts to suppress a wildfire in Southern California, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Lee Beyer said.

A car-carrying tractor-trailer and a boat were among the losses left smoldering on the highway.

Dozens of vehicles were abandoned, and hundreds of others turned onto side roads in the rugged area about 55 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

"It's crazy, you're watching black clouds and white clouds of smoke, there's a ridgeline off to my right ... and it looks like any second flames will come over the ridgeline," Chris Patterson, 43, said from his vehicle.

As firefighters gained control on the freeway, the flames spread to 3,500 acres and burned at least four structures in the rural community of Baldy Mesa. About 50 more were threatened.

About 1,000 firefighters were battling the fire. It was 5 percent contained, Beyer said.

Melissa Atalla said she could see the flames from her gas station.

"People are spectating from our parking lot, running around getting water and beer. It's chaos," Atalla said. "One man came in and said, 'Oh my. My house is getting burned.' "

An evacuation center was set up at the local high school as firefighting equipment flooded the area. There were 22 engines, six air tankers, three helicopters, a bulldozer and hundreds of firefighters.

A helicopter works to put out a fire near Oak Hills, Calif., Friday, July 17, 2015. The fire started in the Cajon …

California is in the midst of severe drought, and wildfires are common. Some break out near freeways, but it's very unusual to have vehicles caught in the flames.

On Friday, the 15 freeway was typically busy about 2:30 p.m. when the fire started near the northbound lanes. With temperatures in the mid-90s and winds kicking up, it quickly ran up a hill and across the southbound lanes before any help could arrive.

Vehicles that had slowed came to a stop as the flames approached. Occupants fled.

"There were elderly trying to get up the hill. People had animals, dogs. They tried to get their dogs out of the car," Allevato said.

His 15-year-old daughter, Leah, cried about her lost vacation.

"We waited two years for this vacation, and I saved all my money," she said. "I was thinking about it every day, and I finally got here and I have no clothes. ... I waited so long, and it's ruined."

Another Chicken Recall: Aspen Foods Pulls 2 Million Pounds After Reports of Illness

This is the second recall of frozen chicken this week … so far. (Photo: Getty Images)

Aspen Foods is recalling nearly 2 million pounds of frozen, raw, stuffed, and breaded chicken that may be contaminated with salmonella, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Services announcement.

The recall comes after the USDA received reports of three people in Minnesota who became sick from mid-April to late June after eating Aspen products.

The products in question include chicken Cordon Bleu, chicken with broccoli and cheese, chicken Kiev, chicken Parmesan, and buffalo-style chicken. All have the code “P-1358” in the USDA inspection mark.

The products may be labeled under the following brands:

    Acclaim

    Antioch Farms

    Buckley Farms

    Centrella Signature

    Chestnut Farms

    Family Favorites

    Kirkwood

    Koch Foods

    Market Day

    Oven Cravers

    Rose

    Rosebud Farm

    Roundy’s

    Safeway Kitchens

    Schwan’s

    Shaner’s

    Spartan

    Sysco

Aspen’s recall comes just days after a near-identical recall by Barber Foods of more than 1.7 million pounds of similar products.

That recall occurred after the USDA received reports that people in Minnesota and Wisconsin became sick during the same time period after eating Barber products.

Nearly 30 products are included in the Barber recall, which may be labeled under the brands Barber Foods, Sysco, or Meijer. (A full list of the products, along with their UPC codes, can be found here.)

Barber also had an original recall on July 2, in which the brand recalled more than 58,000 pounds of frozen, raw, stuffed chicken. The product in question was Barber Foods Premium Entrees Breaded-Boneless Raw Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Rib Meat Kiev, with use by/sell by dates of April 28, 2016, May 20, 2016 and July 21, 2016.

Two additional people who became ill have been identified by the USDA since the original Barber recall, prompting the new announcement.

The particular strain of salmonella that has infected people — salmonella enteritidis — can cause fever, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea that begins 12 to 72 hours after a person eats contaminated food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms usually last four to seven days, and can make a person sick enough to require hospitalization. Elderly people, children, and those who are immune-compromised are especially at risk.

Food safety specialist Benjamin Chapman, an associate professor at North Carolina State University who has studied how people handle raw, frozen, stuffed, and breaded chicken products, tells Yahoo Health that the products are especially risky when it comes to salmonella. 

Why? Because of the way the products appear, people assume that they’re already cooked — and don’t cook them fully as a result. “We have a responsibility to tell people that they need to cook these products properly,” he says. “I don’t think we do a good job of it.”

His research discovered that, despite the fact that the products are properly labeled, only a small percentage of people actually use a food thermometer to make sure their chicken is thoroughly cooked, as recommended. Consequently, they’re at risk of contracting salmonella from the meat.

But why is such a large amount of chicken affected at once? According to Mike Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, it’s all in the way the chicken is prepared before packaging.

“The chickens get put into a bath that’s chlorinated, but sometimes salmonella gets trapped in the skin and gets into the water,” he tells Yahoo Health. “It’s not surprising that that much chicken might become contaminated.”

Unfortunately, freezing doesn’t kill salmonella. The pathogen won’t multiply when it’s frozen, but it will be preserved. So, when you take a frozen chicken product out of the freezer, it can still be contaminated.

Doyle says that proper cooking — bringing the meat’s temperature to 165 degrees — will kill the salmonella, but the real risk is in cross-contamination.

“If you thaw the chicken, the juices can contain salmonella,” he says. “And if you thaw the chicken on a plate, cook it, and put the chicken on the same plate, it’s been contaminated.” Doyle also notes that you can get salmonella on your hands after handling the chicken, which can then be transferred to anything you touch.

The USDA reports that some people who became sick had properly cooked the chicken and used a food thermometer to confirm that it was properly cooked. That’s a sign that cross-contamination was an issue, says Doyle.

The USDA stresses that while the products seem to be cooked, they’re actually raw and should be handled with care to avoid cross-contamination in the kitchen. That means washing your hands and any surfaces after handling them, and keeping the chicken away from other food that won’t be cooked.

If you have any of these products in your freezer, it’s safest to just throw them out. “I wouldn’t handle it,” says Chapman. “Send it back, take it to the seller, or get rid of them.”

Small boy lands monster sturgeon; described as `10-foot dinosaur’

A 9-year-old boy said landing a prehistoric-looking fish measuring 10 feet long and weighing 600 pounds was a dream come true–and more than a little bit scary.

“I thought the fish was going to pull me into the water,” Kegan Rothman told Calgary Sun, in reference to the massive white sturgeon he caught Monday on the Fraser River.

After measurements were taken–the fish also boasted a 50-inch girth–the sturgeon was tagged and released. (The video below shows Kegan coaxing the sturgeon into a deeper portion of river, where it slowly swims out of sight.)

“I’ll never forget this–this is the best trip of my life,” said Kegan, who was fishing with his father, Dan Rothman, and guide Ben Trainer from Great River Fishing Adventures.

This was among the largest sturgeon caught on the Fraser River, and certainly the largest caught by a 9-year-old who stands only 4 feet tall.

“I’ve been a professional fishing guide on the Fraser River for 11 years and have fished these rivers my whole life. This is one of the largest fish I have helped a client catch,”

Kegan hooked the fish himself, but his dad helped during part of a battle that lasted nearly two hours. Great River Fishing Adventures described the accomplishment as “a nearly impossible feat.”

A banner headline on its website reads, “Real Life Jurrasic World,” in reference to the new hit movie, and describes the fish as “a 10-foot dinosaur.”

It’s not that big of a stretch considering the primitive appearance of the fish, and that that fossil records of sturgeon date back 200 million years.

Kegan’s fish was estimated to be more than 75 years old. It becomes one of about 61,000 white sturgeon Great River Fishing Adventures guides have helped tagged since 1995.

Maybe the next time it surfaces, it’ll be a much larger dinosaur, as white sturgeon can measure 20-plus feet.

'Wow, pulled back wrong throttle:' captain of crashed TransAsia plane

TAIPEI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The pilot flying a TransAsia Airways <6702.TW> ATR mistakenly switched off the plane's only working engine seconds before it crashed in February, killing 43 people, Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council (ASC) said in its latest report on Thursday.

The ASC's report also showed that Captain Liao Jian-zong had failed simulator training in May 2014, in part because he had insufficient knowledge of how to deal with an engine flame-out on take-off.

"Wow, pulled back the wrong side throttle," Liao, 41, was heard to say on voice recordings seconds before the crash.

There appeared to be confusion in the cockpit as the two captains tried to regain control of the plane after one engine lost power about three minutes into the doomed flight.
Liao reduced the throttle on the working engine but did not appear to realize his mistake until it was too late.

View gallery

TransAsia Airways GE-235 airline drops into Keelung River and the firefighters are rescuing the pass …

He tried to restart the engines several times before a junior first officer in the cockpit said: "Impact, impact, brace for impact."

Those were the chilling last words heard on the data recordings, according to the latest report of the ASC's investigation into the Feb. 4 crash.

Seconds later the almost new ATR 72-600, which had 58 people on board, crashed upside down into a shallow river in Taipei after it lurched between buildings, clipping an overpass and a taxi.

Fifteen people survived but all three pilots and 40 passengers and other crew died in the second crash involving a TransAsia ATR plane in a year.

A source with direct knowledge of the report told Reuters on Wednesday the working engine had been shut off.

Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council official Thomas Wang explains findings in the report released o …

FAILED SIMULATOR TRAINING
The ASC report, which neither assigns responsibility nor suggests recommendations, paints a more detailed picture than a preliminary report released days after the crash.
Liao, a former air force pilot, began flying commercial aircraft in 2009 and joined TransAsia the following year. He was promoted to captain in August 2014 and joined the ATR 72-600 fleet in November.

He had a total of 4,914 flight hours on ATR 72 planes.

However, the report showed that Liao failed the simulator check in May 2014 when he was being evaluated for promotion. Assessors found he had a tendency not to complete procedures and checks, and his "cockpit management and flight planning" were also found wanting.

The shadow of Thomas Wang, head of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council, is seen on a graphic showin …

However, he passed after a second simulator check on June 29 and 30 and was promoted to captain, although similar problems were detected during training from July 2-10 last year.

Instructors commented that he was "prone to be nervous and may make oral errors during the engine start procedure" and displayed a "lack of confidence", the report shows.

Issues cropped up again during training for the ATR 72-600 in November, when an instructor said Liao "may need extra training" when dealing with an engine failure after take-off.
After the crash, Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration put TransAsia's ATR pilots through oral proficiency tests on how to handle an aircraft during engine failure.

All but one of the pilots passed the tests, although some needed more than one attempt. The lone failure was demoted in rank to vice captain from captain.

The airline now has 61 ATR pilots.
TransAsia president Fred Wu told a media conference later on Thursday the airline would buy an ATR flight simulator, bring in outside experts to evaluate pilots, and launch a safety improvement program with Airbus .

ATR is a joint venture between Airbus and Alenia Aermacchi, a subsidiary of Italian aerospace firm Finmeccanica .

The airline has reached a settlement with the families of seven passengers, and negotiations were underway with the rest, said TransAsia CEO Peter Chen.

A draft of the final report will be issued in November with the final report, which will include the cause of the crash and recommendations, to be completed in April 2016.