SAN FRANCISCO – A hot tub’s faulty wiring ignited one of California’s most destructive wildfires, a blaze that killed four people, sent four firefighters to the hospital and destroyed more than 1,300 homes last year, officials said Wednesday.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection released a detailed report into the cause of the 120-square-mile wildfire that devastated a large portion of rural Lake County and parts of Napa County about 90 miles north of San Francisco in September 2015.
The wiring of the hot tub on a residential property in Cobb, California, “was not installed according to building code,” investigators found.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force is struggling to fill a shortage of 700 fighter pilots by the end of the year, even as the U.S. battles in three air wars against the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James also told Pentagon reporters Wednesday that she is planning to pay drone pilots a $35,000 a year retention bonus to encourage them to stay in the service.
The 35,000 a year retention bonus would be an increase over $25,000 bonus the service has been allowed to provide. And all drone pilots would be eligible once their service contract is up.
ANKARA, Turkey – A wave of Kurdish rebel attacks targeting police and soldiers in Turkey’s mainly-Kurdish southeast killed at least 12 people on Wednesday, as Turkey was still dealing with the aftermath of a failed military coup attempt that threatened the government.
Officials said rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, launched simultaneous bomb attacks targeting police vehicles in the city of Diyarbakir and the town of Kiziltepe, killing eight people, while four soldiers were killed in a separate attack near the border with Iraq hours earlier.
The attack in Kiziltepe was caused by a roadside bomb that went off as a police bus was passing by. Three people were killed and at least 25 others were wounded there.
MOSCOW – The Russian military said Wednesday that fighting in Aleppo will cease for three hours daily to allow humanitarian aid deliveries, but it was unclear whether rebels had agreed.
A UN official, meanwhile, said a break in fighting for at least 48 hours was needed to get sufficient aid into the city.
Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military’s General Staff said the daily cease-fires will be observed from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time starting Thursday.
Associated Press
