Just one house left unscathed on land scorched by California’s largest single forest fire

Published

4 years ago

August 9, 2021

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It is the completeness of the destruction in this small town that hits you first.

We’d seen the images and we’d spoken to some of the evacuees, but only by being here is it possible to absorb the enormity of it all. There is almost nothing left.

Greenville, California: population 1,000; swept away in the largest single forest fire this state has ever seen.

The people whose town this was were almost all evacuated. They have their lives but have lost everything else.

Businesses and livelihoods are gone and with them, memories and dreams.

The local restaurant is only recognisable by the tables and chairs still set. The town’s offices are marked just by their metal filing cabinets. And dotted chimney stacks are all that’s left of the town’s homes.

Beyond the starkness of all this, it is the silence that hits you. It’s beyond eerie.

How different it must have sounded as the fire swept through late last Wednesday night.

With this all around, you look for hope. And down the road, by some miracle, there was some.

One house survived unscathed; not a scratch, while all around the land is scorched.

It belongs to Sheri and Terry Wert.

The residents are not allowed back yet, and honestly, most won’t want to see it. But it’s a boost certainly for these two.

The wonders of technology allowed us, via video call, to show them their little miracle.

“Oh my gosh. Terry, you gotta come…” Sheri says. “Oh, it looks perfect….”

She asks us to walk around the side of the house. Their son’s van is undamaged. So too is the chicken coop. The wind vane still turns.

Driving down the mountain, the smoke is thick for miles. The fire is still raging not far away.

The state governor, Gavin Newsom, has said it is the largest single fire in Californian history. More than 8,000 firefighters are working round the clock to contain it and at the moment they are not winning.

It’s an hour down to the town where the evacuees now wait. Terry and Sheri among them.

“Our home is still there and we are one of the very few lucky people and our heart just goes out to our community,” Sheri tells me.

We talk about what caused all this. It’s clear there are serious local concerns about forest management. Managed, controlled fires were stopped years ago and locals have long argued that a misguided fire suppression policy for almost a century has caused huge build-up on the forest bed.

It’s become a tinderbox and a warming climate is the catalyst for the fires.

“Now it’s an annual thing. It ruins every summer. It takes people’s homes away. It’s taken people’s lives,” Sheri says.

She explains that the summers are definitely getting warmer and the winters are less cold.

“We are not getting anywhere near the amount of rain, precipitation that we used to get, nor the snowpack, even up high,” she says.

What about the sustainability of places like Greenville, I ask. In the years ahead can it remain a viable place to live?

“This is our home,” Terry tells me. “We’ll rebuild Greenville.”

They have done it before. Way back in 1881, a fire destroyed the town. But still, the viability of communities like this feels ever more precarious and dependent on our relationship with the environment, both local and global.

US

‘I forgive him’: Charlie Kirk’s wife delivers tearful message – and one America needs to hear most

Published

6 hours ago

September 22, 2025

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'I forgive him': Charlie Kirk's wife delivers tearful message - and one America needs to hear most

“I forgive him.” They were three little words, and yet, they were huge.

In a stadium packed to capacity, Erika Kirk’s address to an assassin was delivered in tears and received with silence until the crowd grew into applause.

“The answer to hate is not hate,” she added. It is, perhaps, the message America needs to hear most and the one it has heard least.

As it happened: Trump delivers speech at Charlie Kirk’s memorial

The memorial to Charlie Kirk felt like a Republican state funeral in all but name.

This was MAGA in mourning, an occasion that laid bare the influence of Charlie Kirk and his politics.

They had travelled in their tens of thousands to the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

They saluted a conservative icon and the dress code crafted a patriotic spectacle in red, white and blue.

It was an act of remembrance on a stadium scale, huge in size and sentiment. It was also big on politics.

From the president down, the Trump administration’s top tier spoke of politics after 10 September, the day Charlie Kirk was killed.

This was a Republican movement in one place, with one microphone, after an assassination that accelerated the tectonic shift in US politics.

A week and a half since the assassination, political reaction has distilled into a war over freedom of speech and that was revisited by the president, even if he reserved most of his speech to pay homage to Charlie Kirk.

The White House decanted a full team from Washington DC to Arizona.

They came for reasons of sympathy and bereavement, of course. It was also an occasion laced with politics.

This was Washington’s travelling roadshow swinging by the support that Charlie built.

The same support was critical in helping Donald Trump back into power at the last election, and the challenge confronting the White House is in harnessing that vote in his absence and carrying it forward.

Politically, it was a full-court press to style the horses amongst the youth vote and Christian nationalists.

Charlie Kirk brought them onside, and Team Trump wants to keep them there.

US

Charlie Kirk ally claims ‘miracle’ stopped bullet killing anyone else

Published

22 hours ago

September 21, 2025

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Charlie Kirk ally claims 'miracle' stopped bullet killing anyone else

The producer of Charlie Kirk’s podcast has claimed that a “miracle” stopped more people being killed by the bullet that hit the right-wing influencer.

Andrew Kolvet claimed to have spoken to a surgeon that tried to save Mr Kirk’s life, and posted on social media to discuss the apparent lack of an exit wound.

A prominent right-wing figure in the US, Mr Kirk was a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and was known for his conservative viewpoints on abortion, religion and LGBT issues.

The 31-year-old was shot dead while speaking at a university event in Utah last week.

Mr Trump and other public figures are expected to be in Arizona on Sunday for a memorial service for Mr Kirk which is expected to draw 100,000 people.

Mr Kolvet, executive producer of the Charlie Kirk Show, apologised for the “somewhat graphic” nature of his post on X.

In it, he discussed what he said was a lack of an exit wound from the bullet, despite it being “a high powered, high velocity round”.

Mr Kolvet included what he said were quotes from a surgeon who operated on Mr Kirk.

“It was an absolute miracle that someone else didn’t get killed,” Mr Kolvet quoted the surgeon as saying.

“His bone was so healthy and the density was so so impressive that he’s like the man of steel. It should have just gone through and through. It likely would have killed those standing behind him too.”

Mr Kolvet said what happened was “remarkable” and “miraculous”.

Memorial to draw 100,000 people

President Trump and JD Vance are expected to be among the prominent MAGA members who will pay tribute to Mr Kirk at the memorial event.

It will take place at State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals NFL team, amid a heavy law enforcement presence.

President Trump has blamed the “radical left” for the death of Mr Kirk, whom he credited for helping him win the 2024 presidential election.

It comes as the death of Mr Kirk has turned into a debate over the First Amendment.

While they have repeatedly criticised what they claim are assaults on free speech, members of the MAGA movement appear to be taking a different stance when the subject is one of their own, launching attacks on people they deem to be making disparaging comments about Mr Kirk.

Dozens of people, from journalists to teachers, have already lost their jobs for allegedly making offensive comments about the podcaster.

Late-night chat show host Jimmy Kimmel was pulled from the air indefinitely by ABC following a backlash from the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission over the comedian’s remarks about Mr Kirk.

The State Department also has warned it would revoke the visas of any foreigners who celebrated his assassination.

US

Luigi Mangione’s lawyers call on judge to block the death penalty

Published

1 day ago

September 21, 2025

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Luigi Mangione's lawyers call on judge to block the death penalty

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione have called on a judge to block federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against him.

Mangione’s legal team says the 27-year-old’s case has been turned into a “Marvel movie” after a failed bid by the US Justice Department to indict him on terrorism charges over the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in New York on 4 December.

New York state judge Gregory Carro said there was no evidence that the killing, which took place as Mr Thompson walked into an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel, amounted to a terrorist act.

But Judge Carro upheld second-degree murder charges, which suggest there was malicious intent – but not that it was premeditated.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi has called for Mangione to face capital punishment, describing the charges against him as a “premeditated cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”.

But in the new court filing, Mangione’s legal team argues federal prosecutors have “violated Mr Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights” by “staging a dehumanizing, unconstitutional ‘perp walk’ where he was televised, videotaped, and photographed clambering out of a helicopter in shackles” on the way to his first court appearance.

The legal team, led by former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, also claims the death penalty case has been “fatally prejudiced” after President Donald Trump commented on it on Fox News.

Despite laws that prohibit any pre-trial commentary that could prejudice the defendant’s right to a free trial, he told the network on Thursday: “Think about Mangione. He shot someone in the back, as clear as you’re looking at me or I’m looking at you.”

The defence team’s 114-page court filing reads: “There is a high bar to dismissing an indictment due to pretrial publicity.

“However, there has never been a situation remotely like this one where prejudice has been so great against a death-eligible defendant.”

Federal prosecutors have until 31 October to respond to the documents.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all the state charges against him, which cannot result in the death penalty and only life imprisonment, unlike federal ones. He has also pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

He is due back in court for a pre-trial hearing in the state case on 1 December and the federal case on 5 December.

The 27-year-old was arrested five days after Mr Thompson was killed – when he was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, around 230 miles west of New York City.