Boulder Colorado Fire

Boulder Colorado Fire, Firefighters attacked a new wildfire west of Boulder late Tuesday afternoon — a fast-growing and “extreme” blaze that forced the evacuation of 26 households in the foothills and put hundreds of others in the city’s southern neighborhoods on alert.

About 2,416 south Boulder phone numbers have been called with pre-evacuation warnings.

“We’re about one ridge over from the city of Boulder,” Boulder County sheriff’s spokesman Rick Brough said of the fire.

The fire started near the 1500 block of Bison Drive in the Walker Ranch area about 1:15 p.m. and is believed to have been sparked by lightning, Brough said.

The blaze is now burning toward the northeast, he said.

Flagstaff Road was also closed to all non-emergency personnel. Officials at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on Table Mesa Drive just west of Boulder, also ordered an evacuation.

Fire crews assembled at Fairview High School in case the wildfire entered the city.

Brough said the fire was burning in unpopulated, “rough” terrain, and there was spotting out in front of the fire.

Pat Foff, who has lived on Bison Drive for 30 years, said she was preparing to head to the airport for a trip when she heard claps of thunder and then a neighbor told her a fire had started. Just after that, she got the evacuation call.

“I was supposed to go to Salt Lake City, and now I’m headed to my daughter’s house with two unhappy cats and everything I think might be important in my life,” Foff said.

In the south Boulder neighborhoods west of Broadway and south of Dartmouth, some residents also took heed of the pre-evacuation notice and started loading their cars.

Lugging a plastic tub of clothes from his childhood home on Norton Street, 23-year-old Matt Sinclair said he was not surprised that a fire sparked in Boulder.

“After the snowpack (levels), you kind of knew this summer was coming,” he said. “I’m not overly concerned, not at this point. (Denver Post)

Lonesome George Dies

Lonesome George Dies, Lonesome George, the last survivor of the subspecies Chelonoidis abingdoni of the giant tortoises (“galapagos” in Spanish) that gave Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands their name, died of old age after living more than a century, according to autopsy results released Tuesday.

“The conclusion is that the tortoise died of natural causes, probably brought on by old age,” the management of Galapagos National Park said.

Two biologists and a veterinarian spent two hours examining the body of the tortoise, which was found dead Sunday, and took samples of his organs and tissue for laboratory*n*lysis.

The only anomaly they found was that its liver showed “abnormal coloring, presumably a factor of age,” the park said.

Lonesome George’s body will be embalmed and will occupy a place of honor in a museum or study center for tortoises that will bear its name.

Fausto Llerena, a park ranger who looked after George for 40 years, told Efe that the museum will be built at a place known as La Casona on Santa Cruz Island.

Llerena has been caring for Lonesome George since 1971, when he took part in the expedition to Pinta Island where the solitary chelonian was found at a time when tortoises on that island were thought to be extinct.

Since then, George had been part of the park’s program for breeding the species in captivity.

Different methods were used to stimulate reproduction, at first with females of the subspecies from Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island, with which George finally mated after being in their company for 15 years, but the eggs were infertile. (Fox News)

Rodney King Family Fiancee

Rodney King Family Fiancee, RumorFix has learned that Rodney King’s fiancée will be one of the people noticeably absent from his memorial service later this week. A source close to the Rodney tells RumorFix point blank, ”His fiancée is not going to be at the funeral.”

Cynthia Kelley says she was awakened on the morning of June 17 by the sound of King falling into their Rialto, California pool. When she went downstairs to check on him, she claims she found his body floating in the bottom of the water. What happened next has many people raising their eyebrows because Kelley says she didn’t try to pull King from the water, but instead threw a shovel at him in an effort to wake him up.

“There’s a lot of odd stuff there [with his death],” the source tells us. “I just knew that there’s more to the story than everyone is saying.” (RumorFix)

Mexico Bus Accident 32

Mexico Bus Accident 32, At least 32 people were killed in Mexico on Sunday after the bus they were traveling in turned over on a wet road in the southwestern state of Guerrero, a Red Cross official said.

At least seven people were injured and believed to be in a serious condition, the official said. “In the area where it happened it’s raining very hard,” he added.

The official said most of the people inside the passenger bus were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the logo of Mexico’s Labor Party (PT), a small grouping in Congress supporting leftist presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Other emergency crews were dispatched to where the accident took place about 2-1/2 hours drive southwest of Mexico City.

Guerrero state police department had no immediate comment.

Mexico holds a presidential election on July 1.

Bus crashes and other road accidents are common on Mexico’s main roads, causing hundreds of deaths a year. (Daily Star Online)

Mars Reality Show $6 Billion

Mars Reality Show $6 Billion, A Dutch company aims to land humans on Mars by 2023 as the first step toward establishing a permanent colony on the Red Planet.The project, called Mars One, plans to drop four astronauts on Mars in April 2023. New members of the nascent colony will arive every two years after that, and none of the Red Planet pioneers will ever return to Earth.

To pay for all of this, Mars One says it will stage a media spectacle the likes of which the world has never seen — a sort of interplanetary reality show a la “Big Brother.”

“This project seems to be the only way to fulfill humanity’s dream to explore outer space,” theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, an ambassador for Mars One, said in an introductory video posted on the company’s website. “It is going to be an exciting experiment. Let’s get started.”
Mars One hopes to launch a communications satellite and a supply mission to Mars in 2016, then send a large rover to the Red Planet in 2018, according to the video.

This rover will scout out suitable sites for the new Mars colony. The company will then launch settlement components — such as habitat units, life-support equipment and another rover — in 2020. The two rovers will prepare the settlement for the arrival of the first humans in 2023.

Mars One officials say they’ve talked to a variety of private spaceflight companies around the world and have secured at least one potential supplier for each colony component. (Mother Nature Network)

Jimmy Fallon’s Childhood Home

Jimmy Fallon’s Childhood Home, Jimmy Fallon has come a long way since growing up in a 1,780-square-foot house in Saugerties, New York.The comedian-turned-late night host originally helmed his funny bone in this two-story, single family home built in 1950. Today, the property boasts an additional, separate small cottage. And it can all be yours for just $210,000.

Even Fallon himself wants the house to be sold–to the right people. (Business Insider)

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