CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A Clearlake man was arrested early Friday morning after authorities say he stole a Lake County Fire Protection District ambulance from the scene of a fire.

Derrick Kyle Schuleter, 24, was taken into custody by a Clearlake Police detective who, along with the fire chief, tracked Schuleter down in the Lower Lake area, according to Sgt. Rodd Joseph.

Joseph said that at 7 a.m. Friday Clearlake Police officers responded to a report of a possible stolen ambulance from the scene of a fire near Walmart.

Information received by Clearlake Police Dispatch was there was an unauthorized male voice using the emergency radio in Medic Unit 7013, Joseph said.

At the time of the call, Joseph said the Lake County Fire Protection District was actively working a wildland fire off of 18th Avenue, near St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake. The fire was located close to the area where the Extension fire would break out Friday afternoon.

Clearlake Police Dispatch was able to confirm with Lake County Fire Protection District that one of their ambulances, Medic Unit 7013, had just been stolen from the scene of the early morning fire, Joseph said.

Joseph said Clearlake Police officers immediately began checking the area for the stolen ambulance.  One of the firefighters had left his cellular phone inside the stolen ambulance and was able to track it. 

Det. Elvis Cook and Lake County Fire Protection District Chief Willie Sapeta responded to the area of Morgan Valley Road and Oak Haven Road, in unincorporated Lake County, where the stolen cellular phone was last tracked, Joseph said.

While en route to that location, dispatch obtained new coordinates for the stolen phone, now putting it on Morgan Valley Road near Sloan Ranch Road, according to Joseph.

Joseph said Cook and Sapeta arrived in the 21000 block of Morgan Valley Road and observed a male subject – later identified as Schuleter – walking down a dirt driveway toward Morgan Valley Road. 

Schuleter had blood on his hands and admitted to stealing the ambulance, Joseph said. Schuleter was found in possession of the stolen and tracked cellular phone, another stolen phone from the ambulance and other stolen medical equipment from the ambulance. 

Jail records showed his bail was set at $20,000. He remained in custody early Saturday.

The stolen ambulance was found farther up the dirt road where Schuleter was seen walking, Joseph said.

Joseph said the ambulance was heavily damaged, with the rear cargo area having been ransacked in an apparent attempt to try and steal medication and supplies. A newer recreational vehicle parked near the stolen ambulance also had been vandalized.

Schuleter was arrested by Cook and transported back to the city of Clearlake for processing and medical treatment for injuries he sustained during his crime spree, Joseph said.

During questioning, Joseph said Schuleter admitted to stealing the ambulance, driving to where it was located and vandalizing the unrelated recreational vehicle. 

Schuleter was charged with theft of an emergency vehicle while on an emergency call, tampering with a motor vehicle, malicious mischief to a vehicle, several counts of possession of stolen property and driving without a license. He later was booked into the Lake County Jail, according to Joseph.

Joseph said the case will be forwarded to the Lake County District Attorney’s Office for filing.

The stolen ambulance was returned to the Lake County Fire Protection District office. Joseph said it has been taken out of service for repairs.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – The Lake Community Pride Foundation will present the sixth annual Power to the Youth event on Saturday, Aug. 6.

The popular festival will offer physical activities, youth entertainment, music and community education from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Clearlake's Austin Park, 14077 Lakeshore Drive.

This year's event will feature a basketball tournament for different age groups and a skate park competition for varying skill levels in scooters, BMX and skateboarding with prizes for the winners.

It is free to enter these activities and all participants must register in advance and/or be prepared to play at 10 a.m. on the day of the event.

Glory Day's Flag Football League will have its annual Power to the Youth flag football event.

A stage in the front of the park will feature this year's musical lineup: Fetti Rich, Masta Slash Beatz and The Lyricist and more.

Multiple bouncy houses and free horse rides as well as local agency booths offering activities and information about their services will be available throughout the park.

Ranging from education to politics to health care and local businesses, more than 30 booths will be featured at this year's event. 

Admission to the event is free so bring the whole family.

Lake Community Pride Foundation is a nonprofit group who maintains and supports a teen shelter, Safe House of Lake County, supports the youth performing arts and organizes youth events for the community.

If you're interested in holding a booth for the event, volunteering for the event, or donating towards the cause of the event, please contact Bruno Sabatier at 707-695-0834 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – On Friday evening firefighters in Clearlake were closing in on full containment on two wildland fires they had been battling since earlier in the day, with remaining evacuations lifted.

The Extension fire and the North Branch Extension fire were reported about an hour and a half apart on Friday afternoon.

Cal Fire Division Chief Greg Bertelli told Lake County News that the Extension fire had burned seven acres, with the North Branch Extension at 30 acres.

As of 6:30 p.m. both fires were reported to be at 75-percent containment, Cal Fire reported.

The Extension fire was reported shortly after 1 p.m. off 18th Avenue behind Woodland Community College, in an area where a fire had been reported early Friday morning.

The North Branch Extension fire was first dispatched just after 2:45 p.m. in the area of Ogulin Canyon Road and Industrial Avenue.

Bertelli said a total of three metal structures were burned in the North Branch Extension fire.

He said Cal Fire kept both fires under the same incident command system, thus the similar names although they were several miles apart.

Thanks to firefighters' efforts, the Lake County Sheriff's Office reported at 6:30 p.m. that evacuations in the Ogulin Canyon area had been lifted.

The sheriff's office urged residents to check their homes and surroundings for any sign of additional danger such as smoke, embers, downed power lines or fire damage.

Pacific Gas and Electric reported shortly after 6:30 p.m. that a small power outage affecting approximately 27 customers was still in effect due to the fire activity.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – A Friday morning crash involving a REACH aircraft in Humboldt County claimed the lives of four people.

REACH Air Medical Services and Cal-Ore Life Flight confirmed that the accident involved a Piper Cheyenne aircraft associated with Cal-Ore’s base in Crescent City.

Three crew members and a patient were on board the plane, REACH reported.

“This is one of the saddest moments in our history,” the organization – which also serves Lake County – said in a Friday afternoon statement.

REACH said the plane departed at 12:29 a.m. Friday from Crescent City Airport, bound for Oakland International Airport

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office reported that at around 1 a.m. Friday the pilot of the twin-engine Piper PA31 declared an emergency due to smoke in the cockpit, and indicated he was going to return to Crescent City.

However, radar contact with the aircraft was lost about five miles northeast of Arcata Airport, and communication with the aircraft ceased at about 1:05 a.m., according to reports from the sheriff's office and REACH.

Authorities including the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, US Coast Guard, Cal Fire, Civil Air Patrol, California Highway Patrol Air Division and the Office of Emergency Services launched a search for the plane.

Sheriff's officials said search and rescue teams found a crash site with a quarter-mile-long debris field on private timber company in the Cranell area, located north of McKinleyville, at around 10 a.m.

At that point, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office confirmed two fatalities, secured the scene and notified the National Transportation Safety Board, which is set to arrive at the location at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Cal-Ore also notified the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration, according to REACH's statement.

The sheriff's office reported that it was in communication with REACH Air Medical Services and confirmed that there were four people on the plane.

REACH said it had critical incident stress management teams in the area and were doing all it could to help those involved.

Late Friday night, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office reported that its coroner’s division completed recovery of the victims from the crash at 8:30 p.m.

The agency confirmed four fatalities, and said the bodies of three females and one male were recovered from inside the wreckage of the aircraft.

The ages and identities of the victims were being withheld at that time pending identification and notification of next of kin, the sheriff's office said.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Firefighters are making good progress on the second wildland fire to hit the Clearlake area on Friday afternoon.

As of just after 4:30 p.m., the North Branch Extension fire, located in the area of Ogulin Canyon Road and Industrial Avenue, was about 20 acres and 50-percent contained, according to Cal Fire Division Chief Greg Bertelli.

“Things are looking good over here,” Bertelli said.

Bertelli said the fire was burning in grass and oak woodland.

He said “quite a few resources from around the county and beyond” were on scene.

Earlier in the incident, an in-county strike team and a strike team from Mendocino County had been requested, as Lake County News has reported.

While firefighters were making good progress, Bertelli said they were anticipating the western wind could impact the fire.

He said the fire had, by that point, destroyed three small metal structures.

Fire officials had put in an evacuation order for Ogulin Canyon Road to the east, but Bertelli said that they were looking to possibly lifting that order soon.

The Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection group was on scene, and Bertelli said incident command was assessing if animals in the area needed to be evacuated.

He said about 40 dogs at a kennel in the area were being sheltered in place.

Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

Five years after departing Earth, and a month after slipping into orbit around Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft is nearing a turning point.

On Sunday, July 31, at 12:41 p.m. PDT, Juno will reach the farthest point in its orbit of Jupiter for the first time, known as “apojove,” five million miles from the giant planet.

After that point, Jupiter's gravitational grip on Juno will cause the spacecraft to begin falling back toward the planet for another pass, this time with its scientific eyes wide open.

The spacecraft is currently executing the first of two long orbits prior to beginning its science mission. Each capture orbit is nearly two months long – quite the wait for the mission's eager team of scientists – but it's nothing compared to the long wait the team endured on the trek to Jupiter.

Juno launched on Aug. 5, 2011. The spacecraft took a long, looping path around the inner solar system to set up an Earth flyby, in which our planet's gravity flung the spinning probe onward toward Jupiter.

"For five years we've been focused on getting to Jupiter. Now we're there, and we're concentrating on beginning dozens of flybys of Jupiter to get the science we're after," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

Juno arrived at Jupiter on July 4, firing its main rocket engine as planned for 35 minutes. The flawless maneuver allowed Jupiter's gravity to capture the solar powered spacecraft into the first of two 53.4-day-long orbits, referred to as capture orbits.

Following the capture orbits, Juno will fire its engine once more to shorten its orbital period to 14 days and begin its science mission.

But before that happens, on Aug. 27, Juno must finish its first lap around Jupiter, with a finish line that represents the mission's closest pass over the gas giant. During the encounter, Juno will skim past Jupiter at a mere 2,600 miles above the cloud tops.

Juno's science instruments were turned off during orbit insertion, to simplify spacecraft operations during that critical maneuver.

In contrast, all the instruments will be collecting data during the Aug. 27 pass, which serves as a trial run before the mission gets to work collecting the precious data it came for.

"We're in an excellent state of health, with the spacecraft and all the instruments fully checked out and ready for our first up-close look at Jupiter," said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

With its powerful suite of science instruments, Juno will probe Jupiter's deep structure, atmospheric circulation and the high-energy physics of its magnetic environment.

What Juno finds there will reveal important clues to Jupiter's formation and evolution, along with insights about how our planetary system and others are built.

More information on the Juno mission is available at http://www.nasa.gov/juno . The public can follow the mission on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno and on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno .

THIS ARTICLE IS BEING UPDATED. NEW INFORMATION IS POSTED AT THE BASE OF THE ARTICLE.

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Evacuations have been called for in an area of Clearlake due to a wildland fire that began burning there early Friday afternoon, with a second fire reported in the city a short time later.

The Extension fire was first reported just before 1:15 p.m. in the area behind Woodland Community College and Walmart, according to radio reports. Just before 3 p.m. Cal Fire estimated the fire was at 10 acres.

The Clearlake Police Department said all residences along 18th Avenue were under immediate evacuation just before 1:45 p.m., with the area of Dam Road at the Cache Creek Apartments to 20th Avenue added to the evacuation area at 2:30 p.m.

Woodland Community College also was reported to be evacuating, based on dispatch reports.

However, nearby St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake had not called for evacuations as of 3 p.m.
 
“There is a fire currently in proximity to St. Helena Hospital Clear Lake on 18th Avenue in Clearlake and first responders are on scene. The fire department is working on containment and evacuation orders for the hospital are not expected at this time,” said spokeswoman Cambria Wells.

Lake County Fire and Cal Fire were among the initial agencies that responded to the incident, with requests to Northshore Fire for mutual aid, reports from the scene indicated.

Responding units were told to be careful due to downed lines in various areas of the fire.

Cal Fire's air resources have been making water and retardant drops in an effort to stop the fire.

Shortly before 2:30 p.m., incident command made an immediate need request for an in-county strike team of engines.

Scanner reports indicated that 18th Avenue at Gardner and at Highway 53 was closed to all but fire vehicles.

Shortly after 2:45 p.m., another fire was reported in the area of Ogulin Canyon and Highway 53.

The first units at the Ogulin incident reported that it was about three acres and burning uphill north of Ogulin Canyon.

Incident command on the Extension fire began diverting resources to that second incident and made a request to Mendocino County for another immediate need strike team. Northshore Fire units also were reported to be responding.

Shortly after 3:15 p.m., the Lake County Sheriff's Office reported that automated emergency calls had been made to the residents of Ogulin Canyon advising of nonmandatory but recommended evacuations.

At the same time, the agency said a temporary evacuation shelter was being set up at the Clearlake Community Center at 3245 Bowers Ave.

Incident command also was calling for the activation of the Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection group to stage at the former water park to help with removing animals from the area.

Just before 3:30 p.m., the Ogulin fire was reported to be 20 acres.

Shortly afterward, fire officials asked Pacific Gas and Electric to cut all power in the area from Ogulin Canyon to the east.

At 3:45 p.m., the Clearlake Police Department reported that evacuees from the Avenues area impacted by the Extension fire could return home.

At 4:02 p.m., the Ogulin fire – renamed the “North Branch Extension” fire, was reported to be 50-percent contained.

At 4:12 p.m., incident command said the North Branch Extension fire was holding at 15 acres, based on estimates from Cal Fire's air attack.

Additional details will be posted as they become available.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

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