The Brief

California’s fifth largest wildfire is encroaching on some of the last strongholds for imperiled salmon, with potentially devastating consequences for a species already on the brink.

The explosive Park Fire has spread into the Mill and Deer Creek watersheds in Tehama County, which are two of the three remaining creeks where wild, independent populations of spring-run Chinook, a threatened species, still spawn in the Central Valley.

If the Park Fire climbs to higher altitudes, federal and state officials said it could strike the final deathblow to the region’s spring-run salmon, which are already at risk of extinction.

“It’s really concerning. It’s really sad. Spring-run Chinook populations have taken such a hit over the past few years, and they’re just at a critically low point,” said Howard Brown, senior policy advisor with the Central Valley office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast fisheries region. “The emotional toll of seeing a fire like this hit such an important place, with (critically at-risk) populations that are suffering so bad, it just feels like the cards are stacked up deeply.”

Experts are anxiously awaiting the wildfire’s next move, hoping that it doesn’t spread farther into higher elevations. That’s where adult salmon are waiting in cool pools for water temperatures to drop and flows to rise so they can spawn, and where year-old juveniles are gaining strength before migrating to the ocean.

“We’re kind of at the mercy of the weather and wind to see if these fires creep along doing beneficial to less-severe things, or if we see a big run that really cooks the watershed,” said Matt Johnson, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Northern Region Anadromous Fisheries Program.

“The species is at real risk of extirpation or blinking out. We hope that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Flames are not the primary, immediate threat. The spring-fed streams are moving so fast that ash in the water will quickly wash away, according to wildlife officials. Instead, firefighting efforts could pose a direct threat to the waterways, including the use of fire retardant, which is toxic to fish, though experts say it’s a necessary tradeoff.

“The important thing right now is to just try to stop it on the head, so it doesn’t burn up these really precious watersheds,” Brown said. “The next few days will be pretty telling.”

The most severe damage could come later this year — if heavy rains wash ash, chemicals and sediment from the burn scar into the creeks. Too much sediment can smother the eggs and baby fish, or spark a microbial bloom that sucks oxygen from the water. Larger debris flows also could scour the waterways and fill in holding pools.

“It’s like liquid cement coming down the river channel,” said Steve Lindley, director of fisheries ecology at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center lab. “It just scours the river down to the bedrock, and everything in it is crushed and ground up.”

Two years ago, flash floods sent debris from Siskiyou County’s McKinney Fire into the Klamath River, where the Karuk Tribe reported a devastating fish kill.

Protected by the nation’s Endangered Species Act since 1999, Central Valley spring-run Chinook have already experienced catastrophic declines, reaching record lows last year with only 16 adults returning to spawn in Deer Creek and 34 to Mill Creek. These populations, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife warned earlier this year, “are now at high risk of extinction.”

“To see really big, hot fires like this move into what used to be their strongholds — it’s really a tough thing to witness,” Brown said. “Right now, it feels like the frontlines of climate change.”

Salmon 'are really struggling'

Spring-run Chinook salmon were once the cornerstone of California’s commercial fishery, with more than half a million fish caught in 1883 alone.

But California’s big dam era in the 20th century also sparked a massive decline of spring-run Chinook, one of the four runs of salmon named for the season when they return to freshwater to spawn. The dams cut off critical upstream spawning habitat, shifted the timing of flows and degraded downstream waterways.

Now nearly all of the Central Valley’s spring-run populations are gone. The remaining ones are largely confined to the northern Sacramento Valley, where Mill and Deer Creeks provide some of the last, high quality, high-elevation habitat for the species, as well as for threatened Central Valley steelhead.

Both are tributaries to the Sacramento River. Born in Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mill Creek flows through forests and meadows before dropping through a steep rock canyon into the Sacramento Valley, where it meets the Sacramento River. Deer Creek emerges near the summit of Butt Mountain, flowing 60 miles before it reaches the valley floor and stretches another 11 miles to join the Sacramento River near Vina.

“Deer and Mill Creeks have always represented this exceptional habitat piece for salmon,” said Johnson. “Unfortunately, despite that great habitat, the fish populations are really struggling.”

Last year, counts of returning adults were so low, scientists described it as a cohort collapse — meaning there were too few to successfully produce a new generation. The catastrophic declines prompted state and federal wildlife agencies to begin a conservation hatchery program at UC Davis.

The program was in response to the “threat that this species could blink out because nothing would return in subsequent years. So the captive brood population is like a little insurance plan or bank account of genetic material,” Johnson said.

With so few returning adults, a hit to the next generation from the Park Fire could be catastrophic. Johnson said after the Dixie Fire in 2021, he saw the first rains of the season turn Mill Creek black with runoff.

“The adults returning this year are from that Dixie Fire cohort and we’re looking at preliminary very low returns,” Johnson said. Though he doesn’t have the evidence yet to back it up, the fire “could be a contributing factor.”

State wildlife officials in February warned water regulators that the fish have been in steep decline since 2015 — in part because agricultural water diversions from the lower rivers frequently drain the creeks. They urged the State Water Resources Control Board to set minimum levels of water that must flow through the creeks to protect fish.

“Historical water diversion and water use practices have long been out of balance with ecological needs on these critical watersheds,” Tina Bartlett, regional manager of the northern region, wrote to the water board. In recent years, the problem has been amplified by climate change and frequent droughts.

Water board staff are reviewing the recommendations, according to spokesperson Ailene Voisin.

Eggs and young fish could be smothered

Because of the fire, state wildlife officials cannot survey the number of adult salmon that returned this year, Johnson said. But preliminary estimates for this year remain very low — prompting alarm from scientists.

“We had a really bad year last year. We had a really bad year this year,” said Andrew Rypel, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. “Say we wipe out this cohort. Salmon are on a three-year lifecycle. That’s starting to look like the anatomy of an extinction.”

The wildfire is not an imminent threat to adults that are in the creeks right now, Johnson said. The creeks have abundant cool water, and as of Monday the fire was not affecting flow or temperatures.

“What this fire represents, if it were to consume the habitat in the upper watersheds, is a degradation of that habitat. It’s just another hit to the species that’s already struggling,” Johnson said.

In these fire prone landscapes, low-intensity fires can be beneficial. Some sediment in the water can help hide juveniles from predators. Downed trees in the stream can create fish habitat.

But Johnson and others are concerned about the heat and intensity of the fire. If the first rain events send mud and ash flooding into the creeks, the eggs or juveniles could be smothered by the sediment, or suffocate if oxygen levels plummet. Chemicals could degrade the water quality.

Brown said that these hot fires could reshape this wild, remote landscape. Recent studies show that the one-two punch of climate change and severe fires can change which plants return to a fire-scoured region. Denuded slopes are primed for erosion, and the loss of tree cover could allow these vital, cool stretches of river to warm in the summer.

“At this point, my greatest concern is the fire moving any further up Mill and Deer Creek. A hot fire blowup could have devastating ecological consequences for the watershed health of these streams,” he said. “The watersheds and the salmon are irreplaceable resources in the state of California and they are almost gone. This hurts.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops. 

Now, though, the whole country is in on the secret. 

The breakfast and lunch spot on Centinela Avenue was announced Wednesday by the James Beard Foundation as one of six winners of the America’s Classics Award, an honor the foundation says goes to “timeless” local institutions. The foundation is also responsible for the James Beard Award, one of the nation’s top culinary honors. 

The Serving Spoon joins a pantheon of other L.A.-area eateries to win the classics award including Guelaguetza, Langer’s Deli and Philippe the Original. 

Jessica Bane, part of the third generation to run the family-owned restaurant, said the honor is still sinking in, but that it validates decades of work. “It’s being done out of love,” Bane said.

The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops.

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Isaiah Murtaugh

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The LA Local

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The award announcement hailed The Serving Spoon as an “anchor” of L.A.’s Black community, run by staff who genuinely care for their customers.“The restaurant is cherished for its joyful hospitality and as a place where all can gather and feel at home,” the announcement read. 

The Serving Spoon didn’t exactly need Beard recognition — the diner is often packed and already has  pedigree as Snoop Dogg and Raphael Saadiq’s breakfast spot of choice in the 2000 Lucy Pearl song “You” — but Bane said the award takes the diner’s reputation national.“The recognition is beyond appreciated,” Bane said. 

The Serving Spoon was founded in 1983 by Bane’s grandfather, Harold E. Sparks. He passed the restaurant down to Bane and her brother, Justin Johnson, through their parents. 

The menu looks much the same as it did four decades ago, Bane said, though some of the dishes have been renamed for regulars. 

During the Thursday lunch rush a day after the announcement, The Serving Spoon’s vinyl booths were packed, as usual. Bane oversaw the dining room while Johnson marshaled plates of fried catfish through the kitchen. 

Tina and Kevin Jenkins waited for a table outside. The L.A. natives each have been coming to The Serving Spoon since childhood. They live in Lancaster now, but make sure to come back to the diner whenever they’re in town. 

“It’s the atmosphere, our people, our music,” Tina Jenkins said.

Despite taxes on imports at levels not seen in a century, Long Beach’s seaport had a good year in 2025. And a decent January.

Port officials said Wednesday they started the new year by leading the nation in trade, responsible for moving more than 847,000 shipping containers in January — 51% of the total cargo at the San Pedro Bay Complex, which it shares with neighboring Port of Los Angeles.

In a call with reporters, Port CEO Noel Hacegaba said that despite a “fair share of doom and gloom” at the time, the seaport finished 2025 as its busiest year on record.

This comes days after President Donald Trump signed new, across-the-board tariffs on U.S. trading partners, and later added he would raise the tariffs to 15%. It’s a direct response to a recent Supreme Court decision that found his tariffs announced last April were unconstitutional.

The new tariffs would operate under a law that restricts them to 150 days, unless approved by Congress.

Asked to measure how much this will affect the seaport, traders, logistics companies and consumers, Hacegaba reiterated a word he has evoked heavily in the past 10 months: uncertainty.

“Our strong cargo volumes do not suggest we are not being affected by tariffs,” Hacegaba said, adding the Port saw a 13% decline in imports driven by major reductions in iron, steel, synthetic fibers, salt, sulfur and cement.

Economists are somewhat more confident, saying it would take nothing short of a national economic crisis to reverse the seaport’s fortunes. “Even if the market is affected, our standing at the Port of Long Beach, even compared to other ports, is strong,” said Laura Gonzalez, an economics professor at Cal State Long Beach.

But experts caution that the ruling will heap the most damage on businesses, especially smaller enterprises, as well as the average consumer who already bore the tariff’s costs last year.

Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, held his first State of the Port in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Tariffs added $1,700 in costs to the average U.S. household, as importers raised prices to offset higher import taxes — especially on clothes, shoes and electronics from China and other Southeast Asian nations.

Consumers, Gonzalez said, should budget over the next six months “for essentials.”

Priyaranjan Jha, an economics professor at UC Irvine, said historically trade policies since 2018 have shown that for every dollar of duty imposed, consumer prices rose by about 90 cents.

Even if tariffs are reduced or reversed, and pressure is relieved on importers, consumers shouldn’t expect lower sticker prices right away, he said. “Firms do not always reduce prices as quickly as they raise them, especially if contracts or inventories are involved.”

Richer San, a former banker and business owner in Long Beach, said he’s in regular talks with shops across the city’s historic Cambodia Town that have been crushed by the increased prices of imported ingredients.

“Most of these are family-owned businesses operating on very small profit margins,” he said, adding there is little to no margin to “absorb higher costs.”

Many companies managed to avoid price increases last year in part by stockpiling inventory in the first half of the year to be sold through Christmas and the start of the year. As stock dwindles, many businesses might be less willing to eat the cost of a new set of tariffs.

Marc Sullivan, president of Long Beach-based Global Trade and Customs, said his logistics company saw a brief boom last year in ordered goods, mostly medical equipment and pharmaceuticals.

But by June, orders dropped 35%, a trend that continues today. It’s forced him to freeze any new hiring in the past year and at least through the next six months as he waits for federal officials to settle on tariffs that will determine the cost of shipped goods.

“For the companies that I work with that are importing into the state here, it’s just ‘hold on and let’s see what happens,’” he said.

“I’d like to hire a salesperson to go out and chase new business, … but it’s just a bleak outlook,” he added.

In the interim, he’s received a steady flow of calls (that started “within minutes” of the ruling) from importers looking to claim refunds or recoup their tariff expenses. The U.S. Treasury had collected more than $140 billion from tariffs enacted under emergency powers, and the Supreme Court left the decision of how to appropriate the refund proceedings to lower courts.

His response: They might be stuck waiting for a while. “Customs doesn’t pay anything back quickly,” he said. “It could be a year before you ever see anything back to you.”

Sullivan said he knows of companies that spent upwards of $20,000 per shipment for months.

“They’re going to want that money to be able to reinvest it,” Sullivan said.

But some experts say that consumers, as well as small businesses, deserve a share of refunds.

“The importer may receive a refund even though consumers bore much of the cost,” Jha said. “Courts generally refund the statutory payer, not downstream buyers, but that opens the possibility of follow-on litigation. Small businesses that directly imported goods and paid tariffs should qualify for refunds.”

Topline:

A long turtle lineage: Dubbed “Porkchop” by aquarium staff due to her hefty appetite, the young female green sea turtle represents one of seven sea turtle species worldwide (six of which occur in U.S. waters). These animals have called our oceans home since at least the time of the dinosaurs — about 110 million years ago, according to NOAA. All species of sea turtles found in the U.S. are listed as either endangered or threatened and are protected by the Endangered Species Act.

Porkchop’s healing journey: Aquarium vets had to amputate Porkchop’s right front flipper after tangled fishing lines severely cut off her blood flow. She also had a fishing hook removed from her throat. First rescued after being spotted in the San Gabriel River by volunteers with the aquarium’s sea turtle monitoring program last March, her healing journey took nearly a year. She now swims and eats as well as her four-flippered kin and after a final physical exam, blood sample and X-ray, vets determined she was ready to return to her wild roots. She also now has a microchip, so if she ends up stranded again, scientists will know it’s her.

An ambassador for conservation: Porkchop became the aquarium’s first public-facing ambassador for its expanded green sea turtle rescue efforts. A new holding tank, viewable by the public, doubles the aquarium’s capacity to rescue green sea turtles and provides firsthand education about their conservation efforts. The aquarium is currently caring for another larger and older female green sea turtle — she weighs more than 200 pounds — rescued from the San Gabriel River in January. She’ll be in the public viewing tank in the coming months when she’s recovered a bit more.

How to help local green sea turtles: Green sea turtle populations are actually doing quite well in the San Gabriel River, but trash, debris and pollution remains a big threat. If you fish the San Gabriel River, never litter fishing lines or hooks. If you see a stranded sea turtle in the San Gabriel River or elsewhere, call the West Coast Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Network’s hotline at (562) 506-4315. You can also donate to the aquarium’s rescue program.

If your child’s teacher hasn’t threatened to go on strike recently, they probably will soon.

Thousands of California K-12 teachers have walked off their jobs or voted to strike in the past few months, as part of a strategic, statewide effort by the California Teachers Association to boost salaries and benefits — and get the public’s attention.

“All these districts going out on strike — it’s not a coincidence at all,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union. “Everywhere in the state there are people with unmet needs. The conditions have been ripe for a long time.”

San Francisco teachers went on strike for four days this month. West Contra Costa teachers went on strike in December. San Diego, Woodland, Apple Valley, Duarte and Madera teachers planned to strike in the past few months but reached a settlement at the last minute. Teachers in Los Angeles, Oakland, Dublin, West Sacramento, Twin Rivers and Natomas have voted overwhelmingly to strike. In Berkeley, Soquel and other districts, teachers are holding rallies and appear headed for strike votes.

Ten local teachers unions under the umbrella of the California Teachers Association worked for years to align their contracts so they’d expire at the same time: June 30, 2025. The idea, Goldberg said, was to trigger a wave of negotiations and potential strikes to garner public attention and flex political muscle. Teachers unions from at least a dozen other districts have also joined the effort, even though they weren’t part of the original cohort.

“We’re a strong union with a lot of resources, and we’re taking advantage of that,” Goldberg said, whose union represents about 310,000 teachers. “Teachers are learning from each other, and getting some clarity on how to win resources for public schools.”

Public and political priorities

Teacher contracts vary by district, but the demands are similar: higher salaries, better benefits and amenities that affect student well-being, such as sanctuary protection for immigrants.

Considering the ever-escalating cost of living in California, the demands are not a surprise, said Julia Koppich, an education consultant who specializes in labor-management relations.

Teachers in expensive cities like San Francisco often can’t afford to live near their jobs, she said, noting that starting teachers in San Francisco Unified earn about $80,000. San Francisco’s starting police officers, by comparison, make about $120,000.

It’s been a frustration for the teaching profession for decades, she said. But districts don’t have much control over their revenues and substantial increases in spending would have to come from the state, she said.

“To be sure, the issue of marshaling sufficient resources is a district conversation about teacher worth,” Koppich said. “But, ultimately, it’s a state discussion about public and political priorities."

District financial hardships

At the same time that teachers are demanding more money, school districts are facing financial hardships. Declining enrollment, especially in urban districts, has meant half-empty classrooms and less money from the state, which funds schools based on how many students show up every day. Closing schools is the obvious answer, but that’s proven to be deeply unpopular and few school boards appear willing to take that step.

Another financial challenge has been the end of pandemic relief money. California schools received more than $23.4 billion in one-time grants intended to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss. State and federal authorities advised schools to spend the money on temporary tutors, after-school and summer programs and other short-term expenses. But some districts, including Los Angeles Unified, San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified, used some of their funds to increase teacher pay or hire permanent staff, which they’re now struggling to pay for after the grant money ended.

So even though the state has increased K-12 school funding the past few years, some districts are financially strapped. It’s unclear whether they can afford teachers’ demands for higher salaries or more generous benefits, said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

Los Angeles Unified, for example, gave its teachers 5% raises plus a $2,000 one-time stipend and a $500 bonus. The district’s nurses, who are also represented by the union, got $5,000 stipends.

“The unions are saying, ‘We know you have an ATM back there. If you were nice, you’d push the buttons,’” Roza said. But districts’ money is tight, she said, “so we’re at a stand off.”

If districts agree to teachers’ demands, cuts will have to come from somewhere — most likely from programs considered non-essential, such as sports, electives, advanced placement classes and other offerings, she said.

It could also mean staff layoffs. Tutors, classroom aides and newer teachers would be the most vulnerable.

Those cuts would harm low-income students the most, Roza said, because they’re more likely to rely on special school programs and attend schools with newer teachers. Low-income students are also more likely to be affected by a strike, she said, because families typically have fewer options for child care and those students are more likely to suffer from academic disruptions.

School boards need to stand up for those students, she said, and do a better job negotiating with teachers unions. That entails more transparency about finances and a willingness to close under-used schools.

“It’s so irresponsible to erode services for vulnerable students because you don’t have a spine,” Roza said.

‘Kids as leverage’

Lance Christensen, vice president of education policy at the California Policy Center, said California should get rid of teachers unions altogether. Teachers deserve higher salaries, he said, but the teachers union does not always act in the interests of students.

The union devotes too much time to defending incompetent teachers, he said, and strikes are harmful to students and families. He also said the California Teachers Association has a political stranglehold on Sacramento that “overshadows every conversation in the Legislature, even if it’s not about education.”

He noted that charter schools and private schools are rarely unionized, and sometimes have better outcomes than traditional public schools. A handful of other states don’t allow teachers to collectively bargain, and at least 35 don’t allow teachers unions to strike.

“The union uses kids as leverage,” said Christensen, who ran for state superintendent of public instruction in 2022. “Right now, CTA is the biggest evil in California education.”

Next steps in San Francisco

In San Francisco, parent Meredith Dodson said she’s relieved the strike is over. Although most parents support teachers and believe they deserve better compensation, the strike was stressful for families and disrupted learning for thousands of students.

The $183 million settlement includes raises and improved benefits for teachers, which the district plans to pay for by draining its reserve funds.

Parents now are bracing for the inevitable cuts. The district’s finances remain shaky, and aren’t likely to improve any time soon.

“What comes next? Layoffs? Increased class sizes? State intervention?” said Dodson, who is executive director of the San Francisco Parents Coalition, a parent advocacy group. “There’s going to be some hard questions for the board, and they’re going to have to ask themselves, what’s best for kids?”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.