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The Whiskey Fire, located five miles northwest of Paskenta, ignited on Thursday, according to the US Forest Service. The cause is under investigation.
On Sunday the Whiskey Fire was 25-percent contained at 6,815 acres, Cal Fire reported.
The Unified Command by the Forest Service and Cal Fire's Tehama-Glenn Unit initially led the effort to bring the fire under control, before turning the fire's management over to Nor Cal Interagency Incident Management Team II on Friday. The team draws on expertise from federal, state and local fire fighting agencies throughout California.
The fire was initially reported at about 12:30 p.m. June 12 as about 10 acres in size before it spread rapidly through the brush, according to the US Forest Service.
The fire is burning in chaparral brush and grass in a sparsely habited area of the forest, at elevations of 1,500 to 4,000 feet, officials reported. Conditions include hot temperatures and dry vegetation due to winds and little precipitation.
Portions of Forest Roads M-2 and M-4 were closed to public travel to expedite movement of fire equipment and personnel to the fire lines, officials reported. Five structures are listed as threatened but there is no evacuation ordered.
In other fire news, Cal Fire reported Sunday that Butte County's Humboldt Fire was 80-percent contained at 23,162 acres.
Firefighter numbers had been scaled back to just under, 1,200, from a high of nearly 4,000.
Northshore Fire personnel and firefighters from Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake Napa Unit were sent to Butte County to assist with the containment effort last week, as Lake County News has reported.
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Northshore Fire Protection District reported that an engine from its Upper Lake station plus three firefighters headed out Saturday as part of a strike team composed mostly of Mendocino fire personnel.
Pat Brown, a battalion chief with Northshore Fire, said this is the second time this year an Upper Lake engine has been sent to assist with an out-of-county fire.
In May, Northshore firefighters had traveled to the Santa Cruz Mountains, where they worked on the Summit Fire, which burned 4,270 acres.
That fire has been dwarfed by the Humboldt Fire in Butte County, which on Saturday had reached 23,163 acres and was 45-percent contained.
A total of 3,826 firefighters were on scene Saturday, of which 1,574 were with Cal Fire, the agency reported.
Cal Fire's Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit also had deployed firefighters to the Humboldt Fire late last week, as Lake County News reported Saturday.
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In the ancient Incan equivalent of throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game, the ruling monarch ceremoniously planted the first quinoa every year with gardening equipment made of gold. Modern marketers call quinoa “the supergrain of the future.”
Well, let’s not get our hopes TOO high. If you want to get really technical quinoa isn’t a grain, but a seed of a plant related to the weed goosefoot. White or “sweet” quinoa is the most common, but there also is red and black quinoa available.
Quinoa has a bitter seed coating called saponin that protects it from being eaten by birds while out in the field. In modern commercial processing this is rinsed off before sale, but the Spaniards arriving to the New World didn’t do this, and so ended up not liking the taste of quinoa. As a result, potatoes and corn made it back to Spain from the newly discovered Incan lands, but quinoa was shunned as “Indian food.”
Later, when the Conquistadors became horrified with the violent and bloody Incan religious sacrificial practices, anything Incan became taboo. All writings were burned and native foods were forbidden, sending the discovery of quinoa into obscurity.
This is a shame since quinoa has been a food for over 3,000 years. Had these exploring Europeans been able to distinguish the good things from the bad of Incan customs and culture and not “throw out the baby with the bath water,” this amazing food would be as widely appreciated today as corn is.
Although I think the Incas were probably lacking registered dietitians they sure knew their stuff! Quinoa is nearly a perfect food. It has an average of 16.5 percent protein, it’s full of balanced amino acids (lysine, methionine and cystine), calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, fiber (45 percent of your daily value on average per serving), starch, sugars and linoleic acid; it is gluten free AND kosher.
When it comes to nutritional benefits this grain kicks the butts of rice, wheat, corn, barley and millet (not that millet is on many pantry shelves). It is low in saturated fat and cholesterol. One cup serving of uncooked quinoa provides 36 percent of your daily carbohydrates and 43 percent of iron, and 626 calories (93 from fat, 437 from carbohydrates). If you are on a fixed income then you need quinoa; it will provide you a healthier meal for less money.
Quinoa is available at several Lake County grocery stores. It’s inexpensive and easy to cook. I’ve found quinoa cooked with water rather plain, so I cook it in chicken stock/broth, and then upon serving I add a pat of butter. The basic recipe is one part quinoa to two parts liquid.
Quinoa typically cooks in 15 minutes, but the really cool part is that it actually TELLS you when it’s done. The grains swell up, become translucent, and the germ ring pops out adding a “springy” look to the grains. You can also prepare quinoa in the microwave or rice cooker.
In my efforts to make sure I give you as much information possible, I decided to experiment with the idea of growing quinoa sprouts. I enjoy growing my own sprouts and have a countertop sprouter set, but I hadn’t tried quinoa sprouts before.
So I put a teaspoon of the seeds into my seed sprouter and watered them. I used the very same ones that I bought from the grocery store to cook, no special ordering needed. Twelve hours later the seeds had already started to grow.
If you choose to sprout your own quinoa keep them in a sunny window since the more sunlight they get the more nutritious they become. Although the initial sprouting occurred quickly, after three days I didn’t have a very impressive crop of sprouts, but they are beautiful, being green, white and purple.
Flavor-wise the sprouts are delicious; it was reminiscent of childhood when I would nibble on fresh clover out in a field. For those of you who didn’t spend your childhood as a cow in the Midwest, a better description would be a fresh vegetable taste almost like mixing raw asparagus and cucumber. Quick side note: Always water with fresh clean water, as reusing the water in the bottom of the sprouter set hastens fermentation.
The sprouts have even more nutritional benefits than cooked quinoa, which are already very high. This makes quinoa even more versatile. The sprouts are reported to be higher in vitamins and minerals than plain cooked quinoa, are cleansing for the heart and arterial system, and reduce fat in the blood stream.
Raw food enthusiasts and vegans use quinoa to replace the protein they are lacking from meat. They have many creative uses for quinoa including making banana and quinoa sprouts breakfast drinks, and dehydrating quinoa sprouts and sprinkling them over other foods for extra nutrition. Some pet food companies are even putting quinoa sprouts into pet food.
You can make your own gourmet BLT sandwich by substituting prosciutto for the bacon and quinoa sprouts for the lettuce, but keep the tomato. Put them on some toast with mayo and you have yourself a super-nutritious gourmet sandwich.
The seeds will remain viable for about two years if stored in an airtight container. The sprouts have a maximum shelf life of about two weeks if stored in the refrigerator. If you don’t keep the sprouts in the refrigerator they can ferment, and yes, there is quinoa beer out there. There are even recipes available online for cooked quinoa sprouts. Gee, maybe this is the supergrain of the future.
Not only does quinoa produce a grain-like seed, sprouts and beer but there also is quinoa flour and quinoa pasta. You can “pop” quinoa seeds like popcorn, but in a dry skillet. Then add milk and eat it like breakfast cereal. Due to quinoa’s high fat and oil content it should be stored in the refrigerator to keep it from going rancid. I personally don’t store mine in the fridge, because I use it up way before it has a chance to go bad.
So with the nutrition, ease of cooking, variety of methods and historical significance you have no reason NOT to get this ancient Incan superfood on your next shopping trip. Come on try it, it’s not like I’m asking you to sacrifice your enemy on an altar and eat his still-beating heart.
Quinoa, it’s not just for Incas anymore.
Ross A. Christensen is an award-winning gardener and gourmet cook. He is the author of "Sushi A to Z, The Ultimate Guide" and is currently working on a new book. He has been a public speaker for many years and enjoys being involved in the community.
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Pacific Gas and Electric reported Saturday that the outage, which occurred at 4:19 p.m. Friday, was caused when a third party was cutting down a tree.
The tree fell into the power lines, knocking them down, said company spokesperson Brandi Ehlers.
Initially, the outage left approximately 646 customers without power, Ehlers said.
“We were able to restore 559 at 8:05 p.m.,” she said.
The remaining 87 customers' power was restored at 1:38 a.m. Saturday, Ehlers reported.
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