BASS LAKE – After 12 hours of searching, crews have located Sergio Valdovinos, who had been unaccounted for since Friday evening, and the Madera County Sheriff’s Office is happy to report that he is okay. Madera County Search & Rescue and Madera County Sheriff’s deputies had been searching for 29-year-old Sergio Manuel Valdovinos in ‪‎the Bass Lake‬ area.

CLOVIS – For 37 years now, mountain area resident Teri Williams has been working with a vital organization dedicated to caring for orphaned or injured native wildlife in the Central Valley. This spring, a special set of circumstances arose when four little foxes were turned over to the care of the kind-hearted volunteers who make up the staff at Fresno ...

On May 17, Amarildo Mulić welcomed visitors to Una National Park in northwestern Bosnia I Herzegovina for the European Day of Parks. They had returned only a few days earlier from a two week international study tour of Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Forest & Monument.

BASS LAKE – The Smokey Bear Run / Walk returns to Bass Lake on Saturday, Sept. 26, and now is the time to register to get the early bird discount by June 30. This is an annual event held in the transition period between summer and autumn, and this fall, organizers are celebrating the 28th year of the race.

YOSEMITE – Two men were killed in an accident on Saturday, May 16, after BASE jumping in wingsuits from from Taft Point in Yosemite. The bodies of Graham Hunt, 29, and Dean Potter, 43, were recovered on Sunday, May 17, by Yosemite Search and Rescue and the California Highway Patrol after they were reported missing the night before.

MOUNTAIN AREA – The Coarsegold-based motorcycle club Sierra Shadow Casters (SSC) is hosting a “poker run” for critically injured Capt. Pete Dern of the Fresno Fire Department on Saturday, June 6. The 75-mile Sierra Moonshine Poker Run is expected to garner hundreds of riders from the Valley and Mountain Area. Riders will leave the Woodward area in North Fresno and ...

Steven Sage, a teenage student with a passion for wolves and experience in Yellowstone-area wolf research, will share his knowledge and love for these iconic animals at the May program of the Yosemite Area Audubon Society. Sage will present a slide show, “Wolves: A Keystone Species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 14, at the Oakhurst ...

SACRAMENTO – KCRA in Sacramento is reporting that federal authorities have moved to dismiss the charges against the man accused of starting the devastating Rim Fire because two if the key witnesses in the case have died. Keith Matthew Emerald, 33, of Columbia was charged with igniting the massive fire in that destroyed nearly 257,000 acres near Yosemite National Park ...

MOUNTAIN AREA – When the devastating earthquake struck Nepal last week, the massive destruction and loss of life tugged at heart strings all across the world. Here in the mountain area, three young men decided to follow the irresistible urge to help. Brothers Jacob and Sam Tallmon, along with Kory Nuñez, are on their way to Kathmandu to assist in ...

SACRAMENTO – Nine CAL FIRE firefighters recently received the prestigious State of California Governor’s Medal of Valor award for acts of heroism extending above and beyond the normal call of duty, and one of the honored recipients is a local firefighter with the Madera-Mariposa-Merced Unit.