3 people, including 3-year-old girl, critically hurt in fire and possible explosion at Detroit apartment building
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(DETROIT) — Three people, including a 3-year-old girl, were critically hurt in a fire and possible explosion at an apartment building in Detroit, officials said.
The fire was reported around 4 a.m. Monday, and when crews arrived, they found people “hanging off” windows, “ready to jump,” Detroit Executive Fire Commissioner Chuck Simms told reporters.
“Firefighters immediately went into action” and rescued all 12 people in the building: six adults and six children, Simms said.
Three people who were in the same apartment were hospitalized in critical condition: a 30-year-old man with severe burns to 90% of his body; a 27-year-old woman with severe burns to about 20% to 40% of her body; and a 3-year-old girl who suffered burns to 15% of her body, Simms said.
The other injured victims were hospitalized in stable condition, including a 26-year-old mom and her four children, Simms said. He described their injuries as “scrapes and bruises.”
A cause is not known, Simms said. The investigation is focused on the apartment where the three victims suffered serious burn injuries, he said.
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(NEW YORK) — Stephanie Gonzalez says she and her family have endured “heartbreak” since the deportation of her parents, 55-year-old Gladys and 59-year-old Nelson Gonzalez.
“They really did not deserve to be treated as criminals,” Stephanie Gonzalez, 27, told ABC News on Wednesday, describing how she and her sisters, 23-year-old Gabriella and 33-year-old Jessica, have been “devastated” as their parents, who possess no criminal records and have lived in the United States for 35 years, have been transported like “animals” and placed in “inhumane” conditions.
Stephanie Gonzalez said her parents were arrested and detained on Feb. 21 after a routine supervision appointment. That day, Gladys Gonzalez was initially granted a one-year extension to stay in America, prompting her daughter to think that “everything’s gonna be fine, like it always is.”
A few hours later, however, Nelson Gonzalez called to inform the family he was being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that Gladys’ extension was revoked and she was being detained as well.
“They separated them in separate rooms. They were in rooms alone for hours with no food,” Stephanie Gonzalez said. “They had handcuffed them from their hands or from their wrists and from their ankles.”
She added that it is jarring for her parents to be “treated like criminals,” especially since they had “never, ever been in trouble with the law.”
ICE confirmed to ABC News that Gladys and Nelson Gonzalez do not have criminal records and have been deported to Colombia.
It noted that its “routine operations” involve arresting people who commit crimes as well as “other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws.”
Stephanie Gonzalez said her parents were transported to detention facilities in different states without knowing where they were going and that she and her sisters had no way of tracking them, calling it “a mess.”
“It baffles my mind how they’re treating people this way,” she said, adding that it’s “so cruel” that they were “literally moving them around like animals.”
Stephanie Gonzalez also said her parents had no way of finding each other while in custody — they just happened to be on the same plane back to Colombia.
“When they got on the plane, everyone started clapping because they knew that they had been reunited after so long,” she said, smiling at this “really sweet moment” among the deportees. She added that she feels relieved they are now together in Colombia.
Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez came to America in 1989, seeking asylum from violence in Colombia, their daughter said.
They then faced multiple instances of “fraudulent” lawyers, she said, including one who wasn’t even an attorney and others who ended up disbarred, consequently preventing the proper citizenship paperwork from being filed. Stephanie Gonzalez described this as “so discouraging when you’re trying so hard … to do the right thing.”
An ICE spokesperson said in a statement that Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez “illegally entered the United States” in 1989. After they appeared before an immigration judge who found “no legal basis” for them to remain in the U.S., ICE said the couple was granted a “voluntary departure” with a final removal in 2000.
Stephanie Gonzalez confirmed that her parents were faced with a voluntary deportation day in 2000, but she added that they subsequently spent over 20 years filing appeals. Though her parents’ cases were closed in 2021, Stephanie Gonzalez said they were instructed simply to continue showing up to their supervision appointments and check in with the appropriate authorities.
During these supervision visits, Nelson and Gladys Gonzalez consistently got approved to stay in the U.S., though the time frame almost always varied, she continued.
“Sometimes, they would get three months. One time, they got one month. One time, I think they got almost three years where they didn’t have to appear before immigration,” Stephanie Gonzalez recounted.
“I think it just shows how broken the immigration system is because there was no set rule,” she said, adding that her family always hoped for a “really nice officer.”
Prior to the supervision visit in February that resulted in her parents’ deportation, Stephanie Gonzalez said she and her sisters “weren’t necessarily nervous” because they had been accustomed to “getting good news that they could stay in the country.”
“When I realized that they had gotten arrested and I wasn’t going to even be able to say goodbye, it was awful,” she said. “The fact that I couldn’t even hug them and just … feel their bodies — like it was really hard on me and my sisters.”
Stephanie Gonzalez said her parents offered to self-deport and pay for their own flights to preserve their “dignity” but the government refused.
She said not only do Stephanie and her sisters now have to grieve their parents’ absence but they are also left to settle their parents’ affairs and belongings, causing the situation to feel “like somebody died.”
Stephanie Gonzalez said it has been difficult given how close-knit her family is, especially as she and her sister Gabriella lived with their parents in an apartment in Orange County, California. She also expressed sadness that her parents cannot spend time with Jessica’s 7-month-old son, their first grandchild.
Her mother was the baby’s primary caretaker, and Gabriella had to quit her job to watch after him once their mother was no longer able to, Stephanie Gonzalez added.
Nelson Gonzalez was a certified phlebotomist who drew blood and conducted life insurance exams, his daughter said. He was also a part-time Uber driver, even working overnight to make extra money, with Stephanie Gonzalez emphasizing what immigrants like her parents “contribute to society.”
She expressed a desire for the public to change the narrative around immigrants, emphasizing that her parents are “hardworking people. … They’ve paid taxes. They’ve raised us three to follow the law. … They love America.”
Stephanie Gonzalez and her sisters started a GoFundMe page, which has raised over $75,000.
She noted that she feels “devastated” to hear “so many parents being taken from their kids, families being separated and broken apart.”
“That is something that should break people’s hearts,” she said.
(LOS ANGELES) — California has just experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons in years, despite the Golden State’s ample resources to combat the blazes once they spark.
The Palisades and Eaton fires, while both mostly contained as of Wednesday, are still active in Los Angeles County after starting on Jan. 7 and burning through tens of thousands of acres and killing at least two dozen people — and new fires have popped up as the region’s landscape remains dry and filled with fuel.
California is the best-equipped state in the country to combat wildfires, experts told ABC News. But even with the availability of personnel, equipment and the most advanced technology, other factors — some exacerbated by climate change — often make it impossible to contain fires before they cause widespread destruction.
Firefighting resources in California are abundant
The state often experiences the most fire activity in the U.S., leading the country with the most wildfires and the most acres burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) says it responds to an average of 7,500 wildfire incidents annually.
But California contains a “spider web” of different fire control, fire management and fire agencies that all come together to combat large wildfires, like the fires that decimated large portions of Los Angeles and Ventura counties in recent weeks, Hugh Safford, a research fire ecologist at the University of California, Davis, told ABC News.
These agencies include local fire departments run by municipalities, which contain firefighters trained not only in urban, or structural, fires but wildland fires, as well. Combined with state and federal efforts — which include Cal Fire, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service — California contains not only the most firefighters in the country but also the most highly trained, Safford said.
“The Forest Service has, by far, the largest firefighting organization of all of those, because it manages most of the nation’s forests,” Safford said. “It deals with most of the areas in which fire risk to ecosystems and to humans is most extreme.”
Considering the wildfire risk to human lives, property and wildlands, California has a vast budget for fighting wildfires. Cal Fire was given a $4 billion budget for the 2025 to 2026 season, and operating budgets are always subject to increase in the event of a big fire year, Safford said. Of the Forest Service’s $3 billion annual fire suppression budget, most of it is spent in California, he added.
That budget allows for the best equipment, such as helicopters and other machinery, to be implemented during firefighting efforts, Safford said. With Silicon Valley in proximity, the latest technologies in firefighting are also readily available, he added.
“A lot of that new technology is being tested and used here to begin with,” Safford said.
Despite ample resources, putting out fires can still be difficult, experts say
Wildfires have been getting bigger and more extreme in the last several decades, research shows. The frequency and intensity of extreme wildfires have more than doubled in the last two decades, a study published last year in Nature Ecology & Evolution found. A climate that has caused warming and drying in regions already prone to wildfires is partly to blame.
In California, annual wildfires are burning five times more land than in the 1970s, according to a 2019 study published in Advancing Earth and Space Sciences.
“Climate change has made California hotter and drier,” said Emily Fischer, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and a member of Science Moms, a nonpartisan group of climate scientists and mothers that says it aims to build a better future for kids. “That just makes it easier for fires to start and spread, and that means a larger area is burning every year,” she said.
While wildfires are a natural and necessary part of Earth’s cycle, climate change and other more direct human influences have increased their likelihood. Firefighters are battling blazes that could now be considered “unnatural” due to their severity, making them harder to contain before they cause widespread damage.
Safford, who used to work for the U.S. Forest Service, said he’s witnessed the rise in wildfires firsthand, in terms of cost. In the year 2000, fire suppression accounted for about 20% of the Forest Service’s annual budget, he said. Now, firefighting is taking up about 70% of the agency’s budget, he said.
That increase in fire suppression needs has taken away from the Forest Service’s other responsibilities, such as restoration, recreation, conservation and law enforcement, Safford said.
“We’re burning communities and forests down at a scary rate these days,” he said.
In the case of the Los Angeles wildfires, their inception was caused by a perfect storm of weather and climate conditions — including a Santa Ana wind event that brought hurricane-force winds to the region, as well as plentiful fuel left from two consecutive wet winters followed by months of drought conditions.
The co-occurrence of these events could potentially take place more frequently in the future, further increasing the risk of fires in California, Lei Zhao, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois, told ABC News.
“Climate change trends, the extremes and climate variability contribute to this situation,” Zhao said. “All those things are likely to be exacerbated in the future.”
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(NEW YORK) — A partial solar eclipse will be visible from the U.S. this weekend, but only a select few of the northernmost states are expected to get a glimpse of the cosmic phenomenon.
On early Saturday morning, the moon will pass in front of the sun, casting its shadow for viewers across the Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA. Since the moon, sun and Earth are not perfectly lined up, the movement will result in a partial eclipse, in which the sun will look like a crescent, or like a piece has been taken out of it.
“The moon is not able to block the entirety of the sun,” Lujendra Ojha, an assistant professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, told ABC News.
The shadow of the eclipse moves from west to east, opposite the apparent motion of the Sun and the rest of the sky, according to NASA. The orbital motion of the moon, which is the same direction as Earth’s but twice as fast, determines the direction of the eclipse’s shadow.
Sunspots can sometimes be visible during solar eclipse events, according to NASA.
People in Europe, western Africa, eastern Canada and the Northeast in the U.S. are positioned to see a partial eclipse.
When and where to see the partial solar eclipse from the US
Northeast states such as Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York will be able to get the best view of the partial solar eclipse, Matthew Newby, an associate professor of physics at Temple University, told ABC News. Regions to the north of the U.S., such as northeastern Canada and Greenland, will likely get the best view globally, Newby said.
Those with the best view may see up to 90% of the sun covered, but the further south you go, the less coverage there will be, Newby said. Maine is expected to experience 80% coverage, while New Hampshire will see about 50% coverage and New York about 30% coverage, Newby said.
The viewing window starts between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET for most locations in the U.S. NASA published a list of start times by city.
In the rest of the U.S., the central part of the moon’s shadow will appear to completely miss the Earth, so viewers won’t be able to see the event, according to NASA.
Newby recommended that viewers contact local astronomers to get the most accurate viewing information in your area.
“It should be a beautiful partial eclipse,” Ojha said.
The next partial solar eclipse will take place in September and will be visible from Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA.
A total solar eclipse will be visible in Greenland, Iceland, Spain and Russia in August 2026.
The next solar eclipse to be visible from the U.S. will take place in January 2028.
How to view the partial solar eclipse safely
Anyone who plans to watch the partial solar eclipse will need safe solar viewing glasses to protect their eyes, according to NASA.
While it is always dangerous to stare directly into the sun, the presence of an eclipse actually gives people a reason to look at it, increasing the likelihood of cases of injured corneas, Newby said.
UV radiation, whether from natural sunlight or artificial rays indoors, can damage the surface tissue, cornea and lens of the eye, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
“Looking at it with your unaided eye can cause permanent vision damage, and staring at the sun with any sort of magnifier that’s not perfectly safe can instantly blind you,” Newby said.
