Senior Airman surprises cousin on Aubrey Rogers softball senior nightPolice: 15-year-old injured after accidentally shot in the leg
NORTH NAPLES Senior Airman surprises cousin on Aubrey Rogers softball senior night Aubrey Rogers senior pitcher and infielder McKenzie Vargas surprised by her Air Force cousin for Senior Night.
BONITA SPRINGS Police: 15-year-old injured after accidentally shot in the leg Lee County deputies say the teen was accidentally shot in the leg.
PUNTA GORDA Exclusive: Brother and best friend of accused pedophile priest speak out Riley’s brother reached out to WINK on Friday, saying people aren’t getting the full story.
IMMOKALEE Caught on video: Huge gator crosses Immokalee neighborhood Fridays in Florida are for gators
FORT MYERS FGCU softball pitcher making a name for herself One season in FGCU, freshman pitcher Allison Sparkman is already ruffling feathers in the circle.
Surrendering-pets trend at Gulf Coast Humane Society concerns An large amount of pets are being surrendered by their owners. About half of the dogs at the Gulf Coast Humane Society are surrender dogs.
Students benefitting from millions in sales tax dollars So far, the voter-approved half-cent sales tax has brought in $507 million for the Lee County School District.
PORT CHARLOTTE ‘Shady’: One woman feels misled after federal student loan consolidation It takes some people decades to pay off their student loans. One woman’s last payment was in sight until she took a gamble she said she was told to take.
FORT MYERS Homeless encampments inch closer to neighborhoods Law enforcement has swept multiple encampments, cleaning the trails of mess and muck left behind, and some of these encampments are right in our backyards.
BIG CYPRESS PRESERVE What changes if Big Cypress National Preserve becomes a Wilderness Area? America’s first nationally designated preserve is in Southwest Florida’s backyard, and it is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Method to treat IBD being used for other health issues Trying to get treatments for the brain when fighting neurological diseases like epilepsy and ALS is a challenge.
FORT MYERS NTSB report reveals new details in helicopter crash after Hurricane Ian The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its final report on a helicopter crash that occurred in Iona, Florida, shortly after Hurricane Ian.
NAPLES Memorial celebrates the life of John Passidomo Hundreds of friends and family gathered for a memorial at Baker Park in Naples.
‘Latinos in Action’ empowers all students to succeed WINK News talked with teachers who are a part of the program, helping kids reach their full potential.
Immokalee ‘The eyes always draw me in’; Immokalee portrait artist turns dark times into color One of Southwest Florida best portrait artist, Martha Maria Cantu, almost gave up art. Now she’s on the forefront of the city of Immokalee, to make her community filled with color.
NORTH NAPLES Senior Airman surprises cousin on Aubrey Rogers softball senior night Aubrey Rogers senior pitcher and infielder McKenzie Vargas surprised by her Air Force cousin for Senior Night.
BONITA SPRINGS Police: 15-year-old injured after accidentally shot in the leg Lee County deputies say the teen was accidentally shot in the leg.
PUNTA GORDA Exclusive: Brother and best friend of accused pedophile priest speak out Riley’s brother reached out to WINK on Friday, saying people aren’t getting the full story.
IMMOKALEE Caught on video: Huge gator crosses Immokalee neighborhood Fridays in Florida are for gators
FORT MYERS FGCU softball pitcher making a name for herself One season in FGCU, freshman pitcher Allison Sparkman is already ruffling feathers in the circle.
Surrendering-pets trend at Gulf Coast Humane Society concerns An large amount of pets are being surrendered by their owners. About half of the dogs at the Gulf Coast Humane Society are surrender dogs.
Students benefitting from millions in sales tax dollars So far, the voter-approved half-cent sales tax has brought in $507 million for the Lee County School District.
PORT CHARLOTTE ‘Shady’: One woman feels misled after federal student loan consolidation It takes some people decades to pay off their student loans. One woman’s last payment was in sight until she took a gamble she said she was told to take.
FORT MYERS Homeless encampments inch closer to neighborhoods Law enforcement has swept multiple encampments, cleaning the trails of mess and muck left behind, and some of these encampments are right in our backyards.
BIG CYPRESS PRESERVE What changes if Big Cypress National Preserve becomes a Wilderness Area? America’s first nationally designated preserve is in Southwest Florida’s backyard, and it is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Method to treat IBD being used for other health issues Trying to get treatments for the brain when fighting neurological diseases like epilepsy and ALS is a challenge.
FORT MYERS NTSB report reveals new details in helicopter crash after Hurricane Ian The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its final report on a helicopter crash that occurred in Iona, Florida, shortly after Hurricane Ian.
NAPLES Memorial celebrates the life of John Passidomo Hundreds of friends and family gathered for a memorial at Baker Park in Naples.
‘Latinos in Action’ empowers all students to succeed WINK News talked with teachers who are a part of the program, helping kids reach their full potential.
Immokalee ‘The eyes always draw me in’; Immokalee portrait artist turns dark times into color One of Southwest Florida best portrait artist, Martha Maria Cantu, almost gave up art. Now she’s on the forefront of the city of Immokalee, to make her community filled with color.
This photo provided by the Southern Area Blue Incident Management Team on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2021, shows the giant sequoia known as the General Sherman Tree with its base wrapped in a fire-resistant blanket to protect it from the intense heat of approaching wildfires at Sequoia National Forest in California. (Southern Area Blue Incident Management Team via AP) Firefighters have wrapped the base of the world’s largest tree in a fire-resistant blanket as part of an effort to save a famous grove of gigantic old-growth sequoias from wildfires burning in California’s rugged Sierra Nevada. The colossal General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest, some other sequoias, the Giant Forest Museum and other buildings were wrapped for protection against the possibility of intense flames, fire spokeswoman Rebecca Paterson said. The aluminum wrapping can withstand intensive heat for short periods. Federal officials said they have used the material for several years throughout the U.S. West to protect sensitive structures from flames. Near Lake Tahoe, some homes that were wrapped in protective material survived a recent wildfire while others nearby were destroyed. The Colony Fire, one of two burning in Sequoia National Park and named for the area where it started, was expected to reach the Giant Forest, a grove of 2,000 sequoias, within days, fire officials said. However, the fire didn’t grow significantly Thursday as a layer of smoke reduced its spread in the morning, fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper said. The blaze erupted after a wildfire in the region last year killed thousands of sequoias, some as tall as high-rises and thousands of years old. The General Sherman Tree is the largest in the world by volume, at 52,508 cubic feet (1,487 cubic meters), according to the National Park Service. It towers 275 feet (84 meters) high and has a circumference of 103 feet (31 meters) at ground level. Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks Superintendent Clay Jordan stressed the importance of protecting the massive trees from high-intensity fire during a briefing for firefighters. A 50-year history of using prescribed burns — fires set on purpose to remove other types of trees and vegetation that would otherwise feed wildfires — in the parks’ sequoia groves was expected to help the giant trees survive by lessening the impact if flames reach them. A “robust fire history of prescribed fire in that area is reason for optimism,” Paterson said. “Hopefully, the Giant Forest will emerge from this unscathed.” Giant sequoias are adapted to fire, which can help them thrive by releasing seeds from their cones and creating clearings that allow young sequoias to grow. But the extraordinary intensity of fires — fueled by climate change — can overwhelm the trees. That happened last year when the Castle Fire killed what studies estimate were 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias, according to the National Park Service. A historic drought and heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. A national interagency fire management team took command of efforts to fight the 11.5-square-mile (30-square-kilometer) Paradise Fire and the 3-square-mile (8-square-kilometer) Colony Fire, which was closest to the grove. Operations to burn away vegetation and other fuel that could feed the flames were done in that area. The fires forced the evacuation of the park this week, and parts of the town of Three Rivers outside the main entrance remained evacuated. To the south, a fire on the Tule River Indian Reservation and in Giant Sequoia National Monument grew significantly overnight to more than 6 square miles (15 square kilometers), and crews had no containment of it, a Sequoia National Forest statement said. The Windy Fire, also started by lightning, has burned into part of the Peyrone Sequoia Grove in the national monument, and other groves were threatened. “Due to inaccessible terrain, a preliminary assessment of the fire’s effects on giant sequoia trees within the grove will be difficult and may take days to complete,” the statement said. The fire led the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office to warn the communities of Ponderosa, Quaking Aspen, Johnsondale and Camp Whitsett, a Boy Scouts camp, to be ready to evacuate if necessary. The wildfires are among the latest in a long summer of blazes that have scorched nearly 3,550 square miles (9,195 square kilometers) in California, destroying hundreds of homes. Crews had limited ground access to the Colony Fire and the extreme steepness of the terrain around the Paradise Fire prevented it completely, requiring extensive aerial water and flame-retardant drops on both fires. The two fires were being managed collectively as the KNP Complex.