Fifth & Mission

Walk up a steep road through a scorched landscape with reporter Matthias Gafni in St. Helena. Gafni narrates his walk up North Fork Crystal Springs Road, near the Dancing Bear Ranch Vineyard, part of Cakebread Cellars, where Cal Fire has been focusing its investigative teams on finding what might have started the Glass Fire. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The city now allows restaurants and places of worship to welcome people back inside, but do people feel safe enough to go? Host Heather Knight speaks with Justin Phillips, co-host of the Extra Spicy podcast, and reporter Nora Mishanec about how these changes are being implemented. | Full coronavirus coverage: sfchronicle.com/coronavirus | Unlimited Chronicle coverage: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reporter Trisha Thadani spent the day in this Napa County town covering the Glass Fire and talking to residents, some of whom have had to evacuate several times. One woman, considering various climate disasters, wonders, "Where else do I go?" Another says her small winery is facing a $100,000 loss. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On The Chronicle's politics podcast, editorial board editor John Diaz and — GENTLEMEN, PLEASE! — political writer John Wildermuth join — EXCUSE ME! — host Joe Garofoli to analyze the first presidential — PLEASE LET HIM FINISH! — debate. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Subscribe to It's All Political: podfollow.com/its-all-political Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wine critic Esther Mobley reports from the famous castle winery in Calistoga, which lost a farmhouse and all of its bottled wine in the Glass Fire. Mobley talks about the large number of wineries that have been destroyed or significantly damaged, and describes ruins that just last week were beautiful dining areas with amazing views. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Napa and Sonoma counties are back to a familiar chaos. Homes, businesses, resorts and wineries have burned and thousands have fled ahead of burning embers. Firefighters dug in. And shadowing it all is a fear for California's future. Reporters Megan Cassidy, Dustin Gardiner and Esther Mobley bring us up to speed on the destruction and what it means. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reporter Matthias Gafni talks about an uncomfortably close call late Sunday night as he followed a city bus through flames of the fast-moving Shady Fire as the bus evacuated residents of the Oakmont Gardens Senior Home in Santa Rosa. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We often measure the toll of the pandemic by deaths, which have surpassed 200,000 in the U.S. But what is of increasing concern is the long-term, perhaps even permanent, damage that COVID-19 can cause to even healthy young people who become infected. Health reporter Erin Allday talks about the "long-haulers" she's been speaking to. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon Jacobo, head of San Francisco's Latino Task Force, discusses why Latinos make up more than half of San Francisco's positive coronavirus cases despite being just 15% of the population. He says City Hall could be doing more to address the disparity. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a pivotal moment in the history of the state’s redwood forests, many of which have been badly burned in the latest scourge of wildfires. Save the Redwood League president Sam Hodder argues for why we need redwood trees to fight climate change and restore balance to our natural environment. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Food critic Soleil Ho talks about this year's Top 100 list and how the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything about the Chronicle tradition. Some of her picks have closed. Others have pivoted to patios, pre-orders and meal kits to deal with the new safety protocols. But they all represent the best of the best, offering everything from wallet-busting prix fixe menus and sushi spreads to can't-miss burgers and burritos. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Andrews was 23, homeless and addicted to heroin, then fentanyl. He agreed to let reporter Trisha Thadani follow him as he tried to get help. His story is one of personal struggle, but also of a broken system of care. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Attorney General William Barr has restarted federal executions for a president who wants to exude toughness. He's also a devout Catholic, in a church that opposes the death penalty. Reporter Jason Fagone explains how a Catholic organization's honoring of Barr this week has outraged some Catholics and opponents of capital punishment. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A 25-year-old democratic socialist who got her political start joining Lakota relatives protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, Fielder is running against Sen. Scott Wiener in the race for District 11 She has big ideas for combatting California’s wildfires, tackling the state’s affordable housing problem and more. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Manor of Being in San Francisco includes 11 residents who share meals, values and the desire to improve themselves. Here's the inside story from Chronicle reporter Annie Vainshtein on how they've coped with the coronavirus pandemic and how they're protecting each other while still having a semblance of a life outside. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A half year has passed since that fateful day when Bay Area residents were ordered to shelter in place to avoid the coronavirus. What many assumed would be temporary has become our new way of life. Health reporter Erin Allday talks about what we’ve learned and how that may apply to the six months ahead. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California Senator Scott Wiener has become the target of revolting online harassment and even death threats from followers of QAnon, the blatantly false delusion that says shadowy Democratic pedophiles are out to get President Trump. Wiener is setting the record straight. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As wildfires continue to endanger lives and foul air up and down the West Coast, the president pays a visit to the Sacramento area. Reporter Alexei Koseff recounts how Trump resisted Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call to confront the reality of climate change, even as Joe Biden signaled he may focus more on the issue and on the fires. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the last five years, at least 60 people, most of them people of color, have complained they were victims of excessive force by officers in Vallejo. And 19 people have been fatally shot in that city since 2010. Columnist Otis Taylor Jr., who has been investigating how Vallejo cops use force, talks about what he's found — and how it fits in with the broader Black Lives Matter movement. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coronavirus, heat waves, wildfire smoke and apocalyptic orange skies have hit the city — and it's Mary Ellen Carroll's job to respond. She's the director of the Department of Emergency Management, and she tells Heather Knight how residents can cope and what we should tell our kids about all the doom and gloom. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfcronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's causing our air to turn an apocalyptic orange? Is it safe to breathe? How long will this dystopian atmosphere stick around? Chronicle reporter Michael Cabanatuan has talked to scientists and is here to explain. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Latinos make up 16% of the population of Marin County, but 71% of coronavirus infections. Though it's more extreme in Marin than elsewhere, that disparity exists all over the Bay Area and beyond. Reporter Tatiana Sanchez explains how it traces to factors including the prominence of Latinos in front-line jobs and cramped living situations. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks just had a baby in late July and wanted to vote by proxy to avoid coronavirus risks. When the Assembly speaker said no, Wicks drove from Berkeley to Sacramento and cast crucial votes while carrying her daughter. She also got three of her own housing bills through the Legislature, and now they’re before Gov. Newsom. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the Total SF podcast, host Peter Hartlaub talks to Chris Colin, a Bernal Heights writer and parent who, on a whim, launched Six Feet of Separation, an online newspaper for the coronavirus era created entirely by kids. An endorsement by Dan Rather and some national coverage have inspired many more local kid-staffed publications. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chronicle reporters Matthias Gafni and Lizzie Johnson reconstruct the Hennessey lightning fire as it raced east from Napa County into Vacaville, burning homes, forcing people to flee for their lives, and stretching firefighters who didn’t have nearly enough resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Malia Cohen, sworn in this week as the city's newest police commissioner, discusses changes she'd like to see in the San Francisco Police Department and what comes next in the national protests over police brutality. | Get full Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gov. Gavin Newsom, like governors before him, wants to overhaul how water moves through the delta and supplies the rest of the state, proposing a 30-mile tunnel out of the Sacramento River. But as Kurtis Alexander reports in his Chronicle series "Delta on the Edge," local farmers, boaters, fishers and others are united in a fight against it, with signs saying, “No tunnel. Save our delta.” Also: Sutter Island resident Dan Whaley talks about why he opposes the project. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco's historic neighborhood is under a double attack — from the coronavirus pandemic's crippling of service industries and from racism about COVID-19. Writer Melissa Hung, who wrote about Chinatown for The Chronicle's Throughline, talks about its future and her own deep family ties there. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prison inmates can learn how to fight fires and thin forests at 43 fire camps around California. But once they're out, their criminal records prevent them from joining fire departments. Heather Knight talks to two formerly incarcerated people who believe this Catch-22 needs to change as climate change makes California's wildfires more fierce every year. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the Warriors Off Court podcast, Chronicle columnist Otis Taylor Jr. joins Connor Letourneau to talk about the decision by NBA players to sit out playoff games in protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake. For the players, it's a nearly unprecedented use of their collective power. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the CDC tightened its guidance this week on who should get tested for the coronavirus, Bay Area health experts were shocked. We need more testing, they said, not less. Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a deal with a company to increase and speed up testing. Reporters Catherine Ho and Alexei Koseff have details. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's All Political host Joe Garofoli joins Heather Knight to talk about the GOP's strategy at the Republican National Convention: Scare the base with a bleak picture of America, and win President Trump a few voters of color. Plus: What happened to Kimberly Guilfoyle? | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chronicle photographer Carlos Gonzalez reports from the Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve near Guerneville, where CalFire was able to save heritage trees threatened by the Walbridge Fire, including the landmark Colonel Armstrong Redwood. Gonzalez describes a terrifying moment when some other trees fell, which he calls "unlike anything I've ever seen or experienced before." | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the remote communities of the Santa Cruz Mountains, distance learning during the coronavirus pandemic was already hard enough. Now students and teachers are evacuated, fleeing from the CZU Lightning Complex fires, and some have lost their homes. | Wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kids’ worlds have shrunk dramatically because of coronavirus. They can’t go to school, play sports or see their friends. Reporter Annie Vainshtein talks about how that’s affecting children now, and how it may shape them in the future. | Unlimited Chronicle coverage: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wildfires are filling the Bay Area with smoke and ash amid the coronavirus pandemic. Health reporter Erin Allday digs into whether the poor air quality could worsen COVID-19 or its spread, and how it complicates our use of masks. | Unlimited Chronicle coverage: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristin Urquiza of San Francisco lost her father to the coronavirus in June. Her speech at the Democratic National Convention blaming the president for her dad's death went viral. "His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump," she said. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mallory Moench reports from Scotts Valley, where the incident command center for the CZU Complex fires is located. She says local volunteer firefighters say they've had no help from CalFire, and no sleep since Tuesday night. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jill Tucker runs down the latest on the three huge fire groups burning in the Bay Area and surrounding regions: The CZU, LNU and SCU complex fires. Four residents have been killed in the LNU Complex. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dustin Gardiner reports from the edges of the Walbridge Fire in Sonoma County, one of the fastest-burning blazes overnight. CalFire, occupied with other fires, hadn't directed many resources to the area, but that changed Thursday. Gardiner talked to a local resident who had evacuated after clearing brush around his house all day and didn't know the fate of his home. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the end of a long day, Matthias Gafni is able to report back to evacuated residents of Solar Hills Drive who'd asked him to check on their homes: The fire came right up to the houses, but they're still standing. He also sees wildlife starting to return and neighbors putting out water and "Vacaville Strong" signs. Elsewhere in the region, though, fires are out of control. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reporting from hard-hit English Hills Road, Matthias Gafni describes Vacaville on Thursday afternoon as people return to the area, sort through their damaged homes and, in some cases, breathe a sigh of relief that they were spared. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chronicle reporter Matthias Gafni interviews Jimmy Santos, a Vacaville homeowner he'd met Wednesday night as Santos and his wife waited for word about whether their “dream house” — bought only two months ago — would be saved by firefighters. It was. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Wilson, executive director of a homeless shelter in the Tenderloin, talks about the grueling nature of the job for those who do nonprofit work during the coronavirus crisis. Requests for mental health leaves are on the rise. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The wildfires burning through California are raising difficult new questions: How to evacuate while social distancing? Is the state prepared to fight the blazes? How bad is the air quality throughout the region? What about wineries and their workers? Chronicle reporters Joaquin Palomino, Trisha Thadani, Aidin Vaziri and Esther Mobley break it all down. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthias Gafni reports from the scene in Vacaville, where flames swallowed dozens of homes early Wednesday. A fast-moving fire raced into the town from the northwest, prompting frantic evacuations and rescues. Gafni speaks from a parking lot, where families are waiting in their cars to find out if their homes have been destroyed. | Full wildfires coverage: sfchronicle.com/wildfires Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prices have dropped 20% in some neighborhoods and are expected to keep falling in the coronavirus crisis. Landlords are begging tenants to stay, offering reductions, weeks of free rent and even gift cards worth thousands of dollars. Reporter J.K. Dineen talks about whether the perks are working and what the market change means for the city long term. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amid a historic heat wave, millions could lose power in the first rolling blackouts since the electrical crisis two decades ago. Reporter J.D. Morris talks about how California got here, who's to blame and what you can do to help and stay safe. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

School is starting remotely in the Bay Area, and as working parents try to juggle jobs and distance learning, data and real-life stories show mothers are bearing the brunt of the extra work. Reporter Mallory Moench talks about the major reduction of women in the workforce as moms are finding something has to give. | Coronavirus coverage: sfchronicle.com/coronavirus | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If the City Council has its way, cops will no longer make traffic stops or respond to mental health crises. Different city workers will take on those jobs, leaving police to investigate violent crime. Reporter Ryan Kost wrote about Berkeley’s initiative in The Throughline. He discusses how policing across America might change as a result of Black Lives Matter protests. | Unlimited Chronicle access: sfchronicle.com/pod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices