Rakuten International, a subsidiary of the Japanese tech giant that locals may know as the Golden State Warriors' jersey sponsor, announced Monday that the company is moving from its old offices at 160 Spear St. to a larger space around the corner at 300 Mission St . is moving .

The company is currently moving into the building's 29,000-square-foot 18th floor and views the new deal as a renewed “commitment to the city,” Rakuten said.

Previously, Rakuten's approximately 160 employees in San Francisco were divided into two separate floors on Spear Street, which the company had occupied since 2015. This rental agreement has now expired.

“Our previous location's 24,000 square feet was spread over two floors with outdated floor plans that were increasingly impediment to effective collaboration,” Rakuten International CEO Amit Patel said in a statement.

The 18th floor on Mission Street, meanwhile, will feature more amenities, conference rooms and collaboration spaces for Rakuten employees, Patel added. According to the listing, the 24-story building was built in 1968 and renovated in 1995 and 2007. Other tenants include Instacart, Equinox, Mendocino Farms and Autodesk.

Workplace review company Glassdoor leased four floors at 300 Mission in 2019 as part of its headquarters move from Mill Valley to San Francisco. But after the pandemic scuppered plans to move hundreds of employees into the building, the company subsequently offered two floors for sublease – which generally offers prospective tenants more favorable and/or flexible terms.

The Japanese company's U.S. headquarters is in nearby San Mateo, 800 Concar Dr., and Rakuten employs more than 550 people in the Bay Area. Rakuten International spokesman Shawn Roberts confirmed that employees must come to the offices at least three days a week.

About half of the company's nationwide workforce is based in offices, Roberts said.

Rakuten's business centers on its e-commerce website, sometimes referred to as the “Amazon of Japan,” which was launched in 1997. The success of this platform has since spawned a financial services division and even a mobile services network that launched in 2020.

Real estate brokerage firm JLL represented Rakuten in its latest sublease at 300 Mission.

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GRIZZLY FLATS, El Dorado County — Joseph Lopez soaked the yard surrounding his home with sprinklers for three days before the flames arrived. But like nearly everything else in this small mountain town, only smoldering ashes remained after the Caldor Fire swept through.

Lopez was one of the few residents who managed to return to Grizzly Flats on Wednesday, albeit briefly due to road closures, to see the carnage left behind. He said it appeared as if a “hurricane fire” had ripped through.

“My house is just dust, only thing left is my chimney,” the 48-year-old contractor said as he stood with neighbors near a roadblock 10 miles west of town. “It was so hot that nothing would stop it. My whole block is gone, every house.”

Winds died down momentarily Wednesday, allowing firefighters to take the offensive in their battle to corral the explosive Caldor Fire. But from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening, the fire more than doubled in size from 30,000 acres to about 63,000 acres and it remained out of control with no containment.

The blaze exhibited “unprecedented fire behavior” due to extremely dry fuels and winds that rapidly changed directions. It reached within a couple of hundred yards from Highway 50 near the 7,000-person community of Pollock Pines.

The blaze started on Saturday around 7 p.m. 4 miles south of Grizzly Flats and 2 miles east of Omo Ranch. More than 5,000 residents were evacuated from El Dorado towns in the fire’s path, and some parts of Amador County fell under an evacuation warning on the fire’s southern edge.

The Caldor is among several large fires burning across Northern California, reflecting what has become a new era of wildfire behavior and pushing resources to the brink, state officials said.

An estimated 10,000 people were under evacuation orders across the state, with 10,000 firefighters on the lines, Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The challenge for California, a state already seeing the impact of climate change, is significant, he said, and with record drought and dry conditions it’s a “very, very dangerous and severe situation.”

“Fires move faster, are more complex and more dangerous than anything we’ve seen in the past,” he said. “The human impact of these fires is significant.”

The charred writings from Grizzly Flats Community Church, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Grizzly Flats, Calif. The area was destroyed in the Caldor Fire.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

As the Caldor Fire pushed across the mountains, the small community of Grizzly Flats — with a population of about 1,000 — was nearly leveled, with the school and post office gone and only a handful of homes left standing. The main road was dotted with fallen power lines and charred tree trunks. Columns of stone chimneys and twisted metal hunks of washing machines and propane tanks were all that was left to identify where homes had stood days before.

Over three days and nights, Carol Hill had spent most of her time in the parking lot of an evacuation shelter, trying to sleep in the cab of her family’s truck with her husband and two dogs, not knowing whether her Grizzly Flats home had survived.

On Wednesday, she learned it had not. All that was left was rubble and a decorative rock with “Welcome” etched on it and two cuddling turtles on top.

“We kind of figured it,” she said by phone after learning of the loss. “It’s just everything is in flames.”

Liquified aluminum rims from vehicles outside 5140 Evergreen Drive, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Grizzly Flats, Calif. The area was destroyed in the Caldor Fire.

Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

She hadn’t packed clothes and doesn’t know where they will go next. Her first step in what will be a very long process, she said, is to call her insurance company.

“I didn’t think this was going to happen,” she said.

She also mourned the big trees and historic feel of the small town, including the pioneer cemetery, where headstones dating back to the mid-1800s were charred black from the blaze.

In the center of town, where the Grizzly Flats Community Church had stood, nothing remained of its steeple, cross or arched glass windows — only rows of metal chair frames settled in ash remained.

Dale Alexander, 59, who used to snow-plow the church’s parking lot in winter, drove by Wednesday afternoon to check on the building for its pastor.

“This was a nice church,” he said, absorbing the extent of the damage.

Alexander, who works at Leoni Meadows Camp, a Christian camp about 7 miles south of Grizzly Flats, said he evacuated around 1 a.m. Sunday, as a wall of flames approached. He returned later Wednesday and found his cabin had been destroyed, but much of the camp was still standing.

“I was surprised anything was left,” Alexander said as he raised his hands, caked black in ash. “It’s just a miracle. I’ll rebuild (my cabin) and go back to work.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Tuesday for El Dorado County, one of 11 counties under the status, to assist in pushing resources to the firefighting effort.

This year is already worse than last year’s incredibly difficult and destructive fire season, said Cal Fire Chief Thom Porter.

“We’re ahead of acres burned at this point,” he said. “We’re seeing generational destruction of forests.”

While the Dixie Fire, the second largest in state history, continued to burn in Butte, Tehama, Plumas and Lassen counties, officials said they pulled resources off that fire to bolster efforts on the Caldor Fire on Wednesday.

Porter said fire prevention efforts in recent years have been focused in the area of the Caldor Fire, a high-risk zone, with fuel reduction and breaks carried out, but all that “was being tested as we speak.”

“That work is going to make a difference,” he said, but added that they need to do more of it in the future.

The area is dotted with cabins, which serve as permanent and vacation homes, some rebuilt after the King Fire destroyed 97,000 acres in 2014, torching nearly 100 residences and injuring 12.

The fire suppression efforts since 2014 couldn’t save Trisha Cumbra’s family cabin in Grizzly Flats.

“It was my parents’ dream, they worked so hard to get it,” said the health care worker, who lives in Sacramento, in a phone interview. She described how her parents bought the small A-frame when she was a teenager and spent the next two decades remodeling and expanding it to host their entire family for the holidays.

“They finally got it exactly how they wanted it and it burned down,” she said. “It’s hard not to just sit in despair and think about all the memories.”

Cumbra said she was trying to ease her mind Wednesday by delivering supplies — sleeping bags, face masks, bottled water and pet food — to evacuees who don’t have a second home.

“In this time, love has just got to win,” she said.

#Apocalypse Skies South Lake Tahoe Caldor Fire Smoke. #ClimateCrisis pic.twitter.com/sFqDZpKlI3

— Peter J (@busa_pilot) August 18, 2021

This year’s fire season has been complicated not only by drought, but also by limited resources, with typical support from other states or countries hindered by fires elsewhere or by pandemic protocols, Porter said.

The Caldor Fire prompted mandatory evacuations in much of El Dorado County, including the area northeast of Highway 88 to Loon Lake above South Lake Tahoe, including the towns of Pollock Pines and Kyburz. Nearly 6,000 structures were threatened, officials said.

Thick, black smoke from the blaze was pushed northeast, nearly covering the sun in South Lake Tahoe and east into Nevada, where daytime looked like a deep red twilight late Tuesday. By Wednesday, some smoke had cleared, but air quality remained poor.

Looking like #Mars, this is the view near Minden, NV as smoke from the #CaldorFire, just south of #LakeTahoe, spreads eastward. @KNX1070 pic.twitter.com/praO173qhx

— Brian Douglas (@BrianDouglasKNX) August 18, 2021

Efforts to attack the blaze soon after it started were complicated by tough terrain and too much smoke to launch an air attack, officials said.

Given severe and unpredictable fire behavior, officials said the current focus was on evacuation efforts.

Two people were injured in the Grizzly Flats area Tuesday and airlifted to local hospitals.

Jill Tucker and Dustin Gardiner are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com, Dustin.Gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker, @dustingardiner

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A prominent San Francisco LGBTQ+ rights activist is being uprooted from his home in the Castro neighborhood after the new owner of the property nearly doubled his rent to $5,200.

Cleve Jones, 67, who moved to San Francisco in 1973 and first conceived of the Aids Memorial Quit, is reportedly moving out of his rent-controlled, one-bedroom apartment this week. The move comes after he was notified of a significant price increase from the property’s new owner, who claims that the apartment is not Jones’ primary residence.

The situation has been described as “heartbreaking” by a local supervisor and is seen by many as emblematic of the increasing unaffordability of a city that was once a haven for bohemians and social activists. The median house price in the Castro, the historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood that helped birth the modern gay rights movement, now stands at over $1.5m, according to Redfin.

The new owner, Lily Pao Kue, is a 30-year-old self-described stock market investor who, according to Zillow records reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, purchased the property in February for $1,585,000.

According to the Chronicle, Kue has installed security cameras around the property, begun construction work in the building and had a car that belonged to Jones’ friend and roommate removed from the property.

In a letter Kue sent to Jones on 18 March, she stated that she assessed he had vacated the property and she would be increasing the current rent – ​​$2,393 – to $5,200 as of 1 July, invoking a Costa-Hawkins petition.

Costa-Hawkins is a state law that sets certain requirements for cities with rent control. Under the law, landlords are allowed to raise rent to market rate once a tenant moves out.

Jones in 2017. He said he had not moved out of his home but was spending more time outside the city during the pandemic. Photographer: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images

Jones told the Chronicle he had not moved out but had been spending more time out of the city during the pandemic because he is immunocompromised. Instead of dealing with a court battle, however, Jones said he and his roommate would move out of the property this weekend and search for a new place to live.

“If I were a younger man, I would fill the sandbags and I’d batten down the hatches and would drag this out for as long as possible,” Jones told the Chronicle.

“Part of me feels quite guilty that I don’t have it in me to do it. I am not in good health, I’m HIV-positive and one of the longest-living HIV survivors … And I’m old,” he added.

Kue has said that she is seeking a hearing regarding her petition from the San Francisco rent board.

“I want Cleve to continue the tenancy and let the judge determine the petition,” Kue said in an email to the Chronicle. “I will be gracious and accepting of law.”

Since the property dispute became public, Kue said that she had seen online harassment from Jones’ social media followers and had filed a police report.

In a statement to the Chronicle, the district supervisor, Rafael Mandelman, said: “Cleve recognizes that this is happening and has happened to so many other folks … But he is such an iconic figure and so associated with that neighborhood. It’s heartbreaking.”

On Sunday, Jones’ supporters will rally at Harvey Milk Plaza in the morning to shed light on his situation and those of others who have faced similar issues in the neighborhood.

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Cleve Jones has called the Castro neighborhood his home for five decades. The gay activist first moved to the city in 1973 from Arizona as a 19-year-old and was quickly swept up in the burgeoning LGBTQ political movement of the era, becoming a protege of pioneering gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and a community organizer in his own right.

In 1987, the neighborhood was also where Jones founded the Names Project, the organization behind the AIDS Memorial Quilt. When Jones published “When We Rise: My Life in the Movement” in 2016, the book chronicled the evolution of the Castro as an LGBTQ neighborhood as much as it told his own story.

“Even during those times when I was away from the city, I was never really away,” Jones, 67, said recently. “I was always coming back. That’s my hood.”

But this week, Jones is moving out of the rent-controlled, one-bedroom flat in an 18th Street duplex he’s lived in since 2010. The move comes after he received notice of a significant rent increase from the building’s new owner, who argues that the unit is not his primary residence. Jones denies that is the case, but has decided he does not have the stamina to fight what would likely be a protracted legal battle to remain there.

For those familiar with San Francisco’s often volatile real estate and rental issues, the dispute between Jones and his new landlord is probably not surprising. What is unusual in this case is the high profile of the tenant in question.

The new owner of the duplex is San Francisco resident Lily Pao Kue, 30. Zillow shows that she purchased the property on Feb. 18 for $1,585,000. Since making the purchase, Kue has initiated some construction work on the building, installed new security cameras, had a car belonging to Jones’ friend and roommate towed from in front of the property, and notified Jones that she planned to more than double the rent .

Jones showed The Chronicle a letter he received from Kue on March 18 informing him that she had determined he had vacated the unit and was invoking a Costa-Hawkins petition, which would allow her to raise the rent from $2,393 to $5,200 as of July 1. Costa-Hawkins is a state law that sets some requirements for cities with rent control, including allowing a landlord to raise rent to market rate once a tenant moves out.

Kue says that she is seeking a hearing on her petition with the San Francisco Rent Board, but is waiting for a staff member to be assigned to the case.

“I want Cleve to continue the tenancy and let the judge determine the petition,” Kue said in an email. “I will be gracious and accepting of law.”

The San Francisco Rent Board did not immediately respond to questions about the case.

Experts say there are a few ways to prove residency in a property. According to Janan New, the executive director of the San Francisco Apartment Association, a driver’s license address and utility bills are among the documents that can be used as proof. The San Francisco Tenants Union also lists numerous factors, including the presence of personal possessions and that the tenant resides there except for “reasonable temporary periods of absence.” Jones said he believes he meets these requirements.

Jones said he feels that he and his roommate, Brenden Chadwick, have been harassed by Kue, citing her towing away Chadwick’s car without notice and installing the security cameras that allow her to monitor their comings and goings. He also is concerned that the construction work on the property could endanger archival materials from the LGBTQ movement he has kept there. She denies that she has harassed Jones and Chadwick.

Kue, who described herself as a stock market investor who previously worked as a janitor and as a farm laborer after immigrating to the United States from Thailand, calls the duplex her “dream home.” She said that since the dispute over the duplex became public, she is worried about harassment from Jones’ social media followers. She said she has filed a police report after comments she’s seen in response to Jones’ post about the situation on Facebook.

Rather than further contest Kue’s plans, though, Jones and Chadwick plan to move out this weekend and look for a new home in the Castro, which means they would lose any potential relocation payments if Kue were to lose her Costa-Hawkins petition and choose to pursue eviction.

“If I were a younger man, I would fill the sandbags and I’d batten down the hatches and would drag this out for as long as possible,” Jones said. “Part of me feels quite guilty that I don’t have it in me to do it. I am not in good health, I’m HIV-positive and one of the longest-living HIV survivors. … and I’m old.”

Still, Jones is not going quietly. On Sunday, supporters of Jones plan to take part in a rally at 11 am at Harvey Milk Plaza focusing on his situation and similar issues facing other renters in the neighborhood. A 2021 story in The Chronicle reported that since 2009, there have been 614 no-fault evictions in District Eight, where the Castro is located, and that most are either because of owner move-ins or Ellis Act evictions, where the owner decides to stop renting altogether.

While Jones said he expects to survive financially, “It is very clear how an event like this could be truly catastrophic for so many others.”

“Cleve recognizes that this is happening and has happened to so many other folks,” said District Eight Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who will be at the rally. “But he is such an iconic figure and so associated with that neighborhood. It’s heartbreaking.”

Tina Aguirre, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District manager, told The Chronicle that housing security in the neighborhood is especially important for older residents and people living with HIV, and that the district is “saddened” by what Jones is experiencing.

“The fact that he is a community icon, organizer, and AIDS activist underscores that this can happen to any of us,” Aguirre said.

Kue said that she installed security cameras on the property to monitor construction workers. But in checking the comings and goings from the building, and seeing that many of Jones’ posts on Facebook indicated that he had been staying in Guerneville, she said she determined that the unit on 18th Street was not his primary address, and that there was “overwhelming proof” that Chadwick was living there alone.

Jones said he was told by Kue that she planned to move into the vacant unit above his after construction on the property was completed, and that she planned to move her mother and grandmother into the unit he and Chadwick occupied.

Jones said Kue began discussing buyout options with him, but said she did not want to involve attorneys. Kue said she still does not have an attorney representing her. Jones, though, hired Dave Crow of the tenants rights firm Crow & Rose.

Crow said he believes the rent increase notice was not legal because Jones had not moved out of the property.

Jones denies that he ever vacated his unit, but says that, for his health, he has spent time during the two years of the pandemic at a “fairly primitive” cabin he owns in Guerneville.

“When COVID happened, of course, that became my refuge,” Jones said of the cabin. “I’m 67, I’m immunocompromised. So I’m guessing that that’s her reference to me vacating the unit. But of course it’s a lie. I never vacated. I never moved my stuff out and continued to spend time there.”

Among that “stuff,” Jones said, are materials from the LGBTQ movement going back to the 1970s, including Milk’s famous bullhorn, the quilt his great-grandmother made that inspired the creation of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, and items connected to the filming of the 2008 biopic “Milk,” in which Jones was a central character.

To protect them from possible damage, Jones has given the National AIDS Memorial some of the materials related to the Names Project while the GLBT Historical Society Museum now has Milk’s bullhorn.

“My office is right there on Castro Street, my doctor is right there on Castro Street. The hospital is right down the street. … Guerneville is lovely, but it doesn’t have the kind of specialized health care that’s necessary for people in my circumstance.”

Jones said he needs to remain in the city for his work as a community and political coordinator at Unite Here, the North American Hospitality Workers Union.

Jones said he, like many longtime survivors of HIV, cannot afford to retire because many of his potential earning years were spent battling serious health complications from the virus instead of working.

Still, Jones said he’s turned down requests to create crowdfunding campaigns to assist him. He said he’s also received offers of legal help and housing, but has not felt at risk enough to accept help that others in the community likely need more.

“I’m going to be just fine, but she’s going to do this to someone else,” Jones said. “This old gay guy is being forced out of his home, but the real issue is one more gay elder has been lost and one more rental unit has been lost.”

Tony Bravo is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tbravo@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TonyBravoSF

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QUINCY, Plumas County (CBS SF) – Blown fuses on a Pacific gas and power line are being investigated for a possible cause of the Dixie Fire in Butte and Plumas counties, which quickly grew to more than 30,000 acres overnight Combination of “fuel, topography and weather”.

Meanwhile, new evacuations were underway in several rural communities as the fire progressed in the rugged terrain near the Bucks Lake Wilderness Area.

During the Cal Fire’s Sunday night briefing, the fire spanned 18,702 acres. By Monday morning, the fire zone had grown to 30,074 acres.

Dixie fire: Cal Fire Incident Report, evacuation information, road closures

PG&E said a utility repairman discovered fuse damage on a power line on July 13 after the company’s outage system indicated that the Cresta Dam on Highway 70 in Feather River Canyon was losing power.

“The responding PG&E troublemaker was remotely observing what he thought was a blown fuse on the PG&E Bucks Creek 1101 12kV Overhead Distribution Circuit uphill from his location,” the utility said in a report of an electrical incident at California Public Utilities Commission.

Dixie fire: PG&E Dixie Fire Incident Report

“Due to the demanding terrain and the road works that led to the bridge being closed, he was only able to reach the mast with the safety device around 1640 o’clock. There he saw two out of three fuses blown and a healthy green tree leaning into the Bucks Creek 1101 12 kV conductor that was still intact and hanging on the mast. “

“He also observed a fire on the ground near the tree trunk. The interferer manually removed the third fuse and reported the fire. His supervisor called 9-1-1 and the 9-1-1 operator replied that they know the fire and are responding. Air support from Cal Fire arrived on site around 5:30 pm and began to drop fire retardants and water. “

In a statement on KPIX 5, PG&E said it had filed a report with state regulators about the incident.

“Yesterday, PG&E filed an Electric Incident Report (EIR) with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regarding the Dixie Fire in Butte and Plumas Counties. The information provided by PG&E is preliminary and the Company has presented this report with great caution in light of the collection of PG&E facilities from CAL FIRE in connection with its investigation. PG&E is cooperating with the CAL FIRE investigation. “

PG&E equipment has been blamed for a number of major forest fires in the state over the years, and it wasn’t the first time the utility has been investigated as a source of a forest fire in the area. Cal Fire found that the 2018 campfire that killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise was caused by PG&E electrical transmission lines in the Pulga area.

Firefighters use the Union Pacific Fire Train to protect the railroad tracks and prevent the Dixie Fire from spreading in the Plumas National Forest. California Fire says about 14% of the area is contained, but access is limited as it burns in a remote area. pic.twitter.com/ZGydRdBtW6

– CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) July 19, 2021

Speaking at the briefing, Tony Brownell, the commander of the Cal Fire incident, said the firefighters faced a major challenge in fighting the northeastern area of ​​the massive fire.

“Today was a very active day by the fire,” he said. “There are three things that really affect a fire: fuel, topography, and weather. All three came into effect today when the fire became very active on two different sides of the fire. “

Brownell said the crews were trying to create a “catcher’s glove” out of lines of fire to keep the fire from moving north. Cal Fire also focused on not letting the fire advance towards Concow and Magalia, two towns in Butte County that were hit by the deadly 2018 bonfire.

The fire was fueled by winds and embers that were kicked up in a massive pyrocumulus cloud that rose thousands of feet above the fire.

“It got very active here, this is where you saw the column of smoke from the valley,” Brownell said, pointing to the eastern part of the fire on the map. “All the overheated air rises in the atmosphere … So it got over the Feather River down to (over) Tobin.”

The embers lit point fires in the dry scrub and in the trees, which accelerated the spread of the fire. The advancing fire forced officers to close Highway 70.

“It (big column of embers) is very common, especially in recent years, because our fuels are so dry from the drought, they kill insects, everything is absorbent. So if a spark falls into the unburned brush, it will most likely start a fire, ”Brownell said.

#DixieFire Update 7:00 p.m. 07/18/2021 Video https://t.co/MiYcqE3id9

– Vanessa Wilson (@NessaBurdette) July 19, 2021

The fire was contained to 15 percent on Sunday night, 1,918 firefighters fought the fire that threatened 810 buildings.

New evacuation orders were issued on Sunday evening for the Jonesville and Philbrook areas of Butte County and High Lakes, and for homes on the Butte / Plumas County line east of Twain, Meadow Valley and Bucks Lake.

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