Santa Cruz Island

A preliminary report released Thursday on the Conception diving boat fire confirmed that all six crewmembers were asleep when flames started to engulf the vessel in the early morning hours off the Southern California coast, leaving 34 people dead.

The search for the final victim of a boat fire off the Southern California coast has been suspended until early next week because of gusty winds and rough seas.

The crew of a scuba diving boat that sank off the coast of Southern California made several attempts to rescue the 34 people who were trapped below decks by fire, but intense flames drove them back and all perished, federal authorities said Thursday.

A former employee of the New England Patriots was among the nearly three dozen people killed in a boat fire off the coast of southern California early Monday morning. Marybeth Guiney, 51, of Santa Monica, was on the commercial scuba boat that erupted in flames off the coast near Santa Cruz Island on Labor Day, according to the Torrance Daily Breeze.

Thirty four people are presumed dead in the California dive boat fire and the search has been suspended. Santa Barbara County Bill Brown said Tuesday that the bodies of 20 victims have been recovered and divers have seen between and four and six others in the sunken wreckage, which must be stabilized. Brown says the recovered remains include 11 females...

A middle-of-the-night fire swept a boat carrying recreational scuba divers anchored near an island off the Southern California coast early Monday, leaving at least 25 dead and nine others missing. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr Matthew Kroll said Monday night that 25 people had died. Five of six crew members on the Conception escaped by jumping into an inflatable boat they...

A living member of species of tortoise not seen in more than 110 years and feared to be extinct has been found in a remote part of the Galapagos island of Fernandina. An adult female Chelonoidis phantasticus, also known as the Fernandina Giant Tortoise, was spotted Sunday by a joint expedition of the Galapagos National Park and the U.S.-based Galapagos...

Two bald eagle chicks have hatched in a nest high in a tree in California’s Channel Islands National Park.