Here’s an up-to-date list of all NFL Players from Monterey High School in Monterey, California.

The list includes only those players who have played in an NFL game.

See where it ranks among other schools in the state here.

NFL Players from Monterey HS

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com

A fire at a battery storage facility continued smoking Saturday in Moss Landing but officials said air quality sensors found no risk to residents.

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- A fire at one of the world's largest battery storage facilities continued smoking Saturday in Moss Landing but Monterey County officials said air quality sensors found no risk to residents.

Lithium-ion batteries at the Vistra Energy facility that caught fire Thursday continued to burn out but could still reignite, officials said. There was no estimate on how long the fire would last, and the cause was still unknown.

North County Fire Protection District Chief Joel Mendoza said about 80% of the structure and its batteries were destroyed in the fire.

A representative for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said nine air quality sensors had been set up both within the perimeter of the facility and in the surrounding community. The Monterey Bay Air Resources District said there was no concentration above normal air quality conditions.

MORE: Spike in lithium-ion battery fires in San Francisco in recent years: Here's what to know

The EPA representative, Olivia Trombadore, said instruments hadn't detected hydrocarbon fluoride gas, which is a primary concern when lithium-ion batteries catch fire.

The cause was still unknown on Saturday afternoon, including why the plant's internal fire suppression system failed.

It was unclear whether a phenomenon known as "thermal runaway" may have been involved, as can happen when lithium-ion batteries overheat.

According to the peer reviewed journal Scientific Reports, "an irreversible thermal event in a lithium-ion battery can be initiated in several ways, by spontaneous internal or external short-circuit, overcharging, external heating or fire, mechanical abuse etc."

The Moss Landing plant is operated by Texas-based Vistra Corp., which has seen its stock price soar in the last year from about $39 to about $171 at the close of trading on Friday.

While evacuation orders were lifted, state Highway 1 remained closed in both directions at the plant, housed in a former PG&E power plant in an ecologically sensitive area known as Elkhorn Slough. Several other surrounding roads remain closed, including Dolan, Elkhorn and Hidden Valley roads.

The Monterey County Sheriff's Office said in a Facebook post at about 3 p.m. that residents would be allowed to access the road closures operated by the county.

PG&E also has its own battery storage facility at the site that is still online. Local elected officials including county Supervisor Glenn Church said he was urging Vistra to keep its facility offline until the cause of the fire is known and more prevention is put in place.

Evacuations were lifted on Friday evening after about 1,200 people were told to leave the area because of concerns about air quality.

A company official, Brad Watson, reiterated the company's apology to the community and said the company was trying to determine what caused the failure. He was noncommittal on ongoing operations, responding to a reporter's question about remaining offline by saying that the company was focused on the present situation.

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While firefighters are still fighting to contain the Palisades and Eaton Fires in Los Angeles, a significant fire erupted at the largest lithium battery plant in the world, the Moss Landing Power Plant near Monterey, on Thursday. The fire was still burning as of Friday afternoon.

Between the intensity of the fire and the fumes, 1,500 residents from Moss Landing and the surrounding Elkhorn Slough areas were evacuated and a section of Highway 1 was closed.

The plant housed tens of thousands of lithium-ion batteries used for storing energy for the state’s highly sensitive electrical grid.

It is unclear what had started the fire, which began around 3 p.m. on Thursday and sent up clouds of black smoke. By 10 a.m. on Friday, the fire was down to less than 5 percent of its original size, said Fire Chief Joel Mendoza of the North County Fire Protection District.

The blaze was unrelated to the wildfires that have broken out around Los Angeles, which is hundreds of miles to the south.

On Thursday evening, the sheriff’s office in Monterey County issued evacuation orders for a roughly eight-square-mile area around the plant. Residents elsewhere in the region were urged to close their windows and doors, turn off ventilation systems and avoid outdoor exposure until further notice while officials monitored air quality.

As of Friday morning, the evacuation order had not been lifted. Chief Mendoza said preliminary results suggested that the fire had not released certain hazardous gases known to be a danger to the public, but the authorities needed to conduct further tests and wanted to err on the side of caution before letting people return home.

???? ???? ???? BIG NEWS: Massive fire at the world’s largest lithium battery storage facility in the WORLD, of course in @GavinNewsom run California!

In addition to making it impossible to use solar power during evening periods, it’s releasing VERY toxic heavy metal smoke.

UGH! https://t.co/RONkpVEXTj

— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) January 17, 2025

Legal Insurrection readers should be well aware of all the challenges associated with these fires, as we have covered this topic on numerous occasions: In ships, those used in electric bikes, and water-drenched battery fires that occur after hurricanes and floods.

There are many challenges associated with fighting lithium/lithium-ion battery fires. Lithium is water reactive, yet water is often the only fire-fighting option in large enough quantities to fight the blaze. The materials burn at very high temperatures and is prone to re-ignition, which is why it once took the firefighters in Texas 30,000 gallons of water and four hours to extinguish a similar blaze.

We recently covered the saga of a San Diego warehouse where lithium batteries were stored. The building smoldered for weeks, making nearby residents nervous.

Returning to the incident in Monterey, the fire flared up again (as it did in the San Diego case), after initial firefighting efforts looked successful.

Monterey County officials held a second press conference Friday afternoon after the latest flare-up at around 1:45 p.m. produced another round of flames and black smoke shooting into the sky.

Assemblymember Dawn Addis and Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church, who spoke at the earlier press conference, addressed the media after the flare-up and voicing safety concerns for their constituents.

“There’s been three incidents here. There’s been the PG&E incident. It’s really time to put a stop to it and take a breath and make sure that we can assure the public they’re safe,” said Addis. “This incident does look and feel very different. It’s a different configuration, the fire is different.”

The large plant, which stores 750 megawatts of energy, is part of California’s ongoing efforts to go green and supply electricity from renewable sources.

Vistra sells the electricity stored there to the Pacific Gas and Electric utility company. PG&E also operates a separate 182-megawatt battery storage plant on site that has 256 Tesla “Megapack” battery packs — but that did not appear to be impacted by the fire.

A megawatt is enough electricity to run 750 homes, according to the Mercury News.

A Vistra spokesperson said all its personnel were evacuated safely.

“The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fire is extinguished,” the company told KSBW-TV.

In her analysis of the impacts of this fire, Hot Air’s Beege Welborn notes that this plant was an important part of maintaining the state’s sensitive electrical grid. Before this disaster, plans were underway to significantly expand its storage capacity.

The plant had been approved for another expansion to 1.5GW, so basically, a doubling of where it burns…oh. Sorry. Stands size-wise right now.

Wonder if the neighbors are rethinking voting for their local commissioners about any of this?

I think those plans have gone up in smoke.

I don’t think the destructive potential of lithium battery fires was mentioned by green energy enthusiasts when California’s senseless “Net Zero” plans were put in place.

Subsequently, this emergency has become another painful lesson of what can happen when debate involving important issues related to science and technology is stifled and suppressed.

Developments like this may also explain why California has scrapped its EV mandate for trucks.

NEW: California is withdrawing a request for the Biden admin to approve its EV truck mandate. Under the rules, a large share of truck sales in CA and other states would have been forced to be electric by 2035. Less than 1% of truck sales are EVs.

A major setback for activists. pic.twitter.com/UyEe4SY2gb

— Thomas Catenacci (@ThomasCatenacci) January 15, 2025

It looks like a couple of more coins are going in this jar today:

pic.twitter.com/Jgcs6V7vfe

— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) January 18, 2025

Ladies and Gentlemen: I give you Net Zero Utopia:

DONATE

Donations tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.)

(TNS)

Jan. 17—As a fire erupted at the Moss Landing battery plant Thursday night, forcing evacuations and sending a pillar of smoke over Monterey County, Morro Bay residents watched the news and worried what a similar incident could mean for their town if a battery plant were built here.

A 750-megawatt battery energy storage facility at Moss Landing caught fire on Thursday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of of more than 1,000 residents due to air quality concerns, Monterey County spokesperson Nick Pasculli said.

No one was injured in the blaze, he said.

Texas-based energy company Vistra Corp. runs the facility, and it wants to build a similar battery plant in Morro Bay.

Those plans were met with new community outcry in Morro Bay on Friday.

The grassroots organization Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation placed a measure on the 2024 Morro Bay ballot designed to block the battery plant — which passed with almost 60% of the vote.

The group said that battery storage facilities are prone to catching fire and dangerous to locate in highly populated areas like Morro Bay.

The Moss Landing Fire is everything Morro Bay residents feared — and everything they'd like to prevent, group co-founder Barry Branin told The Tribune.

"They're all shocked and alarmed," Branin said on behalf of Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation. "These batteries need to be located somewhere else — away from the ocean and away from people."

Vistra did not respond to The Tribune's requests for comment, but a company spokesperson addressed the fire at a press conference in Monterey County on Friday.

"Safety is Vistra's top priority," company spokesperson Brad Watson said. "Our company takes very seriously what happened last night, and we are hurting today because we know primarily it's impacted and disrupted the people who live around our site, our neighbors, our friends and businesses, and for that we are sincerely sorry."

Moss Landing fire prompts evacuations

Vistra's facility caught fire at 3 p.m. on Thursday, prompting the evacuation of about 1,200 nearby residents from a 7,600-acre area due to air quality concerns, Monterey County spokesperson Nick Pasculli said at a press conference on Friday.

The fire was contained inside a concrete building that houses 300 megawatts of batteries.

Monterey's North County Fire Protection District Chief Joel Mendonza said the facility's fire suppression system failed during the fire, which allowed the blaze to spread inside of the building.

"No fire suppression activities are being taken, and the fire is being allowed to burn itself out," a news release from the City of Morro Bay said.

The fire was largest between 8 and 10 p.m., Mendoza said. By Friday morning, about 5% of the fire remained, he said.

"We have very little active flame. We have very little products of combustion being put out into the atmosphere," he said.

Preliminary air quality reports found that the blaze did not release a toxic chemical called hydrogen fluoride, Mendoza said, but the Fire Department did not share if other chemicals were released by the fire.

The California Highway Patrol posted six road closures around the facility, including closures on Highway 1, CHP spokesperson Nicholas King said.

The evacuation order was still in place during the press conference on Friday morning.

"This would best be described as a worst-case scenario," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said. "It's really a wake-up call for this industry, and if we're going to be moving ahead with sustainable energy, we need to have safe battery systems in place."

He called for an independent investigation into the cause of the fire, along with better safety protocols for battery storage facilities at local, state, federal and private levels.

"I myself, was personally assured — and I know with other county officials too — that this was not going to happen, there were safety protocols in place," Church said. "Well, obviously, that failed. I think that just shows the nature that nobody knows really what we're dealing with here in this technology."

This fire wasn't the first incident at the facility.

In 2021, batteries overheated at the battery plant. The incident did not cause a fire but prompted Vistra to temporarily close the facility.

There was also a fire in 2022 at Tesla's Elkhorn Energy Battery Storage Facility, also located at Moss Landing but not owned by Vistra. The North County Fire Protection District closed Highway 1 while firefighters fought the fire, the incident report said.

Assemblymember Dawn Addis and her staff are formulating a plan of action to address the incident, and she will do everything she can to prevent another battery fire from happening on the Central Coast, she told The Tribune on Friday.

"We need to know how this happened, why it happened, and who could have prevented this from happening and why they didn't," said Addis, whose district stretches from Santa Cruz to the SLO County and includes both Moss Landing and Morro Bay. "The community here needs to know that their needs are going to be met moving forward, particularly when it comes to safety."

"Battery energy storage systems exist because we need climate solutions, and those solutions cannot cause risk to human health," she added.

Morro Bay reacts to Moss Landing fire

Vistra originally applied to the city of Morro Bay in 2021 to build a battery plant on the retired Morro Bay Power Plant property.

Then, in October, Vistra withdrew its application from the city, and the company announced plans to seek approval through the California Energy Commission instead.

The California Energy Commission and Coastal Commission can bypass local zoning rules to approve large renewable energy projects like Vistra's proposed battery plant.

Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation hopes that the California Energy Commission and Coastal Commission will listen to Morro Bay voters and strike down the battery plant project — especially after the Moss Landing fire, Branin said.

They worry that a fire at the facility would jeopardize the safety of nearby homes and Morro Bay High School.

"Our citizens are very alarmed, they're very concerned about this being pushed through by the state," Branin said. "The push to have California reach these battery goals in a short period of time without some reasonable understanding seems to not be working, and it needs to be looked at carefully."

City staff will present an update on the Moss Landing fire at the next City Council meeting on Jan. 28, the city's Friday news release said.

The council will also consider an urgency ordinance that would pause the city's ability to process new battery plant development permits for up to two years. This wouldn't prevent the California Coastal Commission and Energy Commission from approving the project, though.

"Since Vistra also owns the former power plant property in Morro Bay and has proposed a similar Battery Energy Storage System project in our city, this situation is particularly relevant to us," the city said in a news release on Friday.

This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 3:54 PM.

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(c)2025 The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.)

Visit The Tribune (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) at www.sanluisobispo.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

CNN —

Evacuation orders remain in place after a fire broke out at a power plant facility in Central California Thursday night, officials said Friday.

Monterey County officials said in a briefing they are aware that there was a plume of materials, including toxic hydrogen fluoride, released Thursday night from the Moss Landing Power Plant, which serves as a battery storage site. The county is working with the plant’s owner, Vistra Energy, and other agencies to monitor the air quality and expects to get an update on the matter Friday afternoon, Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli said

“It appeared last night and early this morning that that plume was reaching elevations where it might not endanger the human population, but that’s something that we’re monitoring constantly,” Pasculli said at the briefing on Friday morning.

Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto said a meeting to discuss lifting evacuation orders would take place Friday afternoon.

“Looking at the structure this morning … there’s very little, if any, of a plume emitting from that building,” North County Fire Protection District Fire Chief Joel Mendoza said Friday. “Our goal was to have it burn out as quickly as possible and it looks like that is happening at this point.”

Mendoza noted that there had been no injuries to civilians, plant personnel or first responders.

Monterey County has proclaimed a local emergency, “and will continue to support our evacuees, as well as the first responders, until such time that the evacuation orders can be lifted,” Kelsey Scanlon, director of emergency management for Monterey County, said.

The incident is not connected to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.

The fire erupted at the facility around 3 p.m., and evacuation orders were issued around 6:30 p.m. due to concerns over hazardous materials and potential chemical releases, Rosas said without detailing which materials were causing concern. More than 2,000 people were told to evacuate.

Santa Cruz County Public Health officials on Friday said they were continuing to monitor the Moss Landing fire and local air quality. “At this time, no imminent significant threat exists and people may resume normal activities,” they said on X. Santa Cruz is north of Monterey.

Vistra Energy branded the facility as the “largest of its kind in the world,” boasting a capacity of 750 megawatts and 3,000 megawatt-hours following its 2023 expansion. It plays a critical role in stabilizing California’s energy grid, the company said.

The sheriff’s office deployed drones to assess the severity of the situation and monitor air quality, Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli told CNN. Emergency services, including sheriff’s deputies and medical teams, were fully mobilized, Pasculli added.

Drone footage revealed approximately 40% of the building housing lithium-ion batteries on the property has been consumed by flames, Sheriff’s Commander Andres Rosas said.

Vistra Energy personnel called for assistance from the North Monterey County Fire District after a fire was detected in the 300-MW Phase I energy storage facility. All site personnel were safely evacuated, Vistra said in a statement. “The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but an investigation will begin once the fire is extinguished,” the company said.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, about 77 miles south of San Francisco, houses tens of thousands of lithium batteries. While the US Department of Energy states these batteries play a crucial role in storing electricity generated from renewable sources like solar power, the US Fire Administration warns firefighters should be cautious of potential chemical exposure during firefighting operations as lithium-ion batteries contain volatile electrolytes, and when exposed to high temperatures or physical damage can release flammable gases.

All North Monterey County Unified School District schools and offices will be closed on Friday due to the ongoing fire at the battery plant, according to a statement. The district serves more than 4,500 K-12 students, and covers a 70 square-mile area that includes neighborhoods in Castroville, Prunedale, Moss Landing, Aromas and parts of Salinas, its website says.

AlertCalifornia/UC San Diego

The incident comes about three years after a previous fire at the same facility, though the sheriff’s office spokesperson said he “doesn’t consider it to be related.”

On September 4, 2021, a malfunction at Moss Landing caused some battery damage. An investigation revealed the heat suppression system was accidentally triggered by low smoke from a faulty component, leading to water spraying on the battery storage areas and damaging about 7% of the batteries. There were no injuries, and the situation was managed without outside assistance, Vistra said in a 2022 statement on its investigative findings.

In October 2023, following a fire at a different battery plant owned by another company, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill mandating battery storage facilities to implement safety and communication protocols to enhance safety measures.

To assist evacuees of the Thursday fire, the Castroville Rec Center has been designated a temporary evacuation point, according to the sheriff’s office.

The National Weather Service Bay Area shared satellite images of the fire on X, highlighting visible heat signatures from the blaze.

The area is adjacent to major ecosystems, including the Moss Landing Wildlife Area, Elkhorn Slough State Marine Reserve and Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.