Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to declare a “major” state of emergency due to wildfires August 13. This amended a letter to President Bush from June. The fires he noted were in the counties of Butte, Kern, Mariposa, Mendocino, Monterey, Plumas, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, and Trinity. The governor cited the current drought as the underlying problem. An Associated Press report noted legislators are worried about paying for the increase cost of firefighting. The latest cost from the governor’s office is $153 million. The Craig Fire near Oroville was reported contained August 11. It burned 2,000 acres. The California Independent System Operator reported no transmission outages due to fire. The grid operators’ peak daily use was as follows: Aug. 8, 40,206 MW; Aug. 9, 35,246 MW; Aug. 10, 36,089 MW; Aug. 11, 40,967 MW; Aug. 12, 41,281 MW; and Aug. 13, 42,521 MW. Weather is heating up towards the end of the week all over the state. Sacramento Municipal Utility District hit its peak demand as of press time on August 13 as the temperature reached 104. Demand was 2,927 MW. A spokesperson for the muni said that there were no transmission- or fire-related problems. The state’s other big municipal utility, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, was unable to provide peak demands for the week. Heat warnings are issued from the Oregon border mid state through Redding, down to Oroville and Ukiah. Thunderstorms are expected at the northern end of the state. The National Weather Service expects the San Joaquin and Central Valleys to be extra dry as well as hot. The Eastern Sierra is hot with expected thunderstorms. Even the North Coast--usually a bastion of fog--is expecting hot weather in the next week. In Southern California, temperatures were in the 90s in the heavily populated coastal valley areas, but the National Weather Service said the weather likely would cool a bit next week.