Times columnist George Skelton says Gov. Jerry Brown told the truth about the fires that no one wants to hear:

“You know, we’ve had fires for long before the Europeans showed up here,” the four-term governor replied. “And our indigenous people had a different way of living with nature. For 10,000 years, there were never more than 300,000 [people living in California]. Now we have 40 million and we have a totally different situation.

“So it’s not one thing. It’s people. It’s how people live, it’s where they live, and it’s the changing climate…. And the truth is…we’re going to have more difficulties. Things are not going to get better. They’re going to get more challenging because of the continuing alteration in the climate — lack of moisture, early snowmelt and faster winds, the whole thing.”

Officials have arrested two men in connection with the burglary of a fire station in Butte County.

Robert DePalma and William Erlbacher, both from Concow, Calif., were arrested on suspicion of vehicle theft, looting during an emergency and possession of stolen property, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Butte County Fire Department said in a statement Monday.

Bail was set at $250,000 for each man, officials said.  

The Cal Fire station was set up to help with the Camp fire, which so far has burned 151,000 acres and was listed as 66% contained as of Monday morning. 

Last week, Butte County officials arrested six others on suspicion of looting areas that had been evacuated.

At Malibu Colony Cove, some residents who managed to get past the checkpoint Sunday where sheriff’s deputies were turning back cars groused about the restrictions on their comings and goings.

Angelina Radden’s mother had returned to her West Malibu home.

“She’s very persistent,” Radden said cryptically when asked how her mother had pulled that off.

Firefighters continued to make progress overnight against the deadly Camp fire, which has ravaged Northern California for more than a week, boosting containment to 66%, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said Monday.

The fire grew slightly overnight and has chewed through 151,000 acres in Butte County. The blaze, which is the state’s deadliest wildfire, has claimed at least 77 lives and destroyed 15,850 structures. More than 11,000 of those buildings were homes. 

Fire officials expect the blaze to be fully contained on Nov. 30.

When Jeff and Nan Thompson and their son Alex, a ruddy-haired 5-year-old with boundless energy, returned to their hilltop home in Malibu on Sunday, they were astonished by what had burned and what had not.

Burned: bushes scorched black along their driveway, a metal grate only steps from their living room windows, and a nearby house that used to loom over them from the hills.

Not burned: their butterscotch-colored house, which seemed practically untouched save for a scattering of Spanish tiles that had tumbled from the roof.

Michelle Rader, who lives in hard-hit Magalia, Calif., said that as far as she knows, her home is still standing. But she attended a vigil because a house is not the only thing destroyed in a fire.

“Many of my friends and co-workers and colleagues have lost their homes,” she said. “I lost my workplace, which is something dear to my heart.”

Rader is the office manager and a board member of the Gold Nugget Museum, which burned in the Camp fire conflagration. One of the museum’s docents died in the Nov. 8 disaster.

The number of structures destroyed in the Woolsey fire has climbed to 1,500, according to figures released Monday morning by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

That number could rise in the coming days as fire officials continue their inventory of damage, which is authorities said is about 90% complete. 

As additional evacuees were allowed to return to their homes over the weekend, firefighters increased their progress on containing the fire, which swept from Ventura County to Malibu. 

Paradise Mayor Jody Jones, said Sunday authorities have estimated that it will take at least two years for her city to begin to bounce back from the devastating Camp fire — one year to clear debris from the thousands of structures that burned and another to rebuild.

She and her husband are now living in their motor home. So they can have a base of operations as the city comes back, they made an offer on a home in Chico on Tuesday, she said, and it is now in escrow.

“We’ve hugged and tried to support each other,” Jones said as she left a vigil for the victims of the blaze. “We’re all in this together.”

For nearly a week, Laura Cartwright and her brother looked for their 71-year-old reclusive uncle from Helltown, a small community just north of Paradise.

They tried calling him by phone when the Camp fire broke out, but they couldn’t get through. Even on normal days, cell service there is spotty. They checked the American Red Cross shelter’s online list to see whether their uncle had marked himself safe. He hadn’t.

By Day 3, they were worried. By Day 5, they couldn’t sit at home anymore and drove up from Concord to the disaster zone. They ended up roaming a tent city in a Walmart parking lot, asking if anyone had seen their uncle.

The number of structures destroyed in the Woolsey fire soared to 1,452 on Sunday night, according to the latest figures from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

That’s an increase of about 400 structures since a count released Saturday.

As more evacuees were allowed to return to their homes Sunday, firefighters increased their progress on containing the fire, which swept from Ventura County to Malibu.