Month: January 2026

By Jennifer McRae and Ashley Portillo

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    DENVER (KCNC) — Some gas stations in the Denver metro area, including Costco, Murphy Express and King Soopers locations, sold contaminated fuel on Thursday, according to the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety.

King Soopers confirmed to CBS News Colorado that the pumps at 13 of its gas stations in the Denver metro area contained contaminated fuel. That fuel was pumped into vehicles by customers.

According to a King Soopers company representative, multiple locations in Aurora, Broomfield, Parker and other cities were impacted. Store officials said the fuel was delivered by a third-party carrier.

Several customers told CBS Colorado that the unleaded gas they pumped into their vehicle was contaminated with diesel. Lance Strait got gas from a Parker King Soopers on Thursday morning and drove to work without any issues. “But on the way home, it was sputtering and misfiring and obviously had some serious mechanical issues,” said Strait.

“I think everybody is in panic mode right now,” he said.

Many drivers have a similar story. Tracy Burlingame filled her tank up at the same King Soopers on Wednesday evening. Her husband drove the vehicle the next day.

“It was just not driving right at all, sputtering, in wouldn’t accelerate, and we talked, and was like, that sounds like bad gas,” said Burglingame.

Burglingame’s vehicle was towed to a nearby auto shop.

“They did call me this morning and say that they tested the fuel, and it was diesel. So, we had nearly 25 gallons of diesel put into our unleaded truck,” said Burlingame, who was also told repairs would be about $3,000.

“It’s upsetting,” she added.

Once King Soopers learned about the contaminated fuel, officials said all affected fuel lines were shut down. Teams continued to work to complete the remediation process and get the pumps back online.

King Soopers released this statement, which read in part: We sincerely regret the inconvenience and disruption this has caused our customers. We understand how important reliable fuel service is, and we are committed to working directly with any impacted customers to resolve their concerns. Customers who believe they may have been impacted are encouraged to contact their local store and we will assist them promptly.

An earlier update from King Soopers had listed some locations in Boulder and Littleton but the company amended its location list to include five fewer locations, lowering the number of gas stations impacted to 14 locations. That list was updated several hours later to exclude the location at 15109 E. Colfax Ave., leaving the total number of locations impacted at 13.

Murphy Express said a gas station of theirs in Parker was impacted. That is located at 13001 Copperhead Trail.

The known Costco locations that are impacted, according to Colorado officials are in Sheridan and in Superior.

The Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety released this statement to CBS Colorado: The Division of Oil and Public Safety began receiving complaints about bad gas on Thursday, January 8. Reports were coming from fuel sold at Costco, Murphy Express, and King Soopers locations, among others.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Kayla Moeller

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    SACRAMENTO, California (KMAX, KOVR) — Current drought maps are showing California is drought-free for the first time in 25 years.

The U.S. Drought Monitor climatologists put out a weekly map assessing drought conditions across the country. This week’s map continues to show zero drought conditions across the whole state of California.

“This is the first time we have seen that since December of 2000. It’s been quite a while since there’s been no abnormally dry conditions or worse being depicted in the state,” said Brian Fuchs, climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The map shows that much of the rest of the country is experiencing abnormally dry or drought conditions.

“When we start looking at California, the first map that actually had no drought depicted in the state on the U.S. Monitor was the map on the week of Dec. 9. That was where we had zero drought, but we did have a little under 9% of the state that is abnormally dry. Since that time, we’ve knocked down that abnormally dry with the continued wet pattern, so now we have no abnormally dry, no drought being depicted on the U.S. Drought Monitor map,” Fuchs said.

“This water year that started Oct. 1, we got off to a great start. We’ve seen regular storms work their way through over the months and in the first quarter of the water year, as we rounded into the new calendar year, we’re at about 150% of average for precipitation,” said Michael Anderson, a state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources.

Our first alert weather team says this 2025-2026 season is considered to be a La Niña year, and for California, that usually means drier conditions.

“But this year is an anomaly. We’re seeing the storms form right off the coast of California, so they’re coming right in and inundating the state from north to south, so we’ve had this heavy, steady rain that has continued,” meteorologist Kristine Hanson said.

That steady rain has also helped refill California’s reservoirs, with 14 of the 17 major ones at 70% or more capacity.

But that doesn’t mean these conditions are here to stay. Climatologists say we’re in a wait-and-see period to see how the rest of winter goes and what things look like come fire season.

“That back and forth is something California is well accustomed to,” Anderson said. “We’ll see then, as we get into February and March, when they start the growth cycle, if there’s continued moisture to allow for that and then fire season begins when those grasses begin to dry out.”

“The next week or so is supposed to be fairly dry and warm as well, so again, as quickly as we’ve seen these dry situations get tampered down and relieved, they could be developing again,” Fuchs said.

The Climate Prediction Center is projecting California to stay drought-free through the end of March, but they’re coming out with their monthly update next week, so we’ll see if those projections continue through April and into spring.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.