Saturday Links: SF Marathon Set to Bring Street Closures, 31,000 Pavement-Pounding Runners This Weekend

• The Park Fire in Butte and Tehama counties has now grown to 348,000 acres making it the seventh-largest wildfire in California history, and climate scientists say it could become the third-largest ever. In an especially heartbreaking development, the town of Paradise has been issued evacuation warnings, the same Paradise that was very much destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018. [SFGate]

• The San Francisco Marathon is set to bring out 31,000 runners at the outrageously early hour of 5:15 am Sunday morning, and there will be road closures all over town. As seen on the map above, street closures will affect the Embarcadero, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Marina, Presidio, Golden Gate Bridge, Outer Richmond District, Haight-Ashbury, Guerrero Street, and Mission Bay. [KQED]
• The feel-good story of the minor-league Oakland Ballers isn’t feeling so good anymore, as an agent has pulled four players off the team for safety reasons, including their celebrated woman pitcher Kelsie Whitmore. Oakland crime seems to be one of these safety concerns, as the players are being housed in a more dangerous neighborhood than what they were promised, but the team has also allegedly not handled players’ injuries in a medically sound fashion. [Chronicle]
• The Richmond District’s Green Apple Books got a glowing writeup in USA Today, celebrating the 57-year-old SF Legacy Business. [USA Today]
• Amidst the current COVID summer uptick, the SF Department of Public Health is asking people to “consider” wearing masks again in crowded public spaces. [KRON4]
• Bay Area filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is being accused of some creepy and inappropriate behavior on the set of Megalopolis, as Variety has videos of him kissing young women who were extras on-set, following reports in the Guardian that he was trying to kiss topless extras in another scene. [Variety]

Image: SF Marathon