Firefighters staged in front of O'Melvany Park | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist A half acre fire ignited in the thick of the fog above Granada Hills this morning around 8:30 a.m. The fire burned slowly through thick brush along steep terrain forcing Los Angeles Fire Department personnel to hike up into the Santa Susana Mountains to attempt to knock it down. Due to the fog, helicopters were grounded until 9:15 a.m. and shortly after,......

Shortly before 11 this morning a man with an automatic rifle opened fire at St. John Baptist de La Salle Roman Catholic Church's International Festival in Granada Hills. The gunman wounded three people, [LAPD Officer Norma] Eisenman said. Two were taken to a hospital in stable condition and one in critical condition, she said. Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said another person was treated for chest pains. -- Associated Press "We have a parent who......

Not only were six people injured in a collision in Pacific Palisades this morning when an ambulance was involved in a collision, but now more Los Angeles first-responders have been involved in crashes. Shortly after 2:00 a.m. this morning, an LAPD squad car traveling on Westbound 118 collided with another car, prompting the shutdown of all lanes on that side of the freeway. As of 8:30 this morning, only the car pool and lane #1......

Good news regarding last week's LAPD shootout in Glassell Park. The fourth and last suspect, a Northridge resident who was the driver of the suspected car, was arrested Monday in Granada Hills. It wasn't that hard either: "he was in the same vehicle police believe was used in the driveby," according to a report by the Daily News. Last Thursday, a drive-by shooting occurred in the late morning, resulting in the death of a man......

Bright Umbrellas in Chinatown for a Less than Bright Day Crews are still working to restore power to some 3,600 Edison and DWP residents that lost power due to heavy rains and winds over the past two days. North Hollywood, Granada Hills, Porter Ranch, Pomona, Torrance, Stevenson Ranch and - gasp! - Beverly Hills residents were affected. Candles, people. More rain is on the way so gather ye umbrellas while ye may. Tons of......

Just because the federal government can legally rob a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, it doesn't mean you can too. On Friday, in two separate incidents in the Valley, a dispensary on Cahuenga Boulevard in North Hollywood and Golden State Collective, 10369 Balboa Blvd., in Granada Hills, both got robbed in takeovers. On Sunday, the Granada Hills robbers were caught, according to the Daily News:During the heist, one shot was fired, ricocheting off......

As of 12:30 a.m. tonight, 10,300 LADWP customers went without power throughout the city, primarily due to downed wires from the weather, according to a press release from the city agency. Crews have been deployed to the scattered outages, affecting the following areas and number of customers: South LA 1,153 Cheviot Hills 1,442 Knollwood 151 Mid City 561 Granada Hills 12 Belair Estates 4 Country Club Park 29 Studio City 38 North Hollywood 3,257 Westchester......

Yesterday's tragic assassination of Pakistan's opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has shocked and angered the world and the tide of emotion is strong in LA's community of Pakistani-Americans. The Daily News reports that many in LA knew Bhutto was in danger, but still found the news shocking. Others saw this as an obvious progression in the tragic line of assassinations and events that have plagued Bhutto's family. Many believe that power is at the root of......

Within 48 hours, building fires in Los Angeles did not take a holiday vacation. Early this morning in the Westlake neighborhood, a fire broke out in a three story converted-to-apartments Victorian home. Eleven residents, including two children were displaced while one man died. The cause is unknown. Early last night on Budlong Ave. near 117th St, a fire, most likely caused by a space heater, killed a 48-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman in......

You know you're in the Valley when real estate options are that old porn studio over there or the former sex toy manufacturing plant over there. Well, the LAPD went for the latter in a $37 million project to build a new station in Canoga Park on Schoenborn Street between Owensmouth and Canoga. The station is tentatively called Northwest Area Division. The reason for this new station in the West Valley is getting officers......

The first time I was in Compton, I didn't even know it until later when I was at a restaurant looking at the menu and noticed the address. It appeared the world's stereotype was wrong, maybe gone or I just happened to be in the "right" part of town. "Compton is beautiful, there are horse ranches there," a co-worker who grew up there told me at a previous job a few years before my......

It's a full moon and the earth is shaking. Three small quakes within a hundred miles of Los Angeles in the past hour alone, according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site. Perhaps unscientific -- though seemingly never "gamed" or exagerrated -- is the USGS "shake map" at right. Within 30 minutes of tonight's 3.2 magnitude shaker centered near Granada Hills, over 700 people went to the site to report shaking intensity. Hover over the......

- Only a few thousand of the 15,000 expected marchers showed up to the Immigration Rights March In Hollywood. - Last night in Mid-City a suspected drunk driver crashed his SUV and was thrown from his car at Washington and Cochran. The SUV then caught fire. - Scoooooooore! U.S. Beats Mexico to Win Soccer's Gold Cup. - A water pipe broke today at LAX causing fire sprinklers to wash down hundreds of travelers at......

- 3.0 quake in The Valley this afternoon - Major League Soccer: New England 3, Los Angeles 2. - Environmentally friendly and affordable bras and panties guides by GreenLAGirl. - 2 die at Mother's Day Flower Stand when car plows through. - Why do the La Brea Tar Pits bubble? - California man on FBI's Top Ten List arrested in Canada - 60 to 80 acres burned in Pacoima off Osborne Street. - American......

We live in a beautiful part of the world, don't you think? Despite the fact that sometimes it feels like all we ever see are the taillights and inane vanity plates of the car we're stuck behind, if we take some time to check out all the flora and fauna that our soil produces, we might get that nice swift kick in the rear from Mother Nature we didn't even know we needed. On......

Yesterday we asked. Today we answer. This statue can be found in the West Garden among an old wine vat, a grinding stone, two bells (cast in Spain and bearing the dates of 1686 and 1720) and the Archival Center for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the Mission San Fernando, Rey De Espana in Mission Hills, a neighborhood in The Valley. If you have not been, this is one of those times to......

- LAVoice is looking for a new editor - LAVoice - Darin Erstad goes to the Chicago White Sox - LA Times - 2 bodes and 3 dead dogs found in Granada Hills house fire - CBS2 - Gehry building torn down - CurbedLA - Press Deputy for the Mayor, Matt Szabo, gets poked at - LAO - $75,000 for leading to the capture of the Ski-Mask Bandits, who have robbed more than 200......

SoCal winter hikes have a benefit: hiking past 9 a.m. does not bring on heat stroke. And if you are doing a 5.1 mile, two and a half hour hike with a 1000 ft. elevation gain and loss, it cannot hurt to sleep in a little. Named after Darius Towsley, who discovered oil here in 1865 and later sold it to Chevron (then Pacific Coast Oil), this Santa Clarita Valley hiking spot is only......

So, if you're on your way to find some Nature in LA this weekend, might we suggest downloading two tracks from Oliver Wang's Soul-Sides? He was in town this past weekend and came across The Devics and Feist (one of our favorite artists from 2005) while listening to Anne Litt's new show on KCRW - The A Track (which is also available daily at kcrwmusic.com). This LAist contributor is currently bouncing Madlib's Beat Konducta......

That disturbance at the Convention Center — would you believe it was a Fame-style riot? "Dozens of youths, some wearing gang colors, reportedly began to spar with vendors and dance on cars and disobeyed police orders to disperse," Channel 2 reports. Someone heard a balloon popping and thought it was a gun. The massive rally of police force seems to be, uh, disproportionate to the incident. For the second year running, Taft High School......

While we're heading over to Granada Hills Charter School to see a teenager that we love perform as the lead in a high school production of Up the Down Staircase tonight, you can go dancing. If you're an Aries, maybe you want to go to Zodiac, a monthly birthday dance party at The Larchmont. Azul (who is an Aquarius) and the gang spin some funky rhythms for you inside while the real party might......

February 4th is a big day. It's National Wear Red Day, a promotional effort cooked up by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to raise awareness that heart disease is the #1 killer of women. Locally, today is the deadline to register to bid for property auctioned off by the LA County Treasurer and Tax Collector office. If you dream of owning property in LA but lack the big bucks, here's a chance......

And so it begins... Although the mayoral candidates have been jousting for position the last 6 months, the next five weeks that will determine who will become the next mayor. Brace yourselves for the onslaught of TV ads, mailers, and phone calls as the candidates will make a play for your support. As a public service, LAist offers a primer on the top three candidates (Hahn, Villaraigosa, and Hertzberg), their experience, positions, and possible......