Yesterday, a Los Angeles City fire helicopter makes a water drop on a brush fire near the Griffith Observatory with the Planetarium and the telescope domes seen in the background. (AP Photo/Kevork Djanse) Yesterday's fire was knocked down quickly, but it started to bring back memories of last year, almost to date. The big 2007 wildfire charred 800 acres, but when yesterday's fire began, the Los Angeles Fire Department went aggressively after it, sending......

Photo by skunks via Flickr One year ago today, the blaze that ripped through more than 800 acres at Griffith Park began. Seen from all over Los Angeles (see this photo essay), the sight of the fire eating up Los Angeles' gem saddened many in the city. It took three days to knockdown. Today, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Councilman Tom LaBonge and other city officials will be holding a ceremony to honor those who fought......

Yesterday, two men visiting Los Angeles took a hike in Griffith Park and before they knew it, it was dark. Probably not a place for night hiking if don't know your way around, especially with the constant tease of being within sight of the city lights below, but many cliff jumps away. Eventually, they were on their cell phone with park rangers trying to find their way back to their car, but after some time,......

Photo by HeathBiter for LAist Right where the 134 meets the 5 is an atrocious dilapidated dirt lot known as The Griffith Park Dog Park. Despite being visible from the 134, and located at the intersection of two main freeways, it is near impossible to find or get to. On a recent beautiful Sunday afternoon, me and my Labradordle (half-Labradoodle, half-Labrador) drove around for 45 minutes trying to find the entrance to this place.......

It has been almost a year since the massive Griffith Park fire. In a short time, the blaze ripped through Los Angeles' beloved outdoor space, charring 800 acres and destroying popular spots such as the bird sanctuary and Dante's View. After the fire settled, the now 33-year-old photographer Colin Brown took a walk with his dog and photographed what he saw. The images are haunting, sad and unexpected. Beginning Saturday night, his photos will be......

Location of the 'Batcave' in Bronson Canyon where two hikers are being rescued A cliff rescue operation began early this afternoon in Griffith Park shortly before 2:00 p.m. One of two hikers in need of assistance alerted the Los Angeles Fire Department that they were in need of help. A female hiker, approximately 24 years in age, was unconscious and in serious condition, according to d'Lisa Davies, LAFD Spokesperson. The male hiker was found......

Photo by rink_rat via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Stay in school kids, especially if you live in the Valley. Yesterday the truant police hauled in 137 middle and high school kids who were ditching classes and chilling in public. 5 members of a church group were involved in an accident this morning on the eastbound Pomona Freeway. Sadly, three of the victims were killed and the others injured. The driver had......

View Larger Map In what Los Angeles Fire Department officials called a "dramatic collision," a full size white SUV, brand new still with paper license plates, tumbled off the southbound 170 Hollywood Freeway off-ramp late Saturday night onto Burbank Blvd. barely missing an LAPD squad car that passed by the very same spot just moments before. It was said the sergeant saw the crash, feet away, in his rear view mirror. It appears that a......

Photo by ~db~ via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr It's official: Police have identified the Green Skeleton Bandit who was fatally shot earlier this week when he was caught in the act of robbing the AutoZone in NoHo by a US Marshal. He was 24-year-old Lawrence Dean Smith Jr. of Palmdale who used a knife and wore a skeleton-themed sweatsuit in his robberies. Fight for the right to ficus! Local activists in......

Photo of the March 3rd, 2007 total lunar eclipse by Mr. Last Minute via Flickr Look up! Whether it's a plane, a bird or Superman, the sky is clearing up. And that means earlier fears of tonight's 7:01 p.m. total Lunar Eclipse viewing being blocked by clouds in Los Angeles can go wayside (Update: the moment we published this, the Valley started to get hit by cloud cover, but it seems on and off,......

LA's homeless population is filling up local shelters, with some trying to gain permission from officials to allow people to stay inside 24 hours a day. Extra cots have been set up, and shelters like the Union Rescue Mission are at capacity. Many Southern California Edison customers found themselves without power last night thanks to the weather. The primary concentration of outages was in the Lake Arrowhead area. Traffic woes: Roads through Griffith Park were......

View Larger Map Closures have been announced for some areas of Griffith Park due to excessive flooding and debris. The closures are Zoo Drive to Griffith Park Drive, Outbound Griffith Park Drive, In and Outbound Crystal Springs Drive and the Bird Sanctuary “The park has experienced some minor to moderate debris flows and flooding on several of its main roads and the Department will be implementing hard closure of some of areas of the park......

We get to call it a "Winter Storm" because it's storming and it's January, and not to overstate the obvious, but it is Winter Storming like nobody's business out there. Although the rain may have tapered off somewhat in the overnight hours, the greater Los Angeles area is bracing for another onslaught of downpours, with more high winds, flood risks, and snow. Snow? What? Huh? Yes, Angelenos, we're talking the little white specs that......

Update on why Ventura Blvd. in Studio City was shut down this afternoon by the LAPD: according to the North Hollywood Police Division, the shooting took place at De Soto Ave and Gresham St. in Chatsworth. Later, the suspect's car was found at the Studio City 7-11, prompting the LAPD shut down the area to search (hence all the helicopters). The suspect was later found in the city of Fontana and was arrested without......

Monday Tanya Lemani presents Have Belly, Will Travel 7pm @ Book Soup Kim Sunee presents Trail of Crumbs 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Marc Porter Zasada presents The Urban Man: Staying Human in LA 7pm @ Book Soup Patrick Conyer presents Pasadena: A Business History 7pm @ Vroman's Elizabeth Pomeroy presents Pasadena: A Natural History 7pm @ Vroman's Muhammad Yunus discusses Creating a World Without Poverty 7pm @ Central Library Lewis Hyde discusses his books......

And who said culture doesn’t exist in Los Angeles? Check out these events for a little learning, a little entertainment – or both. THEATRE Joe Keyes, author of Bob's Holiday Office Party and Pete's Garage, brings us a new treat: Big Baby. The dramedy focuses on "a crazy Catholic mother living with her disturbed middle aged son who falls for the dominatrix next door and all hell breaks loose." It opens tonight. 8 pm //......

New Year's Day, most in LA seemed to be up in Pasadena watching either the Rose Parade or the Rose Bowl, or getting over their New Year's Eve hangover at home watching TV. Why do I think that? Because the roads were EMPTY! It seemed that no one was on the roads. My goal was to head out with a friend, with cameras in hand and hit the roads and drive around LA on......

Photographer Colin R. Brown, who is known for his eerie pictures of the Griffith Park Fire, was heading to lunch downtown when he came upon the aftermath of a bank robbery. He e-mails us so share what he saw yesterday. J-Bird and I went for lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria and Bank of America was robbed. I thought the red was blood but of course it's from an ink packet. When the ink pack exploded......

Yesterday, there were not many details about a "freshly-shot" body found at the Glendale-based Forest Lawn cemetery (as opposed to the Griffith Park location). As more details came out, we learn the shooting was likely gang related and that the murder happened within the city limits of Los Angeles, not Glendale. Jason Grey, 29, was visiting the cemetery for unknown reasons when he was shot multiple times in the upper and lower body around......

An article from the Daily News takes a look at the toll the 6-month old smoking ban in Burbank is taking on its local workers, most of whom are flummoxed by the fact that a smoke break means breaking the law. According to the article, one local businessman "Barry Kessler, 48, owner of a downtown jewelry store bearing his family name, has led the charge against the anti-smoking ordinance. In the coming weeks he plans......

Los Angeles CityBeat's Greg Katz asks Tom LaBonge why cyclists can't ride through the Griffith Park DWP Light Festival and Tom almost completes a sentence before simply dodging and deflecting and offering more hollow promises for the future. Greg asks "You’re a bike advocate, a Griffith Park advocate, and you want to fix gridlock. Why can’t you bike through the Griffith Park DWP Light Festival while there are cars there?" Tom responds "The impact they......

For the past two weeks Councilmember Tom LaBonge has been proudly welcoming visitors to the 12th Annual LADWP Holiday Light Festival at Griffith Park, announcing with a straight face that this year's Festival demonstrates the DWP's commitment to a "Greener LA." Tom deserves credit for maintaining a straight face as he makes this outrageous claim because this Festival is far from Green! Granted, there is a lighting display at the entry that clearly states "DWP......

While the rains yesterday helped alleviate some of the dryness under which southern California has been hampered, it did little to lessen the worries of those in fire-stricken areas. Streaming rivers of rain created mudslides and prompted officials to call for mass evacuations. Flash flood warnings remain in effect. But, hey, it's LA, and today was clear and beautiful. A woman who poisoned her Marine husband to buy a boob job with the insurance......

Where are the best pickup soccer venues in the greater Los Angeles area? -- Bankole O Los Angeles is an enormous city, and soccer is a popular sport. You can find games being played just about everywhere! If you're looking to avoid organized leagues, there's soccer played on a regular basis at Rancho Park, Pan Pacific Park, the Westwood Rec Center, and Mar Vista Park (they have a new-ish turf field which is frequently booked,......

Last night I was casually checking out what various travel websites had to say about the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Most of the summaries in Frommers sounded like this: Silver Lake, a residential neighborhood just north of Downtown and adjacent to Los Feliz (home to the Los Angeles Zoo and Griffith Park), just to the west, has arty areas with unique cafes, theaters, graffiti, and art galleries -- all in equally plentiful proportions. The......

The annual Epilepsy Freedom Walk took place this morning in Griffith Park with honorary chairman Greg Grunberg of "Heroes" fame leading the crowd of supporters. We have previously highlighted this event here on LAist. To find out how you can help the work of the Epilopsy Foundation, visit The Epilepsy Foundation. Photos after the jump.........

When the original owner of Griffith Park, Don Antonio Feliz died of small pox in 1863, he left his extensive land holdings to Don Antonio Coronel. Subsequently, his blind, destitute 17 year old niece, Dona Petronilla, cursed the land -- great misfortune would come to whoever owned it. One by one, Coronel's family died from misfortune and disease. He left the land to his wife, who married again only to have her husband try......

There's no doubt about it, Pasadena is an arts town. Local "old money" patronize the cultural arts in these parts and it shows. Talk about the season opener for the Pasadena Symphony, you can't go wrong with these three composers. Known as Mexico's most distinctive musical voice of the 1930's, Silvestre Revueltas is a madman of a composer -- colorful, energetic and all over the place. "The Homage to Lorca conflates two seemingly incompatible......

On Sunday, October 14 the Epilepsy Foundation will host their annual Freedom Walk in Griffith Park. I spoke with Greg Grunberg, the Honorary Chair of the walk, about his involvement with the organization. "It's a fun two hour walk in Griffith Park. We are raising a lot of money for The Epilepsy Foundation. Our team is called the Crazy Brainwaves. It's led by my eleven year old son Jake who has had epilepsy since he......

Last Sunday, September 23rd, Dr. Jane Goodall head-lined the International Day of Peace with Roots and Shoots, a global network of youth dedicated to protecting human rights through environment-centered campaigns. Children marched with giant home-made peace puppets as environment and human rights organizations were on hand to provide information and network with locals. Goodall mingled for a while, greeting children and petting dogs before leading the Peace Dove marchers through Griffith Park. After demonstrating......