Topline:
Feeling helpless after the 2018 Woolsey Fire, Bell Canyon residents in Ventura County bought a whole bunch of gear, and have been training to fight the next fire that comes.
No fire yet: The volunteer fire crew hasn't fought any fires yet, but they've responded to accidents and an awful lot of rattlesnakes.
Wind-driven blazes: Even the largest fire departments have trouble stopping them, as gusts can throw embers more than a mile ahead of the fire front.
Everything changed for the residents of Bell Canyon on a hot, dry, and windy day on Nov. 8, 2018. At about 2:22 p.m., electrical equipment from Southern California Edison failed, and started what grew into the devastating Woolsey Fire.
Tucked into the hills of the San Fernando Valley in eastern Ventura County, they could see smoke rising about 2 miles away.
“We were up at the top watching that plume of smoke coming towards Bell Canyon,” Garrett Clancy, a local resident, said. “And we waited and we waited and we waited.”
“It was like, 'Where are they?'” Clancy added, referring to firefighters.
The Woolsey Fire became a harsh reminder for many that fast-moving, wind driven blazes can quickly overwhelm resources, leaving residents on their own.
For some in Bell Canyon, including Clancy, it was the motivation they needed to form the Bell Canyon Volunteer Wildland Fire Department. It's a small, dedicated group of people from the neighborhood who've spent the past several years organizing, purchasing equipment and training, in part because they felt overwhelmed and helpless when the Woolsey Fire blew through. And they never want to feel that vulnerable again.
“A lot of us during Woolsey ended up fighting spot fires and trying to protect our homes with garden hoses and it really felt anemic when things started getting more serious,” said Bell Canyon resident Larry Little. “It was less a feeling of 'no one's going to help us' and more a feeling of 'there's not enough help to go around.'”
When Woolsey broke out, Ventura County Fire had limited resources, as they were overwhelmed by another fire that’d broken out just 20 minutes prior. And while it wasn't long before both L.A. County and L.A. City fire got involved, Woolsey moved fast.
By the time it finished tearing through Bell Canyon, the Santa Monica Mountains and Oak Park, 1,643 structures were destroyed and three people lost their lives.
The truth is — fires during Santa Ana wind events can become unstoppable, as strong gusts can throw embers more than a mile ahead of a fire front, starting up blazes all over. They can easily escape from departments with helicopters and airplanes, not to mention dozens of boots on the ground.
Clancy said the volunteer crew’s goal is to do as much as they can in their small area to keep fires at bay, potentially giving the professionals a few precious extra minutes to respond to the isolated canyon.
“It can take an extra 20 minutes for the fire department to get here, beyond what their normal response time is,” he said. “If it's a wind-driven fire, 10 minutes is an eternity. It can take out four or five homes in 10 minutes. But if we're there, you know, we can close that gap.”
The Bell Canyon volunteer crew has been training for the next big wildfire over the past few years.
On a warm October day back in the fall of 2022, I joined about a dozen people, some clad in yellow Nomex, standing around a brush truck.
“This rig is primarily for big water,” said volunteer firefighter Boris Donia, who was going over the basics of the equipment. “With the big orange nozzle, we can drain this tank and emit it in 15 seconds. So just think about if you're using a lot of water.”
Donia would go on to show them how to hook up to a hydrant and use a hose to extinguish hotspots that could kick back up after a fire rolls through.
Since the Woolsey fire, the volunteer crew has purchased three small trucks, over a mile of hose, equipment and pumps that’ll let them draw water from backyard pools. There are 27 volunteers who've gone through various levels of wildland firefighter training recognized by the Office of the State Fire Marshall, according to Clancy..
Nevertheless, they aren’t recognized as a fire department by the county.
“We don't really work with them at all because they're not an affiliated agency and they're not recognized by the County of Ventura to operate as a fire department,” said Brian McGrath, a spokesperson for Ventura County Fire. “They are strictly a volunteer group.”
McGrath said the Bell Canyon crew would need to be recognized by both Ventura County Fire and County Supervisors to operate in an official capacity. Until then, he said, "When a fire does start we're going to be asking them to evacuate, just like any other community member and operate like any other community member.”
Because of the community's location near the L.A. County border, L.A. City Fire has provided services to the neighborhood since 1979.
“We maintain a professional relationship and have some communication with them. The LAFD does not endorse nor oppose community brigades,” wrote Erik Scott, a spokesperson for L.A. City Fire. He wouldn’t elaborate when asked what those communications included.
“We're here to augment and assist the existing fire agencies,” said Little. “And that's why we always tell people, when you make a call, you call 911 first, then you call us and then we'll respond.”
So far, the Bell Canyon volunteers haven’t had to respond to any wildfires — but they say they have responded to around 500 calls, including accidents, downed trees and an awful lot of rattlesnake.
“I think we're gonna do well during a fire, but we'll see,” Clancy said. “As long as we stay safe and no one gets hurt, that’s a huge part of it.”
This coming month could be a major test for them, as big wind driven blazes could be right around the corner.
Topline:
Are L.A. County Superior Court judges setting higher bail for Latino defendants? Some court-watchers say yes, according to a new report.
What does it cover? Between January and November 2025, La Defensa’s Court Watch LA volunteers observed 140 random criminal cases that included felonies and misdemeanors.
What did they find? The report details multiple findings, including that defendants who appeared to be Latino had an average bail amount more than 15 times higher than white defendants.
How accurate is this? This is a sample from over 200,000 cases. It’s based on human observation, so the organizers acknowledged that there are gaps. But they’ve asked the court to share its own data, which they say they have not received.
Read on…. to see the L.A. County Superior Court’s response.
A criminal justice watchdog is calling into question whether Latinos in the L.A. County Superior Court get a fair shot at bail.
The new report from the nonprofit La Defensa, which advocates for reform in the legal system, analyzes a sample of pretrial decisions from 2025 which had been documented by community court-watching volunteers.
One of the key findings was that defendants who were perceived to be Latino had an average bail amount of $157,700 — more than 15 times higher than white defendants and nearly three times higher than Black defendants.
Studies show that inability to pay bail can affect defendants’ livelihoods and their ability to defend themselves, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
“ Most families — no matter what they did, no matter what they sold — cannot actually purchase that person’s freedom to give them the fighting chance to go against the state,” Titilayọ Rasaki, La Defensa’s state policy and legal affairs director.
The L.A. County Superior Court says it’s following the law on bail requirements and that the findings are missing context because observation is limited.
La Defensa’s Court Watch LA program is a community-led effort to document and hold the courts accountable. They train volunteers to go in and observe cases.
The volunteers take notes on the charges, the judge’s conduct and the person’s criminal history, if it comes up. That then gets analyzed against publicly available case information and state law. Programs like this exist in several other cities around the country.
For the latest report, La Defensa volunteers observed 140 felony and misdemeanor criminal cases, chosen at random, between January to November 2025.
Judicial accountability lead Bryanna Siguenza explained how she decided where to send the volunteers.
“ I choose a department, specifically ones that are pretty busy, have high case loads, and are arraignment and pretrial,” she said.
Racial disparities in pretrial settings have been researched at local, state and national levels, but La Defensa’s findings are based entirely on human observation, Siguenza said.
The volunteers are trained to listen for important details that come up in proceedings, but they may not always get the full story behind the charges, like a defendant’s criminal history.
L.A. County Superior Court spokesperson Rob Oftring said the report needs more context.
“Many of the report’s findings, for example, do not appear to account for charge severity or criminal history, both of which are legally significant factors in any release decision…” he wrote in a statement.
La Defensa did not include in its report what charges had been filed in the cases observed. However, according to the report, comparable charges still had disproportionate bail outcomes that “couldn’t be explained by charge severity alone.”
The severity of charges legally informs bail decisions. The Superior Court is required to have standard bail amounts based on the crime, which judges have discretion to adjust.
State law also requires judges to weigh issues like public safety in bail decisions, as well as the defendant’s ability to post bail. According to the volunteers’ observations, the judges considered the latter in just a quarter of cases when setting bail.
Oftring said the court has taken steps to reduce money bail’s usage as allowed by law.
“Bail at arraignment is set only after both the defense and prosecution have been heard and the judge has weighed the specific facts of the case,” his statement read.
Oftring said the court values the role organizations like Court Watch LA play in keeping the justice system accountable, but that the sample size of the researchers used in their report is too small to draw any definitive conclusions.
Roughly 272,000 criminal cases took place during that time period, according to Oftring.
Representatives from La Defensa said they know the report is only a snapshot of the system, and that human observation has its limits.
That’s why in November, they requested 10 years of de-identified data to analyze whether bail outcomes differ across judges, courthouses and demographic groups. Rasaki said they haven’t received it.
“ We would say release the data … by all means, we want to partner. We want to analyze,” she said.
Oftring told LAist they are working on several projects that “provide data-informed scrutiny of how the court operates.”
Topline:
The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of Southern California through Monday. Some places are also under more severe heat warnings.
The details: Highs in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas of L.A. County are expected to range from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will get up to the lower 90s. Parts of the Inland Empire could get up to 108 degrees and the Coachella Valley could hit 120.
Wildfire risk: Forecasters warn that fire danger will be elevated through at least Monday, driven by heat, dry vegetation and low humidity levels away from the coast. Despite some extra moisture in the air over the last several weeks, there hasn’t been enough to actually produce rain.
Read on … to learn more about why the heat is so persistent.
Southern Californians are in for yet another scorching weekend.
The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of the region through Monday, with temperatures expected to hit their peak on Sunday.
Highs in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas of L.A. County are expected to range from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will get up to the lower 90s. Beaches will also be hot — in the lower 80s.
Moving farther east, things get really toasty. Forecasters have issued a more severe extreme heat warning for parts of the Inland Empire, where temperatures could get up to 108 degrees, and for the Coachella Valley, where they could hit 120.
Humidity will likely also continue to add to the discomfort, but will be concentrated in areas closer to the coast, where it will keep nighttime temperatures relatively warm and make it more difficult to cool down. Inland areas will feel drier.
Those who are most at-risk from the heat are people who work or spend time outside, people without access to air conditioning and those who are either over 65 or young children.
Southern Californians are no strangers to hot weather in the summer, but heat waves are getting hotter, longer and more frequent as the climate changes.
So you should know the words forecasters use to describe these weather events — and the risks they pose.
Forecasters are also warning of dangerous rip currents and swells along the coast this weekend.
If you’re headed to the beach to beat the heat, as many Southern Californians likely are, they recommend staying out of the water or, if you do go swimming, stay in front of lifeguards. It’s also a good idea to avoid jetties and tidal rocks.
We are looking at very warm temps across the Southland over the next few days, with inland areas expected to climb above 100°F. If you're planning to visit the beach, be aware that a series of southerly swells will impact south-facing beaches through the weekend. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/AI5uLmFeaO
— LACoLifeguards (@LACoLifeguards) July 24, 2026
This weekend will also come with a high risk of wildfires.
Forecasters warn that fire danger will be elevated through at least Monday, driven by heat, dry vegetation and low humidity levels away from the coast.
Despite some extra moisture in the air over the last several weeks, there hasn’t been enough to actually produce rain. Without precipitation, and under consistently high temperatures, plants will continue to dry out and become fuel.
“We have humidity, but it's not reaching the saturation point. Therefore, we won't have a cloud. We won't have precipitation,” said Rong Fu, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA who specializes in weather patterns and wildfires.
Fu said a system of high atmospheric pressure sitting over the Western U.S. is pushing warm, dry air across the Sierra Nevada from inland deserts and into Southern California.
That can generate what’s known as downslope wind. Those winds plus the already dry conditions align to create some especially dangerous fire weather.
One spark can easily turn into a large blaze, and humans are the most common cause of wildfires in Southern California, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
People can accidentally start wildfires in a range of ways, including throwing a lit cigarette into dry brush or dragging a chain behind a vehicle, creating sparks. One of the most common human causes is improperly extinguished camp fires.
Lightning can also start wildfires but is unlikely under current weather conditions. Southern California has seen minimal thunderstorms this summer.
Heatwaves in the summer and fall are obviously not new for Southern California, but they are getting worse.
Much of the heat currently blanketing the region is being driven by the high-pressure system, which traps warm air and compresses it against the ground, heating it even further. Forecasters say it’s likely to stay that way through the end of July.
But high-pressure systems like this one usually don’t stick around this long.
“For this pattern to linger almost two weeks — yeah, I would say, from a climatological point of view — that's pretty unusual,” Fu said.
One major driver of the change, Fu said, is climate change: As the climate warms, this kind of “anomalous” high pressure system will become stronger and more frequent.
And one consequence of hotter and longer heatwaves, is extended elevated periods of risky fire weather.
Topline:
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission unanimously approved a $496 million budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, moments before the agency released its annual homeless count.
Why it matters: The agency's new budget, approved today, is down 40% compared to $829 million approved last year. The drop accounts for L.A. County’s move away from the agency — along with fewer dollars from the state. The agency’s budget is now 73% funded by the city of L.A. At the same time, homelessness in L.A. is up. New numbers show the population of people living outdoors in the city grew by 7.9% between early 2025 and 2026.
What does the money do: In addition to the annual tally, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority uses federal, state, county, and city dollars to provide a range of services — everything from safe places to park for people who live in their cars to permanent housing placement.
Who’s on the commission? LAHSA is governed by a 10-member commission that is half appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass has served on the commission since appointing herself to it in fall 2023.
The backstory: The embattled agency, which has been at the forefront of the region’s response to homelessness for more than three decades, is currently fighting for survival. Following a series of harsh audits and a judge’s rebuke of LAHSA’s spending and management, L.A. County supervisors pulled funding from the agency. LAHSA is also in the middle of a court battle with the Trump administration, which is seeking to cut its access to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.
Go deeper: Internal audits help protect taxpayer money. LAHSA hasn’t finished any in years
Topline:
While a late July heatwave baking Los Angeles is expected to break by Monday, a new heatwave could be following close behind next week.
More details: Temperatures will linger in the high 80s and low 90s in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake. The National Weather Service projects temperatures will peak on Sunday afternoon. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis with the National Weather Service said residents can expect more humidity than usual.
Stay cool: During hot weather, the beach is an immediate go-to for folks that want to stay cool, but Lewis warns against this as the surf will be extra choppy. Here's some places to beat the heat.
Read on... for cooling centers and local pools.
This story first appeared on The LA Local.
Los Angeles will be under a heat wave advisory until Monday evening as temperatures show no signs of letting up over the weekend.
Temperatures will linger in the high 80s and low 90s in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake.
The National Weather Service projects temperatures will peak on Sunday afternoon. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis with the National Weather Service said residents can expect more humidity than usual.
While dense, urban centers have more concrete and see more vehicle traffic, downtown and the surrounding areas will not be the hottest locations during this heatwave in the Southland, as the Antelope Valley will be under an extreme heat advisory over the weekend.
During hot weather, the beach is an immediate go-to for folks that want to stay cool, but Lewis warns against this as the surf will be extra choppy.
The Pacific Coast will see large swells “coming up from tropical systems off the coast of Mexico,” Lewis said. “We are issuing a beach hazard statement that’ll be in effect through at least the weekend [which] may be extended.”
While the weather is expected to cool down on Monday, forecasts show that another heatwave could develop by the end of next week.
Find a pool or splash pad nearest you.
Address: 1419 Colton St. 90026
Phone: 213-481-2640
Lap swim hours: Monday – Friday: 6-9 a.m., 12-2 p.m. ; Saturday & Sunday: 12-5 p.m., limited lanes after 1 p.m.
Recreational hours: Monday – Friday: 3 – 9 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday: 1-5 p.m.
Website: https://recreation.parks.lacity.gov/aquatic/year-round/echo-park-indoor-pool
Address: 4526 W Pico Blvd. 90019
Phone: 323-936-8483
Lap swim hours: Monday – Friday (4 lanes of 25 yards): 8 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Recreational hours: Monday – Friday: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 3 – 5:45 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Website: https://recreation.parks.lacity.gov/aquatic/year-round/eleanor-green-robert-aquatic
Find the nearest cooling center.
Address: 1030 S. Alvarado St. 90006
Phone: 213-368-7545
Hours: Monday & Wednesday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Tuesday & Thursday: 12 p.m. – 8 p.m.; Friday & Saturday: 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.; Closed on Sundays
Website: https://www.lapl.org/branches/pico-union
Address: 2820 W. 6th St. 90057
Phone: 213-384-7676
Hours: Monday & Wednesday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Tuesday & Thursday: 12 p.m. – 8 p.m.; Friday & Saturday: 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.; Closed on Sundays
Website: https://www.lapl.org/branches/felipe-de-neve
Address: 694 S. Oxford Ave. 90005
Phone: 213-368-7647
Hours: Monday & Wednesday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Tuesday & Thursday: 12 p.m. – 8 p.m.; Friday & Saturday: 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.; Closed on Sundays
Website: https://www.lapl.org/branches/pio-pico-koreatown
Councilmember Heather Hutt’s office recommends residents to rest in shade or a building with air conditioning and to stay hydrated with plenty of water.
