Topline:
Crews have continued making steady progress in containing the Franklin Fire in Malibu after red flag conditions subsided last week.
What we know so far: The Franklin Fire started shortly before 11 p.m. last Monday near Malibu Canyon Road and Station Boundary, according to L.A. County Fire officials. It's currently 89% contained.
Keep reading... for more on evacuations and weather conditions.
This is a developing story and will be updated. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:
Crews have continued making steady progress in containing the Franklin Fire in Malibu after red flag conditions subsided. But with hazardous fire weather this week, officials are warning that the flames could flare back up.
People are being urged to prepare for evacuations and power outages with moderate Santa Ana winds, dry vegetation, and low humidity expected. A fire weather warning is in effect for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties from 3 p.m. Tuesday through 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The city of Malibu has asked residents to call 911 if they see smoke, and to check on their elderly or disabled neighbors. Several circuits may have been shutoff Tuesday evening by Southern California Edison, according to the city of Malibu, with more power safety shut offs being considered for roughly 15,000 L.A. County customers.
As of Wednesday, the fire has grown to 4,037 acres, but containment had increased to 89%, officials reported. Fire crews were aided by higher humidity levels, slight precipitation, and calmer conditions.
So far, officials said 20 structures have been destroyed, with another 28 damaged, about half of which were homes.
All evacuation warnings have been lifted as of Monday, and the 6,300 people forced from their homes were able to return as of Friday evening, when the evacuation orders were downgraded. Malibu schools are also reopening this week.
Jan Smutz, fire behavior analyst with CalFire, said at a news conference Friday evening that the likelihood of an increase in fire activity continues to go down, but we’re not out of the woods just yet, especially with Santa Ana wind conditions expected to return Tuesday through Thursday.
“ We're going to remain vigilant and continue working until all those heat sources have been extinguished,” he said.
The Franklin Fire started shortly before 11 p.m. last Monday near Malibu Canyon Road and Station Boundary, according to L.A. County Fire officials. City officials said the fire sparked about three miles north of Pacific Coast Highway, and that the cause was not immediately clear.
At around 3 a.m. last Tuesday, Malibu officials reported that the fire had spread south over PCH, threatening structures by Malibu Pier, Malibu Road, Malibu Knolls and Sweetwater Mesa. The threat stretched to Serra, Civic Center, and other central Malibu neighborhoods by Tuesday evening.
As the fire advanced, Pepperdine University officials told anyone on campus at 1 a.m. to relocate to the campus center or library to shelter in place. Later Tuesday, officials said the worst of the fire had moved on and lifted the shelter-in-place order around 7:30 a.m.
City Hall reopened at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 18, according to Marianne Riggins, mayor pro tem for Malibu. A community meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, which will be livestreamed here. You can submit questions on comments in person, or by emailing citycouncil@malibucity.org.
An air quality alert was issued until 7 p.m. last Thursday, and CalOSHA reminded employers that they’re required to protect their workers by adjusting practices and providing N-95 masks. You can find more information in English here and in Spanish here.
As of Thursday morning, power had been restored to Malibu.
Residents were also asked to stop outdoor irrigation to conserve water and make sure there’s enough resources for firefighters.
“Fire season is not a season,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference last Tuesday. “It's year round in the state of California.”
No evacuation orders were in place as of Friday evening, and all evacuation warnings were lifted Monday morning, according to the city of Malibu.
All residents can return to their homes, but you may need a photo ID to access certain roads.
These areas have been thoroughly inspected and deemed safe, according to the city of Malibu, but people are being urged to remain cautious. For example, keep children and pets away from ash, and use N-95 masks during clean-up.
You can find tips for what to do when you return home after a fire in English here, and in Spanish here. You can also find soot and smoke cleaning tips in English here, and in Spanish here. And some suggestions for managing mental health and stress after an emergency in English here, and in Spanish here.
The following roads are open to residents with proper ID only:
Please note: Pacific Coast Highway is now fully open with traffic moving in both directions.
A Local Assistance Center opened at Malibu City Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 17, from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m., according to the city. Representatives from various agencies, city departments, the Red Cross, and AT&T were available to assist residents.
SoCal Edison has an assistance program for customers experiencing an extended outage. The special rates can be tapped at participating hotels within 20 miles of an outage. Those hotels are listed here.
The Boys and Girls Club of Malibu is offering free counseling services and emotional support to those impacted by the fire. You can find more information here, by calling (310) 457-6801 ext. 7414, or by emailing wellnessinfo@bgcmalibu.org.
Malibu Elementary, Malibu Middle, and Malibu High Schools reopened Monday after being closed for nearly a week. The campuses were spared from any damage.
But Webster Elementary School, which officials previously said suffered “significant damage”, remains closed for cleaning and repairs. The campus is expected to reopen on Jan. 6, after winter break.
Webster students and staff will temporarily relocate to Malibu Elementary School in the meantime, starting on Tuesday, Dec. 17, for those that are ready to return to in-person learning.
Parking restrictions on Grayfox Street will be temporarily lifted, except for Fernhill Drive to the elementary school’s entrance, which will be used for pickup and drop-off. The schools will also stagger those pickup and drop-off times for Webster and Malibu Elementary students to ease traffic congestion.
“Upon return to school, we understand that some families will still be dealing with the aftermath of this distressing event, including a few of our families who have lost homes or have damage,” Antonio Shelton, superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, said in a statement to families and staff last Thursday.
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.
