Sharon McNary

The mudslide that destroyed homes and lives in Montecito last January buried the area’s popular hiking trails under debris and boulders. But nearly a year later, most trails are re-opened, thanks to volunteers, donations, and some carefully placed explosives.

Air quality inspectors were at the Torrance Refinery Monday following up on a toxic chemical spill over the weekend. Five gallons of Modified Hydrofluoric Acid leaked from a hose as it was being transferred from a tanker truck to a container at the Torrance Refinery.

Nearly a month after the Woolsey Fire was contained, some families whose homes burned are still couch-surfing, staying in hotels, and struggling to find interim homes to live in. Escalating rents in an area with already-low rental vacancy rates mean some insurance policies may not stretch to cover replacement rentals.

In Pasadena, the Hahamongna Watershed Park behind Devil's Gate Dam is a hidden gem of a hiking area, filled with trees and plants.

Not that many years ago, state and local fire officials considered adopting a policy to train residents to stay and defend their homes from fire. A disaster on the other side of the world killed the idea.

It happens in every big wildfire. Officials issue mandatory evacuation orders, but some people stay behind and try to save their homes. Sometimes they succeed, and that raises a policy question that firefighters would rather not confront.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the Woolsey fire, but one of the things they're looking at is a brief outage Nov. 8 at a Southern California Edison substation in Ventura County that occurred two minutes before the fire was reported nearby.

Some valley residents are noticing more noise from airplanes leaving Burbank Airport. The historic flight paths changed recently and more changes are in store. And that is ramping up community concerns that will be heard by airport officials Thursday night.

Proposition 6 on the November ballot would roll back California’s year-old gas tax and new vehicle fees. They are on track to add more than $5 billion a year to state and local budgets for road construction and transportation projects.

High rents in Los Angeles force some to seek out unconventional living arrangements, but dozens of people who found inexpensive space in a Hollywood office building are on the streets following a raid by city officials.