Brush

A long-delayed experimental brush fire in the Angeles National Forest was abruptly canceled Wednesday morning when a county helicopter crashed moments after igniting a small fire to test the flammability of the brush. The pilot of the Fire Department helicopter "walked away from the crash," officials said, but the accident postponed the $750,000 project at least until next Tuesday, and perhaps until next spring. A decision could be made Friday. The fire, originally planned by U.S.

A burning vehicle sparked a small wildfire on Sunday near the 210 Freeway in north Los Angeles, authorities said. The fire, in the 8300 block of La Tuna Canyon Road, began about 2:50 p.m. and spread quickly through an acre of brush, said d'Lisa Davies of the Los Angeles City Fire Department. The flames then began burning uphill and spot fires helped push the blaze to about 20 acres, Davies said. The blaze was extinguished at 5:22 p.m., she said. No evacuations were ordered, Davis said, and no one was injured.

A brush fire that threatened two small Antelope Valley communities and charred more than 2,000 acres of mostly rugged terrain was 80% contained this morning, the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported. Though one home and two other structures were burned Wednesday (Story, Part I, Page 3) when the fire skirted between Elizabeth Lake and Green Valley, forcing the temporary evacuation of 1,000 people, the fire was moving northwesterly into mountainous areas today and no communities or structures were threatened, authorities said.

A canyonside brush fire along Interstate 8 at Fairmount Avenue came within a few feet of seven canyon-rim homes Thursday, damaged a fence in front of a private tennis court and briefly raised the specter of another Normal Heights blaze. The three-alarm fire began at 11:45 a.m. and burned about seven acres of brush on the southeastern corner of Fairmount and the freeway, San Diego Fire Department spokeswoman Ida Cheney said.

Painting a home's exterior is time consuming, but with the right paints and equipment you can produce professional-looking results. Here are tips to help you select the equipment and paints best-suited to the job. Brushes come in many shapes and sizes but good brushes all have the following qualities: --Bristles are "flagged," a term that signifies splits on the bristle end. The more flags the better--they help retain paint. Hog bristle is naturally flagged, synthetic bristle, artificially flagged.

The mood at the rally before the meeting was California mellow: reggae music, dancing and plenty of backcountry bonhomie. But it grew darker when several dozen supporters of Joseph Diliberti, the former Marine turned Rastafarian and tax-protester, crossed Peaceful Valley Ranch Road to attend Tuesday night's board meeting of the San Diego Rural Fire Protection District. With anger, name-calling and historic analogies, supporters called on the board to back down in its contretemps with Diliberti over a $27,552 unpaid bill for brush clearance.

  45 minutes. 6 to 8 servings 3 salted anchovies (6 fillets) 6 cloves garlic 1 cup olive oil, plus more if necessary 2 large (1½ to 1¾ pounds) round eggplants 2 long branches fresh rosemary Salt 1. Rinse the anchovies under running water to remove excess salt and then soak in water to cover in small bowl until softened, about 5 minutes. Remove the fillets, discard the skeletons and soak another 5 minutes until flexible. Cut into approximately half-inch crosswise pieces.

A student at one of Los Angeles' premier art schools recently asked a question that had been troubling her for some time. It surprised me. Her problem was the dismissive, sometimes patronizing attitude toward painting her faculty and fellow students -- not all of them, but enough to notice -- regularly tossed her way. Painting is what she wanted to do, not video, installation, digital photography, performance or any of the other myriad art forms that...

An estimated 200 people were ordered to evacuate their homes Monday night as a fire whipped by powerful winds scorched brush in mountainside neighborhoods near Fillmore in Ventura County and burned at least two structures. The fire had burned about 170 acres but there were no reports of injuries. The blaze was sparked by a downed power line as winds gusting to nearly 50 mph battered Southern California. The fierce winds toppled trees, swirled clouds of dust across area highways and left thousands of people without electricity from Elsinore to Lancaster, officials said.