Los Angeles Fire Department

For a while, it seemed as if winter had taken a vacation from Southern California, going wherever it is that winters go in the winter. Like Chicago. But it's back. After an unseasonably warm and dry January, winter weather has returned in the form of a series of cool storms that have tracked down from the Gulf of Alaska in assembly-line fashion, with the latest expected to lash the region today with wind, rain and mountain snow.

The Los Angeles Fire Department has begun shutting down rescue units and eliminating paramedic field supervisors as part a cost-cutting plan that officials say will increase response times during life-threatening emergencies. The plan goes into full effect early Thursday, with 15 fire trucks and six ambulances being pulled out of service daily on a rotating basis citywide.

It wasn't just that his fellow firefighters put dog food in his spaghetti at a fire station and watched him eat it, laughing. It was what happened in the months after former Los Angeles Firefighter Tennie Pierce reported the incident that led him to sue his department for racial harassment, Pierce and his lawyer said at a forum Saturday in Leimert Park. "As I've always said about this case, it's the retaliation, stupid," said lawyer Genie Harrison. "The dog food incident was really the catalyst.

The Los Angeles Fire Department is breaking new ground in the landscape of mismanagement: It has so bollixed a case of harassment that it's paying off legal claims to the rank-and-file victim and to managers it claimed were responsible for the investigation. Capts. John Tohill and Chris Burton sued the city in October 2006, alleging that they were unfairly suspended after a Latino firefighter slipped dog food into a black firefighter's dinner.

A Los Angeles Fire Department unit formed to better investigate employee discrimination lawsuits is getting its budget cut, raising questions about whether officials will be able to counter a wave of payouts that have cost taxpayers millions of dollars. The city had earmarked $360,000 for the Professional Standard Division, but $241,000 will now be used to help offset a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall, officials said Tuesday.

A Los Angeles Fire Department assistant chief, his wife and their son were charged Monday with allegedly trying to cover up a hit-and-run crash. Assistant Chief Robert Franco, 52, and his wife, Gerri Franco, 48, were charged with one misdemeanor count each of conspiracy, giving false information to an officer and obstructing an investigation involving their 19-year-old son.

As a sophomore in high school, Omar Estrada saw two choices for his life: run with the notorious 204th Street gang in his Harbor Gateway neighborhood or make something of himself. This summer, Estrada, now 21, heads to paramedic school and hopes to work for the Los Angeles Fire Department after he graduates. Estrada started on the path when, as a student at Narbonne High, he heard Fire Department Capt.

Rain is expected to reach Southern California tonight, raising fears among fire authorities over mudslides further damaging hillside communities already ravaged by this month's wildfires. The National Weather Service issued a weather warning for Southern California, with forecasters predicting as much as 2 inches of rain in mountain areas in Los Angeles and Orange counties and elsewhere.

Paramedics and firefighters have been shot at and threatened when responding to calls for medical help involving the city's gang violence, the head of the Los Angeles Fire Department said Wednesday. Interim Fire Chief Douglas Barry told a City Council panel at a packed public hearing on gangs that his crews have responded to 7,500 "shots fired" calls in the last three years, often arriving before police. "We are first responders.

The Los Angeles City Council voted 9 to 1 Friday to retain outside lawyers to help defend the city in a lawsuit brought by Tennie Pierce, a firefighter whose firehouse meal in 2004 was laced with dog food. Pierce has alleged that the act was racially motivated. The contract with the firm Jones Day is worth as much as $750,000. The case is scheduled to go to trial in March. Councilman Bernard C. Parks dissented, saying the city has spent enough on the case. He has pushed for a settlement.