San Rafael Hills

GLENDALE ? Two local trails will benefit from a $2-million rehabilitation program announced Tuesday. Glendale?s planned Catalina Verdugo Trail and La Cañada Flintridge?s Cherry Canyon trail will receive their respective allotments as part of a $2-million grant program announced by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. The money will help pay for improvements and enhancements, which officials said were much-needed due to an influx of hikers who are using the paths since the Station fire destroyed others.

Buck Wargo CITY HALL -- A home under construction on a hillside above Glendale Community College isn't getting high marks for beauty -- and that may be enough to prompt City Council action. The home at 1740 Las Flores Drive owned by Raymond Scott of Culver City has come under fire from some Glendale council members and homeowner activists who use it as an example that the intent of the 1993 hillside ordinance to restrict development is being violated.

Tim Willert The hills are alive with the sound of crackling brush and vegetation, left dangerously dry by two years of below-average rainfall. Those conditions, combined with the threat of coming Santa Ana winds, have firefighters and those who live in hillside homes bracing for the worst. The threat of a major fire is nothing new for Glendale firefighters, whose coverage area includes 15 square miles of mountain ranges and foothills that by their very nature are susceptible to catastrophic blazes.

Paul M. Anderson LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Ellen Grant and her neighbors make no secret how they feel about the firefighters who beat back the flames that menaced their homes. "It's hard to look at them without crying," Grant said before a ceremony Wednesday to honor the firefighters who conquered last week's 524-acre brush fire in the San Rafael Hills. Her neighbors, Pamela Small and Toni Sarney on the 1800 block of Alpha Road, agreed. All three were sure that the flames would devour their homes.

When Doris and Jack Quinn moved into the Chevy Chase area in 1965, their home was surrounded by many others, including one of the oldest in the neighborhood, a brick house built by Tom and Valley Knudsen, of Knudsen Creamery fame. The Knudsens were living in Eagle Rock when the creamery was founded in 1919. As their business prospered, they began searching for a new home. This was about the time that 1,600 acres of canyon land known then as the San Rafael Hills opened for development.

Jackson Bell As the Southland's deluge took a breather Tuesday morning, Glendale city workers rushed to keep a large hillside home from sliding off its foundation and tumbling down a steep slope into two other homes. Part of the hillside gave way under the four-story, multimillion-dollar home on Gladys Drive, causing the home to lose some of its support and sending an avalanche of mud onto a smaller home on Glenmore Boulevard. Firefighters and other city workers scrambled Monday afternoon to repair water and gas lines that snapped when a mudslide ripped away parts of the hillside home's supports, officials said.

Buck Wargo CITY HALL -- Glendale has formally ended its state of local emergency declared after the San Rafael Hills fire on Dec. 22. By declaring an emergency, Glendale had the ability to enact a curfew if needed and request federal and state assistance. City Atty. Scott Howard said the action does not prevent the city from seeking federal and state money to help recover expenses of the fire. Glendale has yet to calculate the expenses but early estimates have put the amount close to $1 million.

Buck Wargo CITY HALL -- Although no homes have been built, there will be a grand opening Aug. 5 of a planned hillside subdivision called The Reserve. It is a development at the end of Sleepy Hollow Drive in the San Rafael Hills. In the early 1990s, the developer, EPAC, wanted to build 24 homes but the city rejected that plan because of opposition from the surrounding neighborhood. The city ultimately allowed 18 homes. The subdivision project was part of a controversy a year ago when the builder wanted to use a trail to move heavy equipment.

Glendale is set to get two new trails at a 27-acre park nestled in the San Rafael Hills by the end of the year after the City Council unanimously approved the project last week . A .75-mile decomposed granite trail is scheduled to be constructed around the existing soccer fields, while a 1.7-mile trail is planned to circle through the hills above the Glendale Sports Complex at 2200 Fern Lane. The roughly $286,000 project is being paid for with state grants. The trails will be maintained by volunteers, according to the city.

Claudia Peschiutta GLENDALE -- More than a year after the San Rafael Hills fire charred the hillsides above Glendale and La Canada Flintridge, investigators said Thursday the cause of the blaze remained a mystery. "We've done all that we can," said David Westfield, an arson/fire investigator for the L.A. County Fire Department. "It probably won't go any further." No downed power lines or faulty transformers were found in the area, he said. "If Edison repaired anything, they don't have any record of that," Westfield said.