AZUSA, Calif. – A new fire has erupted in the Angeles National Forest to the west of a blaze that has been burning on 750 acres northeast of Los Angeles for about 24 hours.
The new fire erupted Wednesday afternoon a few miles north of the foothills community of La Canada Flintridge. The U.S. Forest Service says it has spread over about 10 acres.
The larger fire in a canyon above the city of Azusa is only about 10 percent contained. Smoke from that fire has spread throughout much of greater Los Angeles, triggering health advisories.
Weather has been very hot and extremely dry, but winds have been minimal and no homes have been lost.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
AZUSA, Calif. (AP) — A 750-acre wildfire northeast of Los Angeles fouled the air breathed by millions of Southern Californians on Wednesday, but the flames were burning away from suburbs on the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and no homes had been lost.
Stoked by the arrival of high temperatures and extremely dry air after weeks of unusually mild summer weather, the Morris Fire in Angeles National Forest produced a pungent white haze that spread through the Los Angeles Basin and east into San Bernardino County.
"It's pretty bad, the smoke," said Natacha Cuvelier, a 20-year-old student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "Once I stepped out of the door, I could smell it."
The air was considered unhealthy in many areas and regional officials urged people to avoid strenuous activities, indoor or out.
Schools were advised to suspend physical education and sports, said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County's director of public health.
The smoke lingered for lack of a sea breeze, said Sam Atwood, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
"Sometimes when we have these fires that will last for several days, the smoke can kind of build and get sloshed back and forth, so to speak. With each successive day, the extent of the smoke will get bigger and bigger," he said.
The fire, which erupted Tuesday near Morris Dam in San Gabriel Canyon, was 10 percent contained as temperatures headed up to triple digits, said forest dispatcher Chris Rush.
"The fire is pretty much doing whatever it wants to do. It's burning freely," said Capt. Jim Wilkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
Eight air tankers and nine helicopters dropped water and retardant as hundreds of firefighters struggled to contain flames that leapfrogged among steep, rocky ridges where the brush had not burned for at least 25 years and was bone-dry.
"Somebody made a comment at the briefing this morning that some of the brush is dead, it just doesn't know it yet," Wilkins said.
No injuries were reported and no homes were in immediate danger, authorties said. However, on Wednesday afternoon a mandatory evacuation was ordered for Camp Williams, a recreational vehicle campsite and resort on a fork of the San Gabriel River.
Other campgrounds remained closed, a day after picnickers and campers were forced to flee and 18 Boy Scouts had to be flown out of the area.

Investigators believe the fire was caused by a person, but it was unclear whether it was accidental or deliberate, Rush said.

Mountain highs will run up to 105 degrees through Friday, said meteorologist David Sweet of the National Weather Service.

The weather service issued a fire danger warning for mountain areas stretching from Los Angeles County northwestward through Santa Barbara and Ventura counties but the forecast did not call for any strong Santa Ana winds that typically stoke the worst Southern California wildfires.

Forecasters said a strong high pressure system was expected to build over the Southwest through Friday as onshore flow of moist air from the Pacific weakened. That was expected to result in continued warming and drying. Single-digit humidity levels were already being observed in mountain areas.

For weeks this summer, low clouds and fog hung close to the Southern California coast, and the moist marine layer often pushed well inland overnight.

The Angeles National Forest sprawls across about 1,000 square miles of chaparral, pine and fir in towering mountains and rugged canyons north and northeast of Los Angeles.

It is a major recreation area for the metropolitan region, drawing millions of hikers, mountain bikers, picnickers and campers.

DENVER – No late-night magic this time for the Colorado Rockies. Left-hander Randy Wolf and the Los Angeles Dodgers' big bats made sure of that.
Andre Ethier hit two of L.A.'s three home runs, powering the descending Dodgers past the resurgent Rockies 6-1 Wednesday night to restore their teetering lead in the NL West to three games over Colorado.
The Rockies, who had won eight of 10, were trying to move within a game of Dodgers, a team they trailed by 15 1/2 games on June 3. The teams wrap up their crucial three-game series on Wednesday.
Colorado had posted four straight come-from-behind wins, including a 5-4 victory in 10 innings over the Dodgers in the series opener. The Rockies, though, couldn't muster another comeback against Wolf (9-6), who scattered five hits over 7 1-3 spectacular innings. He walked two and struck out five.
Ethier hit his 26th and 27th home runs off spot starter Josh Fogg (0-2), who allowed six runs, all of them on the long ball, and four hits in three-plus innings.
Ethier's two-run shot gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in the first and he made it 3-1 with a solo shot to the same spot in the bullpen in right-center leading off the fourth, when Fogg unraveled.
Starting for the first time in nearly a year, Fogg failed to retire any of the half-dozen batters he faced in the fourth.
After Ethier's leadoff homer, Manny Ramirez was hit by a fastball and Casey Blake drew a walk before James Loney stroked an 86 mph offering over the right-field wall for his eighth homer and a 6-1 lead.
Russell Martin followed with a single and Orlando Hudson drew a walk, sending Fogg to the showers. Right-hander Juan Rincon, activated off the DL earlier in the day, came on and got out of the jam by inducing Rafael Furcal into a double-play.
But the damage was done and so were the Rockies.
Colorado got its only run on Ryan Spilborghs' eighth homer in the second before Wolf retired 14 of the next 16 batters he faced.
George Sherill got the last two outs of the eighth and Jonathan Broxton pitched the ninth for L.A.
NOTES: Rincon threw four hitless innings in relief, his longest stint since July 27, 2003, at Cleveland. ... Ethier has six multihomer games this season and eight in his career. ... Rincon, who had been on the DL since Aug. 1 with stiffness in his right elbow, grounded back to the pitcher in the fifth inning in his first at-bat since June 16, 2004, at Montreal.

FRANKFORT, Ky. – A judge says it's unconstitutional to require the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can't keep the state safe without God's help.
Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ruled Wednesday that the requirement in a state law violates the U.S. and Kentucky constitutions.
The Courier-Journal of Louisville reports that Wingate said the General Assembly created an official government position in the law that requires the office to acknowledge "the dependence on Almighty God." The AP was unable to get a copy of the ruling Wednesday.
Ten Kentucky residents and American Atheists Inc. challenged the statute in a the lawsuit last winter.
A spokeswoman for Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway says he has not yet decided whether to appeal.

CHICAGO – Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday the nation has never been closer to substantial health care overhaul despite "all the shouting and all the political turmoil" of recent weeks.
Biden said restraining costs and insuring more people should unite fiscal conservatives and advocates for the poor behind the Obama administration's efforts to fix what Biden called a broken system.
If he wanted to hear about troubles in health care, he and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius came to the right place. They got an earful from doctors and nurses attending a round-table discussion at a struggling nonprofit hospital serving the urban poor on Chicago's West Side.
A nurse said she worries about violent emergency room patients who throw bedpans and spit at her. A doctor from another hospital said she can't refer patients to dietitians to prevent diabetes because insurance won't pay for it. And a health researcher said black Chicagoans die needlessly because they are disadvantaged and uninsured.
Biden announced nearly $1.2 billion in grants to help the nation's hospitals and doctors put electronic health records to use. The grants will be funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.
Storing patient data electronically can improve efficiency and prevent medical errors, Biden said, adding he's tired of being handed paper forms to fill out every time he goes to the doctor.
"I get handed one more clipboard I feel like clanging somebody on the head," Biden said, prompting laughter from about 60 health care professionals in the audience. "How many times do I have to fill out, yeah, I had asthma, yeah, I had two craniotomies?"
Biden sidestepped the question of whether a public insurance option should be part of a final health care bill. He made only passing reference to foes who've challenged supporters of overhaul with charges of a government takeover.
"With all the shouting and all the political turmoil on this issue, I don't think we've ever been closer to being able to do something substantial" to improve health care, Biden said.
President Barack Obama has made expanding insurance coverage and restraining health care costs his top domestic priority. But he's lost ground on the issue in opinion polls and Democrats in Congress are preparing to go it alone on legislation although bipartisan talks continue in the Senate.
Thursday's event took place not at a flourishing medical center but at Mount Sinai Hospital, where only 7 percent of the hospital's patients have private insurance. The rest are covered by government programs or are uninsured. In August, the hospital had only 1.42 days of cash on hand, hospitals leaders said. Its bad debt, the bills left unpaid by patients, was $62.3 million last year.
Mount Sinai nurse Chere Hamilton, among the Chicago health care workers invited to speak during Biden's round-table, said the hospital's emergency room is "a very, very violent place."
"We're spit at. We're swung at. We're kicked," Hamilton said. "We have urinals thrown at us. We have bedpans thrown at us."
Biden responded: "You're doing God's work."
Biden and Sebelius both talked about their aging parents, Biden about his 92-year-old mother's broken hip and how her care was coordinated; Sebelius, who speculated her 88-year-old father couldn't remember all his medications, said an electronic record would help his doctors get it straight.
Of the stimulus money set aside for health information, $598 million would establish centers to help hospitals and clinics with technical aspects of choosing systems. Another $564 million would be set aside to help hospitals share patients' information.
After the Chicago meeting, Mount Sinai Chief Information Officer Peter Ingram said the grants are good news for his hospital.
"We are part way along the journey" in transferring to computer records, Ingram said. "We need all the help we can get in implementation."

Sebelius plans to visit Ohio State University Medical Center on Friday to discuss electronic medical records there.

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On the Net:

Office of Health Reform: http://www.healthreform.gov/

(This version CORRECTS RECASTS; UPDATES with Biden quotes other comments, background. corrects amount to $598 million, sted $589 million for technical assistance centers. ADDS background, byline.)