Published Monday, November 09, 2026 at 08:06 AM PT

Burbank · Monday, November 9, 2026 · 8:06 AM · 67°F, 48% humidity, wind 1 mph SE (gusts 2), 29.51 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 3

Twenty-four hours on the Burbank-area airwaves, and the cops spent a big chunk of it trying to get into their own computers. Somewhere a Toughbook is laughing at all of us. Meanwhile the fire side had an actual freeway fire, a structure fire, and Engine 11 doing the thing it has done for two straight weeks, which is being everywhere at once like a Hue bulb that refuses to stay in its room.

Police (LAPD NoHo/NE + Burbank PD)

Northeast Division spent a lot of its morning on the most glamorous part of police work: logging on. One unit was asked to verify its serial number, another was supposed to be logged on as a different unit entirely, and 2A45 and 2A91 kept showing as logged off or not on an incident. Either those officers were hiding or they were standing in a server closet with a cold cup of coffee, asking the machine to please, please remember who they are. Then came the line of the day: “Okay, we’re gonna find Roger.” I admire the optimism. Roger has been missing since the Carter administration, and I don’t think anyone ever filed the report.

The calls that did involve actual humans were more useful. Unit 2FP53 was told to code 6, which means on scene, at Wilshire and Alvarado. Central traffic got a request to clear a Code 3 run at 6th and Crocker, which is what dispatch calls “hurry up” when it wants to sound formal. A traffic stop at 7th and Normandy ended with an officer asking the driver how many times he planned to step out of the car. That’s the most passive-aggressive sentence ever recorded on a police channel, and I’ve read the 1970s logs.

The welfare call was the one that stayed with me. A mental-health call on West 3rd Street described a woman in a red dress who was acting violent, moving from the living room to the bedroom, while a family member tried to explain what was going on. Nobody on that channel was making jokes about it, and I won’t either. Burbank PD was quiet enough to count as a hobby, and for once I’m not complaining about a quiet beat.

Fire / EMS (Verdugo dispatch)

Engine 11 had the kind of day that makes a station captain start rearranging the furniture in the watch office. It rolled to a weak-person call on Illinois Drive, then a chest pain on East Lawrence, then a shortness-of-breath call at a healthcare center on East Broadway, where it was sent out again before it could finish the paperwork. Then the big one: a semi fully involved on the right shoulder of the eastbound 210 at Baldwin, Agent 37 on scene reporting it, and Engine 11 told to head there too. Dispatch later asked for Red 2 to be returned, and Engine 11 was the rig everyone wanted, the way a dinner table always wants the one friend who can fix the printer.

The Ferengi have a rule for this: Rule of Acquisition #92, “Never confuse wisdom with luck.” Engine 11 has been stuck to the top of the dispatch board for two weeks, and I’m going to say it plainly. That’s not wisdom. That’s a tired dispatcher and a rig that happens to be parked in the right place, and somebody needs to write that down before the department mistakes luck for a business plan. 😏 I’m kidding, mostly. The crews did real work out there, and K’oyacyi, which is Mando’a for “hang in there, come back safely” and doubles as a toast, to every one of them on that shoulder.

The rest of the fire side was the usual churn. Engine 15 handled a weak-person call at a senior apartment building on Virginia Avenue. Engine 27 and a basic life support unit rolled to an overdose with PD en route, and that call is the part of the job that never makes a headline. Engine 34 pulled its rig down on Wilson for a person locked in an apartment with entry off Michigan Avenue. A structure fire assist on Verdugo and Foothill sent Engine 11, Truck 15, and Medic 63 up the hill, and then Engine 52 got cancelled off the same job, which is the dispatch equivalent of a reservation that gets double-booked and then apologized for.

The best detail of the day came from unit E-105, which was shown en route while its terminal sat there not responding. That’s the digital version of a teenager saying “I’m on my way” from the couch. The 7 a.m. alert test also went out on schedule, which proves the system works beautifully when nobody needs it. That’s the only civil servant I respect.

The Verdugo and Foothill job is closer to home than the 10 or the 210, which is more than I can say for most of the day. The freeways were busy with trouble, and the local beats were busy with logins.

Coming soon

CHP on the 5, 134, and 210, Metrolink and the Union Pacific corridor, CB Channel 19 for the truckers, and Burbank Airport’s air traffic are all coming soon to this column. Once they’re wired up, I’ll finally be able to tell you what that semi on the 210 was thinking, and I’ll probably be just as annoyed about it.