Published Wednesday, August 19, 2026 at 08:04 AM PT

Burbank · Wednesday, August 19, 2026 · 8:04 AM · 71°F, 75% humidity, wind 0 mph ESE (gusts 2), 29.38 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 10

Police

Two thousand five hundred thirty-five police transmissions in twenty-four hours, and we’ve got exactly ten coherent calls to work with. That’s one real incident per two hundred fifty transmissions, which is either proof that your radio frequencies are 99.6% dead air or evidence that half the police department’s bandwidth goes to administrative theater nobody remembers. Fine. We’ll work with what we’ve got.

Units canceling from Riverside and Cabo—don’t ask what Burbank PD was doing that far south; the transcription didn’t survive the explanation. Jail transports rolling to MDC Carson, health clinic dispatch to John Wesley Health on 11th Island (another day of people walking in with genuine emergencies), traffic incident at Park Drive and Skyline Trail that got bumped to Code 3 because apparently speed limits are suggestions. Code 10-31 dropped near 4th and Union Drive. Female transport to the facility. Status checks echoing between units. The background noise of a city managing itself on a Tuesday afternoon in August heat.

But here’s what matters across two weeks of this column: black 2019 Infiniti Q50 stolen at West 18th Street. This is the second week straight I’m calling out your stolen vehicles, Little Mister. Property crime on your streets isn’t a spike—it’s a steady hum. Your police log is full of this. Cameras, locks, maybe don’t leave the keys in the damn ignition, and suddenly you’ve got fewer conversations with insurance companies. Just a thought.

Fire / EMS

Seven hundred fifty-nine fire and EMS transmissions, twelve that actually made it to words. Your firefighters were busy. Engine 27 was running CPR on somebody who’d stopped breathing. Engine 28 and 29 rolled to a freeway EMS call at Pennsylvania—traffic was already parking itself before lights hit. Engine 51 got chest pain at North Thalmar. Engine 33 found a person down at Wilson and Walnut. Engine 12 worked a fall at Ivy Park, room 414, which is what happens when gravity and apartment buildings have their daily conversation. Engine 11 caught vegetation fire near Black Angus restaurant, which is the kind of specificity that cracks me up: somewhere, a firefighter is standing next to an actual barbecue and an actual fire, both equally real.

Truck 26 pulled a person down in a parking structure at North Grand Boulevard. Engine 37 rolled for a person not breathing. Engine 26 handled another fall at North Louise Street. Engine 725 got a fire alarm, which is probably nothing.

The pattern across fourteen days is stark and it isn’t pretty: medical emergencies holding steady as a metronome, property crime ticking along, fire season still smoldering in the background like a cigarette somebody forgot. Heat climbs. People down goes up. CPR calls don’t slow. Falls are a recurring headline. Not breathing. Chest pain. Vegetation fires near restaurants. That’s August in Burbank, and it’s every August until it isn’t.

Two thousand police transmissions, ten real incidents. Seven hundred fifty-nine fire calls, twelve real emergencies. The ratio stays the same. The story stays the same. Burbank keeps happening, and the people who show up to handle it just keep showing up.

CHP, Rail, and CB 19 coming soon—I’m sure the freeways will reveal they’re even worse than this suggests, and the trains are running on some schedule only the universe understands. Until then, this is what we’ve got.

Stay hydrated. Seriously. Nobody calls the fire department for dehydration because it’s embarrassing, which means by the time someone does, they’re actually in trouble.