FLARING UP: At first it looked as...

FLARING UP: At first it looked as if fires had killed two Ventura County women. Then investigators found that one had been strangled first (B1). . . . Even so, the county’s 1993 fire toll is the highest in three years--with nearly five months to go. Two of the deaths were blamed on smoking. Another frequent fire starter: electrical overloads, a county Fire Department spokesman said. “We have more appliances, but some houses are not designed to handle them.”

ADOPT-A-STREET: Some fear the Baby Jessica affair will put a chill on adopting children, but there’s no stopping the adopt-a-government-responsibility trend that’s sweeping Ventura County. Simi Valley hopes donors will assume city street-cleaning costs--in exchange for signs paying tribute to the benefactors (B5). . . . The law of supply and demand favors the city: Caltrans says its local Adopt-a-Highway program is just about adopted out.

STILL RUNNING: With a nervous glance over his shoulder, Dr. Richard Kimble is on the lam again with today’s opening of “The Fugitive” (F1). . . . Though their case lacks anything as outre as a one-armed man, Ventura County has its own most-wanted fugitives: Salvador and Felipe Villasenor, brothers suspected of gunning down their mother’s boyfriend in 1984. The pair was questioned shortly after Alejandro Orozco’s body was found, Sheriff’s Lt. Kathy Kemp said. Then they vanished. “They told friends they had to leave the country.” Last trace: a phone call from Guadalajara, Mexico.

DRUG LORDS: After soaring for years, drug stocks plummeted amid worries over Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan. That hasn’t stopped Amgen. Fortune magazine just ranked the Thousand Oaks biotech giant the nation’s 23rd fastest-growing company, and last month Amgen said second-quarter profits surged 40%. . . . Thousand Oaks planners just approved three new buildings, part of a 1-million-square-foot expansion.