TOUGH BLAZE: Ventura County’s worst brush fire...

TOUGH BLAZE: Ventura County’s worst brush fire in years (A1) broke out in an area that firefighters dread. “If we had to have a fire, Ventu Park is the one place where we don’t want to have it,” county Assistant Fire Chief David Festerling said after a 1991 blaze just missed the area. . . . Ventu Park has narrow roads and inadequate water supplies, firefighters say. . . . And most of its 200 houses were built before the county banned wood-shake roofs.

PARTY VISITOR: For the first time in at least 20 years, the state Republican chairman is coming to Ventura County today to speak to local GOP leaders. . . . Tirso del Junco, a Los Angeles surgeon elected state Republican chief in February, will talk about the 1994 elections, county Chairman Bob Larkin said. . . . Local Republicans have raised $35,000 this year, nearly double their usual take. . . . They’ll spend some of it on a door-to-door registration drive starting next month.

THINNER THIGHS: Forget Haiti, Somalia and the Denny verdicts. For the body-conscious, last week’s big news was that study out of UCLA about an asthma cream that shrinks thighs (E1). . . . “Women are just obsessed about thighs,” said Kim Webster at Ventura’s Total Woman spa. “They try anything and do anything.” What works? Exercise and dieting, she said.