HEAVY FLAK: County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, noting...

HEAVY FLAK: County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, noting the outcry over delays in using Air National Guard planes to fight the brush fires, drew heavy flak for suggesting returning a Guard unit from Ventura to its old home at Van Nuys Airport (B4). . . . Anti-noise groups groaned at the reopening of an old wound. The Guard, which spent $64 million on its new base, noted that it was red tape that kept tankers on the ground--and at 300 m.p.h., Ventura is as close as Van Nuys.

VULTURE’S END: And then there were four. With the loss of a bird that flew into a Castaic power line, half of the eight California condors released in Ventura County last year have died (B4). Officials accept random death as the price of life in the wild, but will try to move the survivors to a more remote area.

YOUNG AND DEAD: Youth and mortality, a fateful combination, was on the minds of young drama students in the Valley after 23-year-old actor River Phoenix died outside a Sunset Strip nightclub, a reminder that their age is no protection (B1). “You think it’s never going to happen to you,” said 17-year-old Melanie Walker, a Monroe High School senior, above.

LEARNING FIRST CLASS: In top private schools, first-graders use computers and do research. There are teachers for every 10 or 20 students. Well-tended grounds surround graffiti-free buildings. Although this costs $6,000 to $10,000 a year, even the toniest private schools must nick parents for more in fund-raising drives. The finances of the best schools. See Valley Business, page 10.

FIRE, POWER: The DWP had bad news and good on that weekend fire at a converter station in Reseda (B1). Bad: $25 million to $30 million in damage, the most expensive DWP loss since the Sylmar earthquake of 1971. Good: The bill falls mostly on the manufacturer of new equipment that failed, not on customers.