818 Roundup: Fire updates, Glendale seeks artists, Glendale PD recruitment troubles

Good morning, 818 readers! Today is Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014. Temperatures will drop slightly from the last few days, with a high of 79 and a low of 48, according to forecasters at the National Weather Service.

Here’s the round-up of the top news items in the region:

• Firefighters battling the Colby Fire near Glendora and Azusa took advantage of cooler temperatures and calmer winds Saturday to make progress against the flames, according to KTLA. The final mandatory evacuation orders were lifted for residents at 6 p.m., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
  

• A Glendale man was arrested Friday night after he allegedly started and quickly put out a small blaze, which a police helicopter spotted on a fire road east of the 2 Freeway, officials said.

• Glendale officials are seeking proposals from artists who want to paint murals on 26 utility boxes to brighten up downtown Glendale.

• The Glendale Police Department has led an exhaustive search to find qualified candidates to fill its 21 vacancies for sworn officers, but hiring them has not been easy. While the department has received thousands of applications from candidates looking to become officers, many of them don’t move on because they can’t pass an extensive background check.

• Bus and train fares could more than double over the next eight years, under a Metro proposal aimed at plugging a $36 million annual gap that was released late Friday.

-- Sameea Kamal, sameea.kamal@latimes.com

Follow on Twitter: @SameeaKamal.