Multiple fires continue to threaten the Los Angeles area, having already destroyed thousands of homes and taken at least 24 lives. One of the worst fire crises to ever hit the region began with a small blaze in the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood last Tuesday, and at least three active fires were still burning on Monday. Some 15,000 first responders are fighting the fires, countless residents have been forced to evacuate, Hollywood has been brought to a standstill, and the damage may already surpass $50 billion. Below are scenes and updates from the first week of the crisis.
Governor Gavin Newsom and other authorities say that they have prepared by carving containment lines around the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, as well as prepositioning firefighting resources in at-risk areas. The winds aren’t expected to be as extreme as they were a week ago, but will still be extremely dangerous.
According to current forecasts, the weather is then expected to improve dramatically (in terms of fire risk) by the end of the week.
Here’s what we know about the active fires as of Monday afternoon (Pacific time):
• The Palisades Fire is 14 percent contained (up from 11 percent on Sunday) and has burned 23,713 acres.
• The Eaton Fire is 33 percent contained (up from 27 percent on Sunday) and has burned 14,117 acres.
• The Hurst Fire is 95 percent contained and has burned 799 acres.
These fires have now been fully contained:
• The Kenneth Fire is 100 percent contained and burned 1,052 acres.
• The Archer Fire, which broke out Friday in Granada Hills but was quickly contained, burned 19 acres.
• The Lidia Fire is 100 percent contained and burned 395 acres.
• The now inactive Sunset Fire is 100 percent contained and burned 43 acres.
The president-elect’s team is reportedly considering a visit to L.A. to view the damage. It’s not clear if and when that would actually happen, but Governor Newsom and local L.A. county officials have invited him to come and see the devastation. Trump has repeatedly criticized state and local leaders, as well as President Biden — blaming them for what happened.
That’s one possibility according to footage captured by residents, per the L.A. Times:
Early photos and videos taken by residents captured what appeared to be the first flames of the deadly Eaton fire, burning at the base of a Southern California Edison electrical transmission tower before racing down the canyon toward homes. Howerton confirmed to The Times that the area had become a focus of their inquiry, but it is unclear what investigators have discovered. It is also unclear what other potential sources and locations are being studied. Southern California Edison officials have so far said they do not believe their electrical equipment was responsible.
Though it may be months until fire investigators determine the origin of the blaze, four lawsuits have already been filed against Southern California Edison by lawyers representing Altadena area homeowners.
CNN and the L.A. Times are collecting details about the victims as their identities are confirmed. So far, most of the identified victims are senior citizens.
It will likely be a while before the investigations into the sources of the L.A. County wildfires are concluded, but there is at least some evidence suggesting the Palisades fire may have started with a rekindling of a fire which began just after midnight on New Year’s Day near the same spot where videos show the Palisades fire broke out on January 7.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Lachman Fire — which is believed to have been started by fireworks — was reported early New Year’s Day, then fully contained by firefighters within hours, ultimately burning 8 acres. It’s possible that embers from the fire were still smoldering undetected, even though that is something firefighters work to prevent when they extinguish a wildfire, and then reemerged thanks to fire-favorable winds six days later:
“Yes, without a doubt,” Terry Taylor, a retired wildland fire investigator who now works as an instructor, said of the possibility. “These sorts of fuels, especially when they are dry, the fire goes deep down into the root structure, so you may not get it out even if you dump water on it.”
Official government reports and neighbors’ observations put both fires’ origins in the same brushy hillside between the Summit neighborhood of Pacific Palisades and a trail running behind the neighborhood in Topanga State Park. …
“An 8-acre fire in that fuel type is also consistent with potential re-kindle,” continued [Alan] Carlson, who headed Cal Fire’s Northern Region law enforcement division. “Gusty winds are consistent with hot materials blowing across control lines.”
Carlson also agreed with Taylor that smoldering embers, under the right conditions, could have rekindled even after six days.
Further, the morning report of fire on Jan. 7 is also consistent with a rekindle, he added.“During the night it is less likely to have been observed, could have smoldered for an extended period of time before going to flame as the winds picked up,” Carlson said.
On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that according to witness reports and its own visual analysis, the two fires did seem to overlap:
The Post identified the burn scar of the New Year’s Eve fire using false-color satellite imagery taken before and after the blaze. The technique tracks changes to vegetation in satellite imagery. Healthy plant cover appears red, while the scorched ground appears blue to brown.
In addition, satellite imagery taken Tuesday at 10:45 a.m., about 20 minutes after videos show the Palisades Fire began, indicates that the origin of the smoke overlapped with the burn scar from the New Year’s Eve fire. Smoke extends in the direction of the wind, to the south, away from the previously burned area.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the cause of the Palisades fire, and an ATF representative told the Chronicle that it was too early for such determinations or theorizing.
Meanwhile, sources who spoke with the Los Angeles Times indicated the Palisades fire may have had human origins:
Sources with knowledge of the investigation told The Times that officials are aware of the earlier fire and its general proximity to the Palisades fire. They are looking into whether that could be the cause. Because the area is frequented by the public, the sources said it’s possible a new fire was somehow sparked there on Tuesday. The earlier fire appears to be sparked by fireworks, officials said.
As for the Palisades fire, the sources — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly — said it appears to have human origins, but that the investigation is ongoing. They noted that area is frequented by hikers, teenagers and others.
NPR adds:
Forecasters predicted peak winds to be “strong enough to potentially cause explosive fire growth.” Red flag warnings have been issued through Wednesday. Wind gusts of 30 to 50 mph are expected with 50 to 75 mph wind gusts in wind-prone mountains and foothills through at least Tuesday, according to the NWS. …
LA City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley on Sunday told residents to stand ready to evacuate and to stay informed with official updates. Crowley called the still-raging fires “one of the most challenging natural events in the history of this city,” and warned, “it’s not over.”
Cal Fire said Sunday night that the west side of the fire had been contained, and thus stopped from expanding up the coast any further. Firefighters have also made gains in the north side of the fire, slowing it’s progress there, and over the weekend have been able to significantly slow its progress on the eastern side.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner announced on Sunday night that there were at least 16 deaths from the Eaton fire, and 8 from the Palisades fire. Authorities warn the death toll will continue to rise. L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said Sunday that at least 16 people were still missing as of Sunday night, 12 in the Eaton fire zone, and 4 in the Palisades fire zone, but that many more missing person reports had come in that morning, which they were still investigating.
L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said Sunday night that the discussion about repopulating the evacuation zones won’t happen until after the current red flag warning expires on Wednesday night. Some residents reportedly waited hours only to be denied access their neighborhoods on Sunday.
Nearly 30 arrests have been made in the evacuated areas over the past few days, mostly in Eaton fire zone.
In split screen:
Fire crews are continuing to make real progress against the L.A. fires. Thanks to more favorable weather conditions, a massive aerial assault, and brush clearing efforts on the ground along the northeastern front of the Palisades fire in Mandeville Canyon on Saturday, firefighters were able to restrict the fire’s growth toward homes in Encino and Brentwood. The Palisades fire is now 11 percent contained.
Firefighters have made substantial gains against the Eaton fire, as well. As of Sunday morning, it’s now 27 percent contained, up from 15 percent on Saturday. The progress has prompted authorities to lift or downgrade evacuation orders for multiple communities near the fire.
And one of the smaller blazes, the Kenneth fire, is now 100 percent contained.
But after Saturday’s respite, the forecast is far more worrisome over the coming days, as the Los Angeles Times notes:
Periods of elevated critical fire weather were expected to peak Saturday night into Sunday and then again Monday night through Tuesday as winds could gust up to more than 75 mph for the eastern part of the mountain ranges in Los Angeles County. Weather forecasters said the turbulent conditions could help push the Eaton fire in the Altadena area farther south.
“Our concern is winds picking up tonight and then on Monday through Wednesday,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Rose Schoenfield. “The general duration of this is not looking good.”
A red flag warning issued Saturday evening starting at 6 p.m. has been extended to Wednesday night, as well as a fire watch warning. Although Santa Ana wind events will affect the mountain and foothill communities of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, they will likely have a stronger impact for the Santa Susana Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains.
There’s also a chance that the winds could help in some cases, as Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brent Pascua explained to CNN on Saturday night:
There is a risk the next few days bring Santa Ana winds, which are hot, dry gusts that flow down the sides of mountains toward the California coast — and could jeopardize those firelines.
However, Pascua said, it could also change the direction of the fires. The Palisades fire has been moving east in the past day, pushing toward Interstate 405 — but Santa Ana winds can blow to the west. So if the winds do arrive, “it’s actually going to move (the fire) away from the freeway and head back towards the coast … it will blow this fire pretty much back onto itself,” he said.
That’s what happened in the Encino area on Saturday — shifting wind directions pushed the fire back “where there’s already (land) burned and there’s no fuel to burn,” helping crews contain the fire edge, he said.
Authorities announced on Saturday night that they have confirmed another five fatalities in Altadena from the Eaton fire. So far, 11 deaths have been linked to the Eaton fire, making it one of the deadliest wildfires in California history. There are currently five confirmed deaths from the Palisades fire. Both death tolls will likely rise.
Higher winds are still expected later Saturday. In the meantime firefighters in the air and on the ground are trying to save the homes along the fire’s eastern edge approaching the 405 freeway. Two homes were reportedly lost to the fire in the Mandeville Canyon area on Saturday.
This video, shared Friday on Instagram by someone who apparently risked their life to ride a motorcycle into the Pacific Palisades while the community was ablaze, is some of the scariest footage to emerge from the L.A. fires:
The governor announced Saturday that nearly 1,700 National Guard members will soon be deployed to assist local authorities, primarily at checkpoints preventing access to the fire-affected areas.
According to L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna, police have already made 27 arrests in the areas of the Palisades and Eaton fires, mostly for burglary, looting, and drug possession.
The Brentwood museum, which has a priceless art collection, is now in a mandatory evacuation zone, but has not yet suffered damage from the Palisades fire. The museum is engineered for this scenario, including fire-resistant building materials and a positive-pressure air system to defend against smoke damage.
The erroneous evacuation warning which went out to some 10 million people’s mobile phones in L.A. County on Thursday and Friday — regardless of whether they were in threatened areas or not — was the result of a software glitch, L.A. County’s Office of Emergency Management director Kevin McGowan said on Saturday. The L.A. Times reports:
To ensure the issue doesn’t continue, the county on Friday began transitioning from a county-run platform to a state system, operated by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, for any future emergency alerts that ping cellphones in a designated geographic area.
“We believe this process is largely complete and we are working with federal partners and providers to ensure there is not a recurrence of the alerts going out in error,” McGowan said.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Saturday that more than a dozen people have been reported missing amid the fires, and that specialized search and rescue teams are searching burned areas for remains. At least 11 people are confirmed dead from the fires, and authorities have repeatedly said that they expect that total to rise.
Fire tornadoes:
The fire is, as of Saturday morning, 11 percent contained after firefighters made more progress against the the city’s largest blaze. But despite calmer weather, the Palisades fire also expanded on Friday night along its northeastern side, forcing authorities to change an evacuation warning to an evacuation order for residents in Brentwood and the San Fernando Valley, as well as issue new evacuation warnings for others. Per the Los Angeles Times:
The latest order is in effect from Sunset Boulevard north to Encino Reservoir, and from the 405 Freeway west to Mandeville Canyon — an area that includes the Getty Center museum as well as Brentwood and the foothills of the San Fernando Valley.
New evacuation warnings were issued for areas to the east of the 405 Freeway, north of West Sunset Boulevard and south of Mulholland Drive, along with areas south of Ventura Boulevard and east of Louise Avenue in Encino.
Saturday still looks like the best opportunity firefighters will get to contain the Palisades and Eaton fires. And next week’s forecast is worrisome. The New York Times reports:
The current cycle of Santa Ana winds began on Tuesday with the first of four wind events that are expected to continue into next week and likely beyond, fostering fire activity and hampering firefighting efforts.
The second event began Friday morning, and it was expected to diminish by Friday afternoon. It was slightly weaker than the first, but it still brought winds of 80 to 90 miles per hour to the mountains of Southern California.
Afterward, a projected window of about 18 hours of relative calm, which is expected to last into Saturday, may be the best break firefighters have had in helping to contain the outbreak of fires in Los Angeles.
A third round of winds, with gusts about as strong as Friday’s, is expected to last from Saturday into late Sunday morning or early Sunday afternoon. Even with the slightly weaker Santa Ana wind events, gusts could still spread fires farther, and fire danger will remain elevated.
While the intensity of the winds may ebb and flow over the weekend, with another brief lull projected for Sunday into Monday morning, forecasters are concerned with a fourth wind event that is set to begin on Monday and last through Wednesday.
On Thursday, Los Angeles authorities reported that a firefighting plane had to be grounded after it collided with a civilian drone, an incident that is now being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration. For Intelligencer, Jeff Wise took a look at the risk that the increasingly popular personal aircraft can pose to firefighting efforts:
Under normal circumstances, operators can fly their drones at altitudes of up to 400 feet so long as they can maintain a line of sight on the vehicle. This keeps them far below where most airplanes operate except when taking off or landing. Firefighting aircraft are different, however. To place their loads most effectively water bombers need to get down close to the fire. To keep drones and other aircraft out of their way, the FAA establishes no-fly zones called Temporary Flight Restrictions, or TFRs, where wildfire fighting is taking place. It established a TFR over the Palisades fire on January 9 that is currently scheduled to run until January 23.
During a Friday briefing, Los Angeles County sheriff Robert Luna announced that a curfew has been instituted for the Palisades and Eaton fire evacuation zones. The 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew has been enacted in order to deter looting and other crimes that have occurred since the fires. Luna said that anyone caught in the zones in violation of the curfew is subject to arrest and could face a fine of $1,000 or even jail time.
“I’ve given direction that if somebody’s caught doing this, they are not gonna get cited and released. They’re gonna get booked. We are not screwing around with this,” he said. “We don’t want anyone taking advantage of our residents that have already been victimized.”
The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that authorities have arrested at least 20 people on suspicion of looting in the evacuated areas. Governor Gavin Newsom has since announced that he had approved a Los Angeles County request for California National Guard troops, deploying 8,000 personnel to assist both with fighting fires and public safety. “Taking advantage of evacuated communities is absolutely sick. Looting will not be tolerated,” he wrote on social media.
L.A. County district attorney Nathan Hochman also warned residents to stay vigilant about potential scammers who may be using the fire to solicit donations for fraudulent GoFundMes and similar fundraisers. “My message to the public is ‘Beware,’” he said.
As the fires have continued unabated, so have the members of the paparazzi who have stayed behind in the hopes of snapping photos of the celebrities as they flee their multimillion dollar homes. Vulture’s Chris Lee spoke to the owners of two agencies who differ on whether this move by some photographers is enterprising or cynical. Giles Harrison, founder of London Entertainment Group, says it’s the latter:
Anybody who’s risking life and limb to get a paparazzi shot in this situation, there’s something wrong with them. I know what the strategy is. They want photos of celebs picking up the pieces, somebody returning to the ruins of their house and showing the destruction the celebrities are facing, which, yeah, in and of itself is a news story. But I ain’t risking my life for it.
Read the rest here.
The two largest fires this week, the Eaton fire and the Palisades fire, have burnt down as many as 10,300 structures in Los Angeles as of Friday morning, according to city officials. The term “structure” used by officials includes individually-standing houses, apartment buildings, commercial buildings, outbuildings (like a barn or unattached garage), and vehicles, according to LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone.
The Palisades fire has burned over 5,300 structures in the regions of Pacific Palisades and Malibu, including several churches, seven schools, and a number of beachfront mansions along the scenic Pacific Highway. As of Thursday night, Marrone stated that the Eaton fire had “damaged or destroyed” somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 structures. Among the areas facing significant damage is Altadena, a historically Black neighborhood where around 1,000 structures have burned.
On Thursday afternoon and again early Friday morning, an unknown number of L.A. residents were sent erroneous evacuation warnings, which then sent officials scrambling to refute them. Per the Los Angeles Times:
The first mass alert went out Thursday afternoon, and residents reported getting more of them Friday morning. The errors have heightened tensions around the city that is already on edge after unprecedented fires that have damaged or destroyed more than 9,000 homes.
After the Thursday afternoon blast, the city Emergency Management Department said the alert was sent “in ERROR.” “Evacuation orders have not changed,” the department said in a post on X.
Residents across the metropolitan area — from Long Beach to Echo Park and beyond — received the alert, which did not appear to discriminate by distance from any particular fire.
“This is an emergency message from the Los Angeles County Fire Department,” the notice read. “An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area.”
High winds returned on Thursday night, but were expected to abate during the day on Friday, which is also forecast to be the last day of the current red flag warning. That will give firefighters a crucial opportunity to make more progress against the fires — especially the largest and most destructive Palisades and Eaton fires — before high wind gusts are expected to return on Sunday.
A firefighting plane was knocked out of service on Thursday after it collided with a civilian drone, puncturing a wing of the plane. The FAA is investigating the incident.
Another small fire, designated the Kenneth fire, began Thursday afternoon north of the Palisades fire in Ventura County, and quickly grew to a size of nearly 1,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders near Calabasas, but those orders were lifted Friday morning.
Authorities and residents are still assessing the damage thus far. At least 10 people have now been confirmed killed by the fires, and the estimated number of homes and other structures destroyed is now over 9,000.
Jeff Wise writes about California’s forever war:
If the modern approach to handling wildfires is to fight them like wars, they will be the kind of wars that never end. Every rain brings more growth that will someday become fuel; every drought makes that fuel dryer and more prone to combust. Every place that burns will eventually burn again, sometimes sooner than you’d think. Pacific Palisades last had a big fire in 2021, when over 1,200 acres burned. This week’s fire has burned 17,000 acres and counting.
As global warming intensifies, overlapping burns are going to become more commonplace, along with every other kind of wildfire. “There’s a widespread consensus in the fire and climate communities that there’s going to be more fire on the landscape as we go through the 21st century,” says [wildfire expert Dr. Daniel] Swain. A recent study found that in some areas the risk of very large wildfires could increase by up to sixfold in some areas.
Climate change is only part of the reason. Another is the relentless drive of human beings to find new places to live, which in California tends to mean building on steep, verdant slopes — the very terrain that’s most likely to go up in flames. “There’s now, today, a lot more people living in harm’s way than there used to be,” Swain says.
Read the rest of Jeff’s report here.
Ugh. A shortwave infrared image captured yesterday by Maxar:
Like a bomb went off, indeed:
City officials updated the media during a briefing Thursday morning, sharing details about the ongoing fires in Southern California. Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristen Crowley said damage assessments for the Palisades fire are still ongoing, but the estimated number of structures damaged or destroyed in the blaze is believed to be “in the thousands.”
“It is safe to say that the Palisades fire is one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles,” Crowley said.
Though a specific cause for the multiple fires was not given, the fire chief confirmed that they’re all “under an active investigation.”
As Dr. Daniel Swain points out on X:
On Wednesday evening, L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna confirmed that five people have died in the Eaton Fire, updating the death toll from the two previously reported fatalities. Speaking with reporters on Thursday, Luna added that some parts of the city “look like a bomb was dropped in them.” He did not speculate about how high the death toll would rise. “Frankly, we don’t know yet,” he said.
Curbed’s Adriane Quinlan spoke with publisher Zibby Owens about the tragic and uniquely modern experience of watching the Palisades fire encroach upon her California home from thousands of miles away in New York City:
This is usually on television. It’s not your stuff. It’s not your home. But to actually see flames in my yard was very scary and very surreal. Like, Wow. My house is gonna be gone. I’m in my 60s and I had been trying to get to a place of having more time and working less, and now I’ll have to deal with all of this. I’m a contractor. I do retrofits to make buildings more energy efficient. But the thought of having to rebuild my own house — the effort and all of that — is overwhelming. And where am I gonna live? Thirty thousand people have evacuated, so what kind of rental opportunities are gonna be in this area?
Read the rest here.
Firefighters have made solid progress against the Sunset Fire which broke out in the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday, and authorities lifted all the evacuation orders in Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills on Thursday morning.
Climate reporter Lucy Sheriff wrote a first-person account for Intelligencer of what she saw as she and her neighbors fled their homes as the flames approached:
Being inside made me panic, as I couldn’t see how close the flames were, so I went outside and grabbed a hose to spray down the outside of my condo, my neighbor’s condo, trees, anything I thought could catch fire, even though it felt futile. Unlike most of the Palisades, we all rent. I bumped into another neighbor who was packing a few things but said she wasn’t going to leave until she heard more, having already wasted a half tank of gas grinding through four miles of traffic.
As I was talking to her, my partner showed up with the car. I have no idea how he got through. We packed an overnight bag and threw everything else into the car. He took backroads down to Temescal Canyon, which an hour later was covered in downed powerlines and surrounded by an inferno on either side. We drove 30 miles to a friend’s house in La Crescenta. When I got there, my neighbor texted me that she had left about an hour after I did, driving through flames and ash to escape. She also told me that Pali High, the iconic school just a few blocks from our homes, was on fire.
It finally hit me that we might not have a home to go back to and that I was going to be pregnant and homeless. My partner and I started remembering things we had left behind — my grandfather’s chain and a pre-digital picture of my partner and his dad that he’d never be able to get back. Then we watched our neighborhood burn to the ground, live on TV.
The Los Angeles Fire Department is lifting evacuation orders for a portion of Hollywood Hills impacted by the Sunset Fire.
“At 7:30AM, the closed section of the Sunset Fire, area North of Franklin, will be OPEN and all evacuation orders LIFTED. We will still have LAFD companies working in the area and ask you to be careful while returning to your homes,” the agency said Thursday morning.
The National Weather Service said that fire weather conditions will continue Thursday with 20-30 mph winds and wind gusts of 40-60 mph predicted. “Significant fire growth remains likely with ongoing or new fires,” a social media post read.
Derek Van Dam, a meteorologist for CNN, said that though the winds have died down this morning compared to Wednesday, that is expected to change as the day progresses. “There was some relaxation in the Santa Ana winds, but we do anticipate that to pick up in intensity through the course of the day,” he told the outlet.
A sixth fire erupted in the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening. The Los Angeles Times describes the frantic effort to combat the growing inferno and stop another one:
Weary Los Angeles firefighters were dispatched to fight two new blazes that erupted Wednesday night — a fast-growing brush fire that prompted chaotic evacuations near the Hollywood Hills and a structure fire in Studio City.
The Sunset fire was reported at 2350 N. Solar Drive in the Hollywood Hills shortly after 5:30 p.m. and spread to 60 acres by 9:25 p.m., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fire created massive traffic jams as residents rushed to evacuate the densely populated area below Runyon Canyon.
Then shortly before 9 p.m., the LAFD responded to a call for a structure fire at a four-story home at 3656 N. Sunswept Drive in Studio City.
Aerial footage captured by KTLA-TV showed firefighting crews blasting water at burning structures situated on winding hillside roads with lots of surrounding vegetation in Studio City. More than 50 firefighters had knocked down that fire by 10 p.m., according to the LAFD.
President Biden, less than two weeks before he leaves office, canceled a trip to Italy where he planned to meet Pope Francis and the leaders of Italy and Ukraine, due to the growing crisis in Los Angeles. Following a trip to the city on unrelated business, he approved a major disaster declaration.
According to Cal Fire’s current numbers, the Palisades fire has burned 15,832 acres as of Wednesday afternoon around 1:23 p.m. PST. Similarly, the Eaton fire has claimed 10,600 acres while the Hurst fire has destroyed 505 acres. Neither of the three fires have been contained.
President Biden revealed during a briefing with California officials that his son Hunter has been impacted by the raging wildfires.
“My son lives out here with his wife — they got a notification yesterday that their home was probably burned to the ground,” Biden said, per CBS News. “Today, it appears that maybe it’s still standing. They’re not sure.”
The Associated Press reports that the Pacific Palisades fire, that sparked the subsequent blazes across the region, is the most destructive in Los Angeles city history.
There was so much demand on the hydrant system at the heart of the fire that firefighters on Tuesday night were running out of water coming from hydrants in the Palisades, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure,” Los Angeles Department of Water and Power chief executive Janisse Quiñones told the paper. The hydrants in the area rely on three tanks with roughly 1 million gallons each. All three had run out by 3 a.m. Wednesday. Quiñones added that additional tanks have been rushed to the area to get the hydrant system operating.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Governor Newsom has canceled his scheduled trip to Washington, D.C., to attend the funeral of former president Jimmy Carter at the National Cathedral due to the ongoing fires in California. He previously was slated to appear alongside President Biden during his visit to the state on Tuesday, but ultimately called it off as the fires began that day.
CNN reports that Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass will soon be returning to the city. “The mayor will be on the ground shortly,” Celine Cordero, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff said at a press conference.
Bass had traveled out of the country to attend the inauguration of Ghana’s new president, per a local ABC affiliate.
In 2019, David Wallace-Wells wrote a cover story (“Living With Fire”) warning of the fires to come in Los Angeles based on the fall 2018 fires that surprised many Angelenos.
“No one will ever be honest about this, but firefighters have never stopped a wildfire powered by Santa Ana winds,” the environmental historian Mike Davis told me earlier this spring, as we toured hills ravaged by past fires and — redeveloped and reinhabited in their wake — haunted now by future ones. “All you can hope for is that the wind will change.”
Already, the fires are different. Cal Fire used to plan for wind events that could last as long as four days; now it plans, and enlists, for 14. The infernos bellowed by those winds once reached a maximum temperature of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, Cal Fire’s Angie Lottes says; now they reach 2,100 degrees, hot enough to turn the silica in the soil into glass. Fires have always created their own weather systems, but now they’re producing not just firestorms but fire tornadoes, in which the heat can be so intense it can pull steel shipping containers right into the furnace of the blaze. Certain systems now project embers as much as a mile forward, each seeking out more brush, more trees, new eaves on old homes, like pyromaniacal sperm seeking out combustible eggs, which lie everywhere. In at least one instance, a fire has projected lightning storms 21 miles ahead — striking in the right place, these ignite yet more fire. “California is built to burn,” the fire historian Stephen Pyne tells me. “It is built to burn explosively.”
President Joe Biden, who is currently in California, is scheduled to receive a briefing on the ongoing blazes in Santa Monica.
Vice-President Kamala Harris’s California neighborhood was under an evacuation order last night. “No one was in her home at the time. She and the Second Gentleman are praying for the safety of their fellow Californians, the heroic first responders, and Secret Service personnel,” a spokesperson for the vice-president said.
President-elect Donald Trump used the California wildfires as a moment to attack Governor Gavin Newsom, a longtime foe whom he blamed for the ongoing blazes. In a TruthSocial post, Trump said Newsom’s water policies resulted in the dry conditions that allowed the fires to spread.
“A true disaster!” he said.
The Santa Ana winds that caused the firestorm this week are famous for coming in from Southern California and blowing offshore. So far, that means that the smoke from the thousands of burning acres has been pushed away from Los Angeles and over the ocean. But as the Santa Ana winds are expected to die down on Wednesday, models from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that smoke is expected to blanket much of metro Los Angeles by early Wednesday afternoon. As of 8 a.m. local time on Wednesday, air-quality sensors throughout much of Los Angeles are reporting air-quality index counts north of 200, the level considered to be “very unhealthy” for all people.
Jay Feinman, an insurance expert at Rutgers Law School, says that the fires in Los Angeles will be the latest front in a long fight between insurers and California homeowners. “A number of larger insurers have actually pulled out of the state or areas of California because it was just too expensive,” Feinman said on Wednesday. “Over the last six months, the state and insurers sat down, and there was a compromise of sorts, in which insurers will have to continue to insure some large number of homeowners who are at risk, but in exchange, the state regulators will permit them to use more sophisticated models than they have in the past to predict their losses. So, people will be able to get insurance, but premiums become much more expensive because the losses are just that much higher.”
As of Wednesday morning, the Southern California wildfires span more than 5,000 acres across the region. Per the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Palisades fire has burned 2,925 acres while the Eaton fire near Altadena has destroyed 2,227 acres. The Hurst fire that began in Sylmar has consumed 505 acres. Though those four blazes are currently listed as zero percent contained, the department has completely contained the smaller Woodley fire in the San Fernando Valley, which burned 75 acres.
On Tuesday, the Getty Villa, the famed art museum, confirmed that its grounds had caught fire. In a statement shared on social media, the museum said trees and vegetation surrounding the structure had burned, but that both the staff and its collection of Greek and Roman antiquities remained safe.
X users shared videos on the platform that appeared to show flames encroaching on the Villa de Leon mansion located near the museum.
Residents in the red zone are under mandatory evacuation orders, while those in the yellow regions are being warned to evacuate due to “potential threat to life and/or property.”
With the fires still burning out of control, it’s currently unknown how many structures have been destroyed as a result of the blazes. The Associated Press reports that officials did not give a specific tally on the possible damage, but Governor Newsom said in remarks Tuesday evening that he saw “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”
The National Weather Service has issued a high-wind warning that will remain in effect until 6 p.m. PT on Wednesday, featuring north winds of 30 to 40 mph with gusts of up to 60 miles per hour. According to the warning, the highest chances of “strong and damaging winds” will be in the Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, and near the Sepulveda Pass. Sixty-mile-per-hour winds would be a decrease for many areas, as the National Weather Service indicates.
The windstorm has been the primary driver of the fires so far, but once the winds die down, it will still take time to put out the remaining blazes. The Palisades fire, for example, had spread to 3,000 acres as of Wednesday morning.
Videos from local media in California taken Tuesday show the intensity of the Palisades fire, with residents trapped in their homes by walls of flames.
Another clip shows the enormous reach of the blaze, the damage spreading across acres and acres of land.
Santa Monica at 4:15 p.m. PT
Pacific Palisades at 4:00 p.m. PT
Pacific Palisades at 3:20 p.m. PT
Santa Monica at 3:00 p.m. PT
More on the fires
- ‘My Community Is Gone. It’s Just a Curse That My House Is There.’
- Pictures of a Ruined City
- How Is Hollywood Impacted by the L.A. Wildfires?
