Weather forecasters in Los Angeles expected fast, dry winds to return by the end of the weekend, threatening to fan wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 11 people.
Urgent “red flag” warnings – meaning critical fire conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said moderate to strong winds and low humidity would persist into Friday morning as five fires raged through the metropolis.
Barbara Bruderlin, head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, described the impact of the fires as “total devastation and loss.”
“There are areas where everything has disappeared. There isn’t even a piece of wood left. It’s just dirty,” Bruderlin said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been heavily criticized for her absence from the city during the first 24 hours of the crisis, when she was in Ghana as part of an official White House delegation for the inauguration of that country’s president. She came under attack from political rivals on the right, including Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass in the 2022 mayoral election but also drew criticism from the left, who accused the mayor of cutting the firefighting budget to defund the police to finance.
“Consistently withdrawing funding from other city programs to give the LAPD billions a year has consequences,” Ricci Sergienko, an attorney and organizer with People’s City Council LA, told the Intercept. “The city is not prepared for this fire, and Los Angeles should not be in that position.”
In an interview with Fox LA, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said a $17 million cut in her department’s funding and problems with water supplies to fire hydrants in the Palisades had undermined firefighters’ ability to respond to the fires.
“My message is that the fire department needs to be properly funded,” Crowley said. “It’s not that.” Fox LA reporter Gigi Graciette then asked Crowley three times, “Has the city of Los Angeles let you down?” After the third time, Crowley simply replied, “Yes.”
One public official who has chosen not to criticize Bass during the crisis is Los Angeles City Manager Kenneth Mejia, whose office highlighted cuts to the firefighting budget in October in a widely circulated graph showing a huge increase in spending for the police department and shows cuts. to other public services, including the fire brigade.
While his work was cited by critics of the mayor, Mejia, an activist accountant, wrote in a social media post: “As the city’s accountant, we implement the budget, account for your taxes and know the details of the city’s finances. We are happy to explain any questions you have about how this all works. BUT for now, we must focus on ensuring we can get through these catastrophic fires.”
Officials estimate the Palisades fire has wiped out at least 5,000 structures, including many homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where mansions along the Yellow Beaches were hollowed out and homes in the neighborhood’s canyons were reduced to dust.
Further east, at Altadena, the streets were also littered with fallen branches, while entire blocks of houses had simply disappeared. In some areas the destruction seemed almost indiscriminate, one resident said, with one house leveled while a neighboring home was still standing.
The dead include four men who were unable to leave or had stayed behind to defend their homes in Altadena, a community near Pasadena that is home to working- and middle-class families, including many black residents who have lived there for generations. Two of them were Anthony Mitchell, a 67-year-old amputee, and his son Justin, who had cerebral palsy. They were waiting for an ambulance when the flames broke through, Mitchell’s daughter, Hajime White, told the Washington Post.
“He had no intention of leaving his son behind. No matter what,” White said. White — who lives in Warren, Arkansas, and is Justin’s stepsister — said her father called her Wednesday morning and told her they had to evacuate because of the approaching flames. “Then he said, ‘I have to go – the fire is in the garden,’” she said.
In another incident, Shari Shaw told local media KTLA that she tried to get her 66-year-old brother, Victor Shaw, to evacuate, but he wanted to stay and fight the fire. His body was found with a garden hose in his hand.
Rodney Nickerson died in his bed at his Altadena home. The 82-year-old had been through numerous fires and felt he could wait it out at home, his daughter, Kimiko Nickerson, told KTLA.
Briana Navarro, who lived in Altadena with her grandmother, Erliene Kelley, told NBC News that Kelley died there after deciding not to evacuate the home where she had lived with the rest of the family for more than 40 years. “We decided to evacuate on Tuesday night, but my grandmother decided she wanted to stay,” Navarro wrote in a GoFundMe post. “After we left, I asked my dad to go to the house to check on her… and again she said she would stay home. She said, ‘It’s in God’s hands.’”
CNN reported that Annette Rossilli, who was 85, died in the Palisades fire after refusing to leave her home and pets behind, according to Luxe Homecare, a company that provided her with home care three times a week.
Officials have said they expect the death toll to rise.
Winds were likely to decrease Friday afternoon, the NWS said, but warned that an “extended period of elevated to potentially critical fire conditions is forecast for Sunday through Wednesday.”
Although the cause of the fires has yet to be determined, the New York Times reported that power lines near the Eaton and Palisades fires were not turned off before the fires broke out, “which energy experts said was concerning because electrical equipment often has hot spots ignite. during periods of high winds in California and elsewhere.”
Officials said Friday afternoon that they had had some success fighting the Kenneth fire, which broke out Thursday and grew to 1,000 acres. About 400 firefighters remained at the site overnight to prevent the fire from spreading, and by Friday it was about 50% contained.
Firefighting efforts in such tough conditions, with essentially no rain for months and no rain forecast in the coming days, have challenged crews and left the country’s second-largest city reeling.
The largest of the fires that raged in the LA area, the Palisades Fire, destroyed neighborhoods in the scenic hilltops. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website, the fire has burned more than 21,300 acres and only 8% has been “contained.”
Containment, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, refers to a “line of control” around an area of the fire that the flames are not allowed to pass through. So if a wildfire is described as 25% contained, firefighters have created control lines – usually wide trenches – around 25% of the fire’s perimeter. As soon as a fire is 100% under control, the fire brigade can start extinguishing it.
To the east, the Eaton Fire near Pasadena has burned more than 5,000 structures — a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles — across nearly 14,000 acres, and is only 3% contained.
The Hurst Fire in the hills above Sylmar, which was threatening the San Fernando Valley, was about 37% contained Friday morning and firefighters reported they had “successfully contained the fire north of the I-210 Foothill Freeway through control lines to achieve”.
The Los Angeles Fire Department lifted an evacuation order Friday afternoon in Granada Hills, northwest of downtown Los Angeles, after “firefighters combined with the aggressive attack by LAFD air operations” quickly contained the Archer Fire, which broke out Friday morning. , under control before any structures were damaged.
Man-made climate crisis is causing a massive increase in extreme weather around the world, including forest fires. In California, fire season now starts earlier and ends later.
More than 150,000 people remained under evacuation orders, and the fires have consumed about 57 square kilometers, an area larger than the city of San Francisco.
At least twenty arrests have been made for looting. Officials have imposed a mandatory curfew in evacuation zones and in the city of Santa Monica, which is next to Pacific Palisades.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
