California Los Angeles Wildfires Highlights: Heavy winds ratchet up pressure as 6 mn people under critical fire threat

The southern California wildfires remain hard to control amid the current high winds, but firefighters are making progress and the fires haven’t spread very much over the past couple of days.

Altogether the wildfires in the Los Angeles area have burned roughly 164 square kilometers and damaged or destroyed more than 12,000 structures.

The Eaton Fire that devastated Altadena and the surrounding area was 45 per cent contained as of Wednesday morning.

Cal Fire said firefighters have also made some progress battling the larger Palisades fire.

That fire is now about 19 per cent contained. The smaller Hurst Fire is now 97 per cent contained after burning 2.6 square kilometres.

The newest fire known as the Auto Fire is 47 per cent contained. Firefighters need better weather to fight California’s flames.

As if they aren’t already facing enough, firefighters in California also could encounter fire tornadoes — a rare but dangerous phenomenon in which wildfires create their own weather.

The National Weather Service warned Tuesday that the combination of high winds and severely dry conditions have created a “particularly dangerous situation” in which any new fire could explode in size.

The advisory, which runs into Wednesday, didn’t mention tornadoes, but meteorologist Todd Hall said they’re possible given the extreme conditions.

As wildfires burn, GoFundMe becomes a repository of harrowing stories

As California’s massive wildfires burn, a barrage of GoFundMe campaigns for victims have become an outlet for onlookers transfixed by the blazes and eager to do something to help.

Those appeals for help — plastered with photos of saffron flames or the charcoal aftermath or, most of all, the faces of the people at the center of the plea — are personalizing a tragedy too big to comprehend.

“I feel connected in a strange way to all these people that I don’t know,” says Rachel Davies, a 27-year-old writer in New York, who went through hundreds of GoFundMe’s wildfire campaigns and felt drawn in to stories of strangers, donating to fundraisers for landscapers, housekeepers and a cook.

Davies was moved by the little details of victims’ stories — like the fact that someone lost their home just as they were bringing a baby home from the hospital — and compiled and circulated a list of GoFundMe sites, thinking others would feel the same and be spurred to donate.

“Those stories,” Davies says, “will stick with me.”?

-AP

A yellow fire hydrant stands in the ruins of a devastated home, as the Eaton Fire continues, in Altadena, California. (Reuters Photo)

California Governor Karen Bass shared an emergency contact on X to help find and retrieve pets in evacuation areas.

Bass wrote

Wind speeds increased Tuesday, with gusts between 40 to 64 kph across coastal and valley areas and some isolated gusts up to 100 kph in the mountains, said Todd Hall, a National Weather Service forecaster.

Winds were ramping up, with the potential for more powerful gusts across the mountains into coastal and valley areas.

A red-flag warning already has been in effect, but the weather service has issued a rare warning about a “particularly dangerous situation” related to severe fire conditions.

Strong winds are predicted through Wednesday, forecasters said.

The Santa Ana winds have turned seasonal wildfires into infernos that have levelled neighbourhoods in and around Los Angeles where there has been no significant rainfall in over eight months.

Southern California’s winds typically flow onshore from the Pacific, carrying moist air onto land.

The Santa Ana winds are warm currents that move in the opposite direction. They usually occur from September through May.

LA County Recovers, a government-run program, posted interactive maps on its website that show the damage.

The maps for the Eaton and Palisades fires allow users to click on an icon and get a description of the type of structure, such as a home or commercial building, and the type of damage, such as “major” or “destroyed.”

Addresses may be entered into a search bar to find a specific location. Users can also see photos of the damaged buildings.

Flames have threatened and burned through several highly populated neighbourhoods over the past week, including Pacific Palisades, Altadena and others.

Officials on Monday lowered the number of people under evacuation orders from about 150,000 to under 100,000.

However, they cautioned that more evacuations could be ordered when high winds return.

Cal Fire reported containment of the Palisades Fire at 14% and the Eaton Fire at 33% as of Monday morning.

The Kenneth Fire, which broke out near West Hills in the San Fernando Valley, was completely contained, while the Hurst Fire was 95% contained.

More than 80,000 customers, more than half in Los Angeles County, were without power across California on Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.

Sewer, water and power infrastructure across the region has been significantly damaged, officials said.

Thousands have fled and many have lost their homes, including Hollywood stars Billy Crystal and Mandy Moore, and Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick.

Investigators haven't determined the cause. But a person whose home was destroyed in the Eaton blaze claims in a lawsuit filed Monday that Southern California Edison’s equipment sparked it.

Gabriela Ornelas, an Edison spokesperson, said the utility is aware that a lawsuit has been filed, but has not yet reviewed it.

Lightning is the most common source of fires in the US, according to the National Fire Protection Association, but investigators quickly ruled that out.

There were no reports of lightning in the Palisades area or the terrain around the Eaton Fire, which started in eastern Los Angeles County.

The next two most common causes are fires that are intentionally set or caused by electricity lines.

School teachers and students are staring at the loss of a part of the school year due to the California wildfire.

The Los Angeles area fires have left many without a building that had served as their school premises for years.

Removing the debris and making sure the school premises are safe for the return of students and teachers will be key, say officials, according to NBC news.

A staircase of a burned structure during the Eaton fire is pictured, in Altadena, California. (Reuters Photo)

While authorities still don’t know what sparked the deadly fires in the Los Angeles area, they do know one clear way the flames have spread: embers.

At least 24 people have died in the fires that have destroyed more than 12,000 structures since starting last Tuesday.

The flames have been fuelled by strong winds, which not only aid combustion by increasing the oxygen supply but carry embers to unburned areas.

Contrary to popular belief, experts say most homes destroyed by wildfires aren’t overcome by a racing wall of flames, but rather burn after being ignited by airborne embers.

An ember is a piece of burning debris. Once it becomes airborne, the more technical term is firebrand, said James Urban, an assistant professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

“If it's a wildland fire, it's typically pieces of wood or other types of vegetation that are burning," he said.

"But when you have a fire that's burning through an urban area, it can be vegetation, it can be pieces of the house, it can be almost anything that burns.”

Los Angeles firefighters braced on Tuesday for intense winds that could fuel two monstrous wildfires that have already killed two dozen people, levelled entire neighbourhoods and scorched an area the size of Washington, DC.

Hurricane force winds of 75 mph (120 kph) were possible from early Tuesday, with 50-70 mph gusts expected through Wednesday, said David Roth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center.

A red flag warning was in effect late on Monday as dry, dangerous Santa Ana winds picked up speed.

More than 8,500 firefighters attacked the fires from the air and on the ground, preventing conflagrations at either end of Los Angeles from spreading overnight.

"This setup is about as bad as it gets," Los Angeles City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told local residents. "We are not in the clear."

Additional water tankers and scores of firefighters have arrived at the Los Angeles area ahead of fierce winds that were forecast to return and threaten the progress made so far on two massive infernos that have destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least 24 people.

On Monday, planes doused homes and hillsides with bright pink fire-retardant chemicals, while crews and fire engines were being placed near particularly vulnerable spots with dry brush.

Dozens of water trucks rolled in to replenish supplies after hydrants ran dry last week when the two largest fires erupted.

The winds are predicted to pick up starting early Tuesday and continue through midday Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.

They are not expected to reach hurricane-force like last week, but they could ground firefighting aircraft, Marrone said, warning if winds reach 70 mph (112 kph), “it’s going to be very difficult to contain that fire.

-AP