LOS ANGELES - The weather will once again turn against Los Angeles after a brief respite that allowed firefighters to gain ground on blazes across the second-largest US city — and offered enough pause for officials to begin trading accusations.
Dry winds will raise the risk of critical fire weather conditions across Southern California late Saturday and likely persist through the first half of the coming week, leaving millions in peril, according to the US Storm Prediction Center.
“You worry about new fire growth beyond tonight and tomorrow; you worry about those untapped areas going forward,” said Brian Hurley, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center.
“And let’s just get this out of the way now: There is just no rain in sight out there.”
For almost a week, life has been upended in Los Angeles and its surrounding communities as at least 11 people have died, thousands of homes and other buildings have been destroyed, and more than 180,000 have had to flee the spreading flames.
The Palisades and Eaton fires have been so ferocious that they have already become the third- and fourth-most destructive in state history and neither is out yet, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, commonly known as Cal Fire.
The fires are the most devastating natural disaster to strike Los Angeles since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which killed 57 people, and are likely to rank among the costliest natural disasters in modern US history.
A tricycle is seen outside a burning home during the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California on Jan 8 (Photo: Bloomberg)
- For an interactive map of the fire zones, click here
Up to $150 billion in losses
The commercial forecaster AccuWeather estimates direct and secondary losses, which account for uninsured destruction and indirect economic impact such as lost wages and supply-chain disruptions, may reach between $135 billion to $150 billion.
Through late Friday, the Palisades fire had burned at least 21,596 acres (8,740 hectares) near Malibu and Santa Monica and was only 8% contained, while the Eaton blaze close to Pasadena had consumed 14,117 acres and was 3% contained, Cal Fire said.
Between the two, more than 10,000 structures have been destroyed. Crews are also battling three smaller incidents in the area.
On Friday evening, a mandatory evacuation order was issued from Sunset Boulevard North to the Encino Reservoir and from the 405 Freeway west to Mandeville Canyon, a populated area that also includes the Getty Center. (Story continues below)
Residents show their identification as they wait to receive a police escort to view their homes following the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood in Los Angeles, on Jan 10. (Photo: Reuters)
Finger-pointing begins
While the crews are in the field, officials have begun to critique the region’s response.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley pointed the finger at city leaders for cutting her department’s budget, saying it hindered the firefight and told the local television station Fox 11 “it did impact our ability to provide service”.
Mayor Karen Bass, who trimmed more than $17 million in funding to the fire department, defended her actions, saying the reductions came during “tough budgetary times” and did not affect the wildfire response.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, sent the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power a letter requesting a review of why hydrants in the fire zones repeatedly ran low on water.
He pointed to a reservoir that the Los Angeles Times reported had been closed for repairs when the fires struck, calling the lack of water “deeply troubling to me and to the community”.
The fires also have put pressure on utilities that preemptively cut electricity to residents. Edison International’s Southern California power company has been asked by attorneys representing insurance companies to preserve evidence in connection with the Eaton Fire.
Edison has also said fire agencies are investigating whether the company’s equipment was involved in the ignition of the smaller Hurst Fire near San Fernando.
California has a history of devastating wildfires sparked by electric utility equipment during wind storms. The state’s largest utility, PG&E Corp, filed for bankruptcy in 2019 after a series of deadly blazes blamed on its wires.
As of 3am local time, roughly 159,000 customers across Southern California were without power. Forecasters said that when the sun rises Saturday, the winds would remain relatively still but larger weather patterns ensure they will pick back up again as the day goes on.
High pressure is building inland and low pressure near the border with Mexico, which will create a gradient to draw, dry, hot gusts over the region’s mountains, Hurley said.
Gusts will likely reach 40 to 60 miles per hour (64 to 96 kph) by early next week, said Ryan Kittell, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard, California. “It’s a step down from what we had earlier this week, but it is still quite significant.”
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A firefighter hoses down a smouldering building on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan 9. (Photo: Bloomberg)