Dangerously high winds were expected to resume on Monday in Los Angeles, potentially hampering efforts to extinguish two stubborn wildfires that have levelled whole neighbourhoods and claimed the lives of at least two dozen people.
Dry Santa Ana winds of up to 80 to 112 kilometres per hour were forecast to resume on Monday and persist through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said in issuing a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning.
The peak time of concern for those winds, officials said, would begin Tuesday morning.
In anticipation of high winds returning, officials have warned the entire Los Angeles County population of nearly 10 million to be ready to evacuate. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone, at an early Monday news conference, urged residents to have completed their preparations for evacuating homes before such an order comes down, and to not put their phone alerts on silent, as such an order could come at any hour.
At least 24 people have died in the fires that began on Jan. 7. The blazes have reduced whole neighbourhoods to smoldering ruins, leaving an apocalyptic landscape. Officials said at least 12,300 structures have been damaged or destroyed, and firefighters from Canada, Mexico and seven other U.S. states have converged on the Los Angeles area to help their California-based counterparts.
Marrone said the Quebec water-dropping aircraft damaged by a private drone last week will be ready for deployment as early as Tuesday morning, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The contact resulted in a three-by-six-foot hole in the side of the plane, known as a “super scooper.”
Significant progress in Hurst Fire
The return of high winds threatens the hard-won progress that crews have made in containing the fires. Over the weekend, aerial and land-based firefighters managed to stop the Palisades Fire as it encroached on the upscale Brentwood section and advanced toward the populous San Fernando Valley in the north.
That fire on the western side of the metropolis has consumed 96 square kilometres and stood at 14 per cent contained, a figure representing the percentage of the fire’s perimeter that firefighters have under control.
The Eaton Fire in the foothills east of Los Angeles has scorched 57 square kilometres — itself nearly the size of Manhattan — though containment has risen to 33 per cent.
North of the city, the Hurst Fire was 95 per cent contained, and three other fires that had ravaged other parts of the county were now 100 per cent contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) reported, though areas within the containment lines may still be burning.
L.A. County sheriff Robert Luna says his team is in the third day of grid-searching in Altadena, a fire-ravaged community north of Los Angeles. ‘Please be patient with us,’ he said.
Kristin Crowley, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, urged residents to not be complacent even with the gains made fighting the blazes.
“We are not in the clear as of yet and we must not let our guard down as we have, right now, extreme fire behaviour,” she said.
‘Like something out of a movie’
In Altadena on the edge of the Eaton Fire, Tristin Perez said he never left his home, defying police orders to evacuate as the fire raced down the hillside.
Instead, Perez insisted on trying to save his property and his neighbours’ homes.
“Your front yard is on fire, palm trees lit up — it looked like something out of a movie,” Perez told Reuters in an interview in his driveway.
“I did everything I could to stop the line and save my house, help save their houses.”
Caleb Serban-Lawler recounts the moment he drove up a mountain and into the Los Angeles wildfires to rescue a stranded woman and her four dogs.
Marrone said the grid search in Altadena has been “a very grim task.”
“Unfortunately, every day we’re doing this, we’re running across the remains of individual community members,” he said.
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 100,000 people in Los Angeles County were under an order to evacuate — down from a previous high of more than 150,000 — while another 87,000 faced evacuation warnings.
In the mandatory evacuation areas, a curfew remains in effect for 12 hours starting at 6 p.m., while county residents are advised to wear N95 masks outdoors as an air quality advisory remains at least through next week.
