Weather forecasters in Los Angeles expect fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 10 people.
Urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning, as five fires raged across the metropolis.
Barbara Bruderlin, head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, described the impact of the infernos as “total devastation and loss”.
“There are areas where everything is gone, there isn’t even a stick of wood left, it’s just dirt,” Bruderlin said.
Officials estimate the Palisades fire wiped away at least 5,000 structures, including many homes in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where mansions lining the yellow beaches were hollowed out and homes in the neighborhoods’ canyons reduced to dust. Buckled trees and telephone poles were strewn across the roads around the still smoldering rubble.
Further east near Altadena, the streets, too, were littered with fallen branches while entire blocks of homes are simply gone. In some areas, the destruction appeared almost random, one resident said, with one house leveled while a neighboring still stood.
“You see this stuff on TV, but I’ve never seen anything like this up close,” Alex Neuss, a 36-year-old Pasadena resident, said on Wednesday after he had returned to his home.
Cadaver dogs and crews were searching through rubble to see if there are more victims and officials have said they expect the death toll will rise.
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 living 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 to come when the flames roared through, Mitchell’s daughter, Hajime White, told the Washington Post.
“He was not going to leave his son behind. No matter what,” White said. White – who lives in Warren, Arkansas, and is Justin’s step-sister – said her father called her on Wednesday morning and said they had to evacuate from approaching flames. “Then he said: ‘I’ve got to go – the fire’s in the yard,’” she recalled on Thursday.
In another incident, Shari Shaw told the local media outlet KTLA that she tried to get her 66-year-old brother, Victor Shaw, to evacuate Tuesday night 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 in his Altadena home. The 82-year-old had lived through numerous fires and felt that he would be OK waiting it out at home, his daughter, Kimiko Nickerson, told KTLA.
Winds were likely to diminish on Friday afternoon, the NWS said, but warned an “extended period of elevated to potentially critical fire weather conditions are in the forecast for Sunday through Wednesday”.
Officials urged more people to heed evacuation orders after a new blaze, called the Kenneth fire, ignited on Thursday afternoon and grew to 1,000 acres. About 400 firefighters remained at the location overnight to guard against the fire spreading, and were able to put a stop to it by Friday morning.
Firefighting efforts in such tough conditions, with effectively no rain for months and none forecast in the days ahead, have stretched crews and left the country’s second-largest city reeling.
The largest of the fires burning in the LA area, the Pacific Palisades, obliterated neighbourhoods in the scenic hilltops. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website, that blaze has been only 8% “contained”.
To the east, the Eaton fire near Pasadena that started Tuesday night has burned more than 5,000 structures, a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles.
Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, including wildfires. In California, the fire season now begins earlier and ends later.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released on Friday showed the annual global temperature reached above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year. That jump represented levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.
More than 150,000 people remained under evacuation orders, and the fires have consumed about 57 sq miles, an area larger than the city of San Francisco.
At least 20 arrests have been made for looting. Officials have imposed a mandatory curfew in evacuation zones as well as in the city of Santa Monica, which is next to Pacific Palisades.
The curfew will be strictly enforced, the LA county sheriff, Robert Luna said, and anyone found in violation will be subject to arrest and conviction could result in a fine of up to $1,000 or jail time.
“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 Associated Press contributed reporting
