(Jan 9): Los Angeles plunged into its worst natural disaster in decades as wildfires driven by hurricane-strength wind gusts tore through prosperous neighbourhoods, killed at least five people and forced more than 100,000 residents to flee.
At least five massive blazes burned across the region early Thursday, with the two largest — in the coastal enclave of Pacific Palisades and the other bearing down on Pasadena — still uncontained after expanding rapidly in the last 24 hours alone.
The Pentagon is ready to provide aircraft to help extinguish the flames from the sky, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday during a meeting in Germany. “Many US military installations in the area have personnel and equipment that can also be surged to fight this awful blaze,” he added.
Officials are under immense strain to contain the fires, which have scorched some 27,000 acres, upending life in America’s second-largest city. Homes and businesses have burned down, schools and roads closed, air quality plummeted, and thousands of displaced residents searched for hotel space or sought shelter from friends and family.
Firefighters have made some progress in battling the so-called Sunset Fire threatening the Hollywood Hills, LA officials said in a notice early Thursday. That blaze, which erupted Wednesday evening local time, prompted evacuation orders encompassing a densely populated area, including major landmarks such as the TCL Chinese Theatre and the Dolby Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards.
The ‘big one’
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the disaster the “big one” during a press conference Wednesday, adding that the scenes from the biggest blaze, the Palisades Fire are “staggering.” The wildfires are poised to become among the costliest in US history.
Television footage has showed homes ablaze in the Studio City neighborhood and helicopters dropping water across the Hollywood Hills. Earlier this week, firefighting aircraft were grounded due to intense winds, hampering efforts to combat the wildfires.
President Joe Biden cancelled a planned trip to Italy late Wednesday, just hours before he was set to depart, citing the need to help monitor the response to the fires.
The offshore winds that have fanned the wildfires with gusts above 80 miles (129 kilometres) per hour were expected to last through Thursday, and another wind storm could follow next week, with no rain in between. The National Weather Service has in place red flag warnings for much of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties until 6pm local time Friday due to high winds and low relative humidity.
Not since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake had a disaster affected so many lives across the city at once. In the Palisades, multimillion-dollar homes burned as firefighters drew more water from hydrants than the system could supply — tapping them dry and forcing the city to bring in mobile tanks.
Flames edged closer to seaside Malibu, where residents faced the possibility of fleeing a wildfire for the second time in a month. Virtually the entire community of Altadena was under mandatory evacuation orders from the deadly Eaton Fire, which erupted Tuesday evening at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.
At least 1,000 structures have been destroyed or damaged from the Eaton blaze alone, according to local fire officials.
The full economic impact won’t become clear until the flames are contained. But AccuWeather Inc estimated damages and economic losses at US$52 billion to US$57 billion (RM234.3 billion to RM256.8 billion), saying it could become the worst wildfire incident in California history, given the number of structures that could be burned.
The state has endured a series of deadly blazes in recent years, most have struck rural areas or smaller cities — not a metropolis of more than 12 million. Authorities have not yet determined what caused each of the fires that erupted around the city Tuesday and Wednesday as the wind storm intensified.
California has a long history of wildfires sparked by power lines in high winds. Stock in Edison International sank 10% on Wednesday, the most since 2020, as investors questioned whether the company’s equipment played some role.
The utility said that the Palisades Fire wasn’t in its territory, but it was reviewing its operations around the Eaton and Hurst blazes. Southern California Edison has shut off electricity to more than 170,000 local homes and businesses, hoping to prevent ignitions.
Even Angelenos far from the fires were affected. Museums, theme parks, farmer’s markets and restaurants closed their doors. The Los Angeles Kings hockey team postponed their game planned for Wednesday evening in downtown Los Angeles, while a Lakers basketball game Thursday hung in the balance.
Dry Santa Ana winds will continue to whip down from the mountains through Friday, said Nick Nauslar, fire science and operations officer for the US Storm Prediction Center. Those gusts could still fuel dangerous fire behavior if any blazes are active, even if they’re weaker than what Los Angeles has had to cope with so far.
“Given the amount of fire we have on the ground, any Santa Ana conditions are going to prove problematic for firefighters and the public in terms of fire spread,” Nauslar said, adding that another round of dry winds could be coming early next week. “People need to stay aware and stay ready.”
Uploaded by Magessan Varatharaja