XPost: alt.wildland.firefighting, alt.firefighters, alt.los-angeles
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A week after flames leveled huge swaths of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, Southern California remained under a severe fire threat as residents
struggled to comprehend the scale of the loss.

An army of firefighters spent Tuesday putting out small fires before they
got out of control, and continued building containment lines on the
Palisades and Eaton fires in hope of preventing them from spreading. The firestorms are expected to be the most costly in U.S. history, consuming
what officials estimate could be more than 12,000 structures, including
many homes.

“This is the most devastating natural disaster to hit the Los Angeles
area,” said L.A. Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott. “I’ve worked here for
20 years and I’ve never seen nor imagined devastation to be this
extensive.”

The reality of the losses came into greater focus as residents lined up
Tuesday at two Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster recovery
centers opened to assist people whose homes and belongings were destroyed
in the fires.

Sonja Jackson waited outside the center with her 3-year-old granddaughter, Amirah, and her 9-year-old son, Aaden, looking for some guidance after her family’s initial application for assistance was denied.

The Eaton fire destroyed Jackson’s home in Altadena, her mother’s home and
her daughter’s home in a matter of hours. The family cat, Marshmallow, is
still missing.

“We all left with the clothes on our back,” Jackson, 45, said. “We thought
we’d be able to come back in the morning. We didn’t think the fires were
gonna do what they did.”

Jackson, a nurse, now finds herself along with as many as nine family
members crammed into her aunt’s home. She’s hoping to secure some type of temporary housing while she and her family get back on their feet, but her insurance provider, Allstate, will cover only a two-night stay at a hotel.
Her plan will also cover only $20,000 for personal items lost in the fire, Jackson said.

“Which does nothing,” Jackson said. “I lost appliances, clothes — mine
[and] my granddaughter’s. So, what do you do with that money? It will get
us an inch, but what happens after that inch?”

Although gusty winds were still present across the region for much of the
day, the extreme winds that were initially forecast for Tuesday didn’t materialize. Instead, those winds are anticipated to hit early Wednesday.
A “particularly dangerous situation” fire weather warning will go into
effect at 3 a.m. Wednesday and last until 3 p.m., according to the
National Weather Service.

In the last several days, firefighters have rushed to stop the Palisades
and Eaton fires from growing and to boost containment of the blazes ahead
of the winds. The Palisades fire has burned more than 23,700 acres and was
18% contained as of Tuesday. The Eaton fire, burning in the Altadena area,
has charred just more than 14,100 acres and was 35% contained, according
to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said crews had made extensive preparations for the latest extreme weather event, reinforcing fire
control lines around the Eaton and Palisades fires, clearing dry brush
from surviving structures and staging resources in areas where new fires
could ignite. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has also pre- positioned additional engines, fire crews, helicopters, bulldozers and
water tenders across Southern California.

Authorities hope to be able to keep firefighting aircraft up during the
winds, but it’s unclear how much the conditions will allow.

Battalion Chief Brett Willis said air support in Los Angeles County
remained ready and able to fly if needed. One helicopter was out Tuesday morning doing reconnaissance.

However, winds had already clocked in at higher and more dangerous speeds
in Camarillo, he said. Officials decided to move some helicopters and fixed-wing planes from that location to the south and east so they could
fly if needed.

In the Palisades and Altadena areas, firefighters have been focusing on
hot spots and reinforcing containment lines.

“The fuel moistures are near critical, so they’re extremely dry and
receptive to fire,” Scott said of the Palisades fire area. “We’re worried
about the winds stirring up this 23,000-acre smoldering debris pile and
casting embers on unburned brush.”

Although there is no final tally yet of structures burned, the fires are already among the most destructive in state history.

Damage assessments have confirmed 2,722 structures destroyed in the Eaton
fire, though inspection teams are still combing through the fire
footprint, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Officials estimate that 7,000 structures were damaged or
destroyed; structures can include homes, businesses, smaller outbuildings, sheds and even vehicles.

Fire risk forecast for Southern California

There are 1,280 structures that have been destroyed in the Palisades fire
and 204 that have been damaged, Scott said. However, officials are also
still doing damage assessments, so those numbers are likely to increase. Authorities estimate that 5,300 structures have burned in that fire.

The Palisades and Eaton fires are also among the deadliest in California’s history. Officials confirmed the number of deaths from both fires is 25 —
16 from Eaton and nine from Palisades —but warned the death toll is likely
to keep rising.

There are also 37 missing person reports across both fires, officials
said. Two individuals who have been reported missing “have most likely
been found deceased,” but authorities have not positively identified them,
L.A. Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said.

Los Angeles police officials announced at a news conference Tuesday
afternoon that they had made 14 arrests connected to the Palisades fire, including three for arson by suspects allegedly setting small fires, six
for burglary-related issues and one each for impersonating a firefighter
and police officer.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department noted seven arrests related to looting, unauthorized entry and battery on a peace officer.

Winds hitting the region over the next day will be more of a conventional
Santa Ana event, forecasters say, with gusts coming out of the east and spreading fires to the west. That means the winds will have more of a
focus on Ventura County compared with those last week, which came
generally out of the north and hit Los Angeles County hard.

Areas covered by the “particularly dangerous situation” include Camarillo, Fillmore, Northridge, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. A conventional red
flag warning — for a combination of strong winds, dry air and vegetation,
and expected severe wildfire behavior if ignition occurs — remains in
effect across the region through 6 p.m. Wednesday, including large
portions of L.A., San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, as well as some mountainous areas of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Southern California Edison implemented a public safety power shutoff for
more than 58,000 customers across its service area Tuesday as the winds
started to increase. Such shutoffs are aimed at mitigating threats, often
in areas where the utility’s equipment could be at high risk of sparking a wildfire.

Of those without power, more than 18,000 customers live in Los Angeles
County and roughly 16,700 are in Ventura County. An additional 122,000 customers in Los Angeles County and 88,000 customers in Ventura County
could have their power shut off at some point during the wind event, the utility said Tuesday afternoon.

About 17,000 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers in
Pacific Palisades, Encino and Brentwood remained without power Tuesday, according to the utility.

Malibu Mayor Doug Stewart said there was incremental progress with his
city on Tuesday, noting that an additional 71 SoCalGas customers saw
service restored, bringing the total to 678 restored out of roughly 13,600 initially affected.

Los Angeles County’s wireless emergency alerts are still seeing some
lingering issues after millions in L.A. County incorrectly received the panic-inducing messages on their cellphones last week.

Though the county Office of Emergency Management says it is now prepared
to send new alerts after overhauling its system, some incorrect alerts continued to show up on phones Monday, days after the evacuation warning
was warranted and far from the intended geographic area.

“We believe these to be ‘echo alerts.’ Echo alerts were found to be the
result of messages being relayed through cellphone towers that were shut
down during fire conditions and power outages and are now coming back
online,” the office said in a statement late Monday.

It wasn’t immediately clear how widespread the issue was, but officials
said they were prepared to send out new alerts during the wind event this
week if warranted.

As winds began to pick up, firefighters in the Inland Empire rushed to two brush fires — one in Hemet and one in Jurupa Valley — that broke out
Tuesday afternoon.

Late Monday, firefighters in Oxnard responded to a brush fire that ignited
in the Santa Clara River bottom. The Auto fire — fanned by wind gusts of
20 to 30 mph — quickly grew to about 55 acres, but firefighters were able
to stop it from progressing.

As fire crews grapple with extreme fire conditions, residents who have
lost homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires are wrestling with the
overwhelming idea of rebuilding their properties. Many have not been able
to return home since the fires began. Firefighters are still in the fire
zones working to contain the blazes and comb through wreckage, and
utilities are setting up new poles and hanging lines to restore power.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has issued an executive order that seeks to expedite rebuilding efforts, mostly within Pacific Palisades. Bass’ move
came one day after Gov. Gavin Newsom, via his own executive order, waived regulations under state environmental laws in an effort to speed up
rebuilding in the Palisades, as well as Altadena and other areas.

On Tuesday, the governor signed an executive order fast-tracking debris
removal from the burn zone. The state is partnering with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency to
remove hazardous waste from the area once it is deemed safe, the governor
said in a statement.

With many campuses in the fire areas damaged, parents are also trying to
figure out where their children will attend school in the coming weeks. On Tuesday, Newsom also signed an executive order to make it easier for
schools to use temporary facilities and allow displaced students to attend schools outside their district.

Officials urged Angelenos to be on alert for new wildfires and prepare to evacuate if needed.

“While peak winds are not expected to be as strong as last week’s wind
event, they still pose a tremendous threat. If you’re asked to evacuate,
please listen to all evacuation orders as they’re meant as a lifesaving measure,” McDonnell said.

The “particularly dangerous situation” tag given to a swath of Los Angeles
and Ventura counties on Wednesday is rare, and has traditionally only been
used when forecasters believed long-lived, strong and violent tornadoes
were possible. The National Weather Service office in Oxnard, which covers L.A., Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, adopted it in
2020 in hopes of clearly ringing the alarm bell for the most extreme fire weather conditions.

“Any kind of red flag warning is dangerous. But there’s a gradient even
within that range of situations, and so we wanted a way to message the
extreme of the extremes. And the PDS is what came from that,” said weather service meteorologist Ryan Kittell.

During each of the three warnings issued this season, destructive
wildfires erupted: the 19,904-acre Mountain fire, which razed more than
240 buildings in Ventura County last year; the 4,037-acre Franklin fire,
which spread rapidly in Malibu and destroyed 20 buildings in December; and
last week’s Palisades and Eaton fires.

The extreme fire weather across much of Southern California is being fed
by extraordinarily dry conditions. The last significant rain in downtown
Los Angeles was on May 5, when 0.13 of an inch of rain fell. Since Oct. 1,
only 0.16 of an inch of rain has fallen there — a drop in the bucket
compared with the historical average of 5.34 inches that should have
fallen by this point in the season.

The last time there has been so little rain between early May and the end
of December was 1962, when downtown L.A. got only 0.14 of an inch,
according to the weather service.

“In my view,” said retired climatologist Bill Patzert, “the past nine
months has been one of the driest in the historical record going back to
1900. During my career, I’ve never seen punishing Santa Ana events so
overwhelm the normal winter rain season.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/live/2025-01-14/fire-winds-los-angeles- california-eaton-altadena-palisades-updates#p=a-week-after-the-l-a- firestorms-began-the-threat-continues-as-the-unprecedented-losses-sink-in

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