(AP) — The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the death toll from the wildfires ravaging the area has risen to 16.
The total of confirmed fatalities stands at 16 victims, and the cases remain under investigation. Five deaths were attributed to the Palisades Fire, and 11 resulted from the Eaton Fire, the coroner’s office said in a statement Saturday evening.
The previous number of confirmed fatalities was 11, but officials said they expected that figure to rise as cadaver dogs search leveled neighborhoods and crews assess the devastation. Authorities have established a center where people can report the missing.
Firefighters raced to cut off spreading wildfires before potentially strong winds return that could push the flames toward the world famous J. Paul Getty Museum and the University of California, Los Angeles, while new evacuation warnings left more homeowners on edge.
A fierce battle against the flames was underway in Mandeville Canyon, home to Arnold Schwarzenegger and other celebrities not far from the Pacific coast, where swooping helicopters dumped water as the blaze charged downhill. Firefighters on the ground used hoses in an attempt to beat back leaping flames as thick smoke blanketed the chaparral-covered hillside.
At a briefing, CalFire Operations Chief Christian Litz said a main focus Saturday would be the Palisades Fire burning in the canyon area, not far from the UCLA campus.
“We need to be aggressive out there,” Litz said.
County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the LA area “had another night of unimaginable terror and heartbreak, and even more Angelenos evacuated due to the northeast expansion of the Palisades Fire.”
Light breezes were fanning the flames, but the National Weather Service warned that strong Santa Ana winds — the nemesis of firefighters — could soon return. Those winds have been largely blamed for turning the wildfires into infernos that leveled entire neighborhoods around to city where there has been no significant rainfall in more than eight months.
The fire also was threatening to jump over Interstate 405 and into densely populated areas in the Hollywood Hills and San Fernando Valley.
The hunt for bodies continues
The grim work of sifting through the devastation continued Saturday, with teams conducting systematic grid searches with cadaver dogs, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna. He said a family assistance center was being established in Pasadena, and he urged residents to abide by curfews.
“We have people driving up and around trying to get in just to look. Stay away,” he said.
The fires have consumed about 56 square miles (145 square kilometers), an area larger than San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people remained under evacuation orders and new evacuations were ordered Friday evening after a flare up on the eastern side of the Palisades Fire.
Since the fires first began Tuesday just north of downtown LA, they have burned more than 12,000 structures, a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles.
No cause has been determined for the largest fires, and early estimates indicate the wildfires could be the nation’s costliest ever. A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between $135 billion and $150 billion.
Rays of kindness amid the devastation
Crowds of volunteers gathered at donations centers across California as people rallied to help those devastated by the continuing wildfires. (AP video shot by: Rick Taber)
So many volunteers showed up to help at donation centers Saturday that some were being turned away. That was the case at a YMCA in the Koreatown neighborhood. By late morning, cars with would-be helpers were also being turned back from the Santa Anita Park horse racing track, where donations of necessities were being accepted.
At the race track Friday, people who lost their homes could be seen sifting through stacks of donated shirts, blankets and other household goods. Altadena resident Jose Luis Godinez said three homes occupied by more than a dozen of his family members were destroyed.
“Everything is gone,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “All my family lived in those three houses and now we have nothing.”
Officials warn against returning to burned homes
Some residents have been venturing back to see what can be salvaged after wildfires destroyed their homes, sifting through rubble for keepsakes. But officials on Saturday urged them to stay away, warning that the ash can contain lead, arsenic, asbestos and other harmful materials.
“If you’re kicking that stuff up, you’re breathing it in,” said Chris Thomas, a spokesman for the unified incident command at the Palisades Fire. “All of that stuff is toxic.”
Residents will be allowed to return, with protective gear, after damage teams have evaluated their properties, Thomas said.
City leadership accused of skimping on firefighting funds
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, shared updates on fire containment as firefighters raced to cut off spreading wildfires before potentially strong winds return. (AP video by Eugene Garcia)
Allegations of leadership failures and political blame have begun and so have investigations. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered state officials to determine why a 117 million-gallon (440 million-liter) reservoir was out of service and some hydrants had run dry. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said city leadership failed her department by not providing enough money for firefighting. She also criticized the lack of water.
“When a firefighter comes up to a hydrant, we expect there’s going to be water,” she said.
Progress made on fighting the Eaton fire
Firefighters for the first time made progress Friday afternoon on the Eaton Fire north of Pasadena, which has burned more than 7,000 structures. Officials said most evacuation orders for the area had been lifted.
LA Mayor Karen Bass, who faces a critical test of her leadership as her city endures its greatest crisis in decades, said several smaller fires also were stopped.
The level of devastation is jarring even in a state that regularly confronts massive wildfires.
Kristin Crowley was elevated to Los Angeles fire chief in 2022 at a time of turmoil in a department consumed by complaints of rampant hazing, harassment and discrimination among its 3,400-member ranks. As a career firefighter, she was portrayed by the then-mayor as a stabilizing force.
Three years later, the mood between Crowley and City Hall has changed.
The wildfire in Pacific Palisades that has burned more than 5,000 structures to become the most destructive in city history has put leaders on the defensive and led Crowley to engage in a public spat with Mayor Karen Bass over resources even as the battle against flames continues across the Los Angeles area.
Crowley publicly criticized the city Friday for budget cuts that she said have made it harder for firefighters to do their jobs at a time when they are seeing more calls. She also cast blame on the city for water running out Tuesday when about 20% of the hydrants tapped to fight the Palisades fire went dry.
“I’m not a politician, I’m a public servant. It’s my job as the fire chief for Los Angeles City Fire dept to make sure our firefighters have exactly what they need to do their jobs,” she told CNN.
Her comments and perceived falling-out with Bass prompted speculation about her job security that the union issued a statement Friday assuring rank-and-file members that she had not been fired.
The following day the mayor sought to tamp down the tension.
“Let me be clear about something: The fire chief and I are focused on fighting these fires and saving lives, and any differences we might have will be worked out in private,” Bass said at a news conference. “But right now our first and most important obligation to Angelenos is to get through this crisis.”
This followed several days of Crowley getting swept into the national political fray over diversity, equity and inclusion policies that conservatives believe have gone too far in American institutions. Crowley, who is openly gay and the city’s first female fire chief, has made diversifying the overwhelmingly male department a priority.
“What we are seeing (was) largely preventable,” talk show host Megyn Kelly said on her show. “LA’s fire chief has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity.”
There’s no evidence that Crowley’s efforts to diversify the department have hampered the fight. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is in charge of providing water for the hydrants, and its leaders have said they were overwhelmed by the intense demand on a municipal system not designed to fight wildfires, particularly as firefighting aircraft was grounded. Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered an investigation into what happened, and Crowley herself added to the criticism.
“When a firefighter comes up to a hydrant, we expect there’s going to be water,” she said during a local news interview.
Philadelphia Managing Director Adam K. Thiel, who previously served as that city’s fire commissioner, suggested that people reserve judgment until the fires can be investigated. He noted that firefighters cannot control the weather, a key factor in battling wildfires.
“Firefighting, to a regular person, probably appears to be a relatively simple process of putting water on a fire,” said Thiel, who knows Crowley and praised her experience. “In reality every firefighting operation, in any environment, is inherently volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.”
Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Crowley to the job amid complaints about a frat house culture in the department that was sometimes hostile to women and minorities. Several lawsuits alleged hazing and harassment, and federal investigators found evidence of discrimination.
At the time Crowley was sworn in, women accounted for just 3.5 percent of the uniformed membership, a figure that’s not unusual for a department. A survey found that half the uniformed women in the department — along with 40% of Blacks, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders — felt harassment was a problem.
Crowley, whose wife is a retired firefighter, told the Los Angeles Times in 2022 that she planned to ensure all of employees “come to work and feel safe and feel heard.”
Two years later, she was facing budget cuts that she warned could hamper the department’s ability to respond to emergencies, including wildfires. She highlighted the elimination of civilian positions and $7 million in overtime pay.
The reduction in overtime has limited the department’s ability to prepare and train for “large scale emergencies,” such as wildfires and earthquakes, Crowley said, and programs like air operations. The department has also lost mechanics, leading to delays in repairing the vehicle fleet, she said.
Other city officials say the department’s budget was later boosted, but it’s unclear how much of that went to firefighting resources. Bass has said the department has the resources needed to do its job and she will address specifics once the crisis subsides.
Crowley, who grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, came to firefighting after what she called “a really unique journey.”
A high school and college athlete, she studied biology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, with plans to become an orthopedic surgeon. Two weeks after graduation, she moved to California.
A stint as a paramedic changed her career path. She did an internship with the fire department and was hooked.
“That was it,” she told WBAY-TV in Green Bay in March 2022. “Within a few seconds of me entering into the fire station, it was just such a wonderful connection to what I had being a student-athlete for the majority of my life, and I tell you, it was a perfect fit.”
Crowley has now been with the department for a quarter century, serving in nearly every role, including fire marshal, engineer and battalion chief. Garcetti had described Crowley as not only a trailblazer but the most qualified person.
“The protection of our city first and foremost has to go to the human being who is best prepared to lead. But let me be clear, that is Kristin Crowley,” he said.
Investigators are considering an array of possible ignition sources for the huge fires that have killed at least 11 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in the Los Angeles area.
In hilly, upscale Pacific Palisades, home to Hollywood stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal who lost houses in the fire, officials have placed the origin of the wind-whipped blaze behind a home on Piedra Morada Drive, which sits above a densely wooded arroyo.
While lightning is the most common source of fires in the U.S., according to the National Fire Protection Association, investigators were able to rule that out quickly. There were no reports of lightning in the Palisades area or the terrain around the Eaton Fire, which started in east Los Angeles County and has also destroyed hundreds of homes.
The next two most common causes: fires intentionally set, and those sparked by utility lines.
John Lentini, owner of Scientific Fire Analysis in Florida, who has investigated large fires in California including the Oakland Hills Fire in 1991, said the size and scope of the blaze doesn’t change the approach to finding out what caused it.
“This was once a small fire,” Lentini said. “People will focus on where the fire started, determine the origin and look around the origin and determine the cause.”
So far there has been no official indication of arson in either blaze, and utility lines have not yet been identified as a cause either.
Utilities are required to report to the California Public Utilities Commission when they know of “electric incidents potentially associated with a wildfire,” Terrie Prosper, the commission’s communications director, said via email. CPUC staff then investigate to see if there were violations of state law.
The 2017 Thomas Fire, one of the largest fires in state history, was sparked by Southern California Edison power lines that came into contact during high wind, investigators determined. The blaze killed two people and charred more than 440 square miles (1,140 square kilometers).
On Friday, Southern California Edison filed a report with the CPUC related to the Eaton Fire in the hills near Pasadena, an area the utility serves.
Edison said it has not received any suggestions that its equipment was involved in the ignition of that fire, but that it filed the report with state utilities regulators out of “an abundance of caution” after receiving evidence preservation notices from insurance company lawyers.
“Preliminary analysis by SCE of electrical circuit information for the energized transmission lines going through the area for 12 hours prior to the reported start time of the fire shows no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire,” the utility reported.
While lightning, arson, and utility lines are the most common causes, debris burning and fireworks are also common causes.
But fires are incited by myriad sources, including accidents.
In 2021, a couple’s gender reveal stunt started a large fire that torched close to 36 square miles (about 90 square kilometers) of terrain, destroyed five homes and 15 other buildings, and claimed the life of a firefighter, Charlie Morton.
The Eaton and Palisades fires were still burning with little containment on Friday. Winds softened, but there was no rain in the forecast as the flames moved through miles of dry landscape.
“It’s going to go out when it runs out of fuel, or when the weather stops,” Lentini said. “They’re not going to put that thing out until it’s ready to go out.”
.webp)
.webp)
