The Los Angeles County Firefighting During the Rose Parade of the Good, Bad, and Evil: A Newsom-Newsom Report of Two Fires and Two More
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said more than 7,500 personnel are responding to the fires across local, state and federal agencies. They are using helicopters, water tenders, air tankers and dozers to fight the fires.
“We just finished cleaning up from the Rose Parade of all things, and now this,” she said. We had the biggest thing that showed how wonderful life is here and then something that showed how bad life can be.
Cheryl Heuton and her husband left their home in Pasadena with just toothbrushes, laptops and old stuffed animals that belonged to their children when they were younger.
Those who would need more time to evacuate, as well as their pets and livestock, should be aware of the potential threat to life and/or property if an order to evacuate is issued.
Despite efforts, the largest fires—Eaton and Pacific Palisades—are still zero percent contained as of Thursday, with firefighters running low on water. Although wind speeds have slowed from their highs of earlier in the week, it’s expected that the fires will continue to spread and cause more devastation. They are so destructive that they are the most destructive in California history.
There is a Fire in the east of Malibu which is 0 percent contained. Billy Crystal and Paris Hilton were two people who lost their homes. The fire department was able to slow its growth due to the uncontained Eaton fire in Pasadena. The Sunset Fire that started in the Hollywood Hills, was quickly hemmed in by firefighters and two others are partially contained.
The fire started in the area due to a combination of poor winds and very dry conditions.
Nearly 30,000 acres remained burning early Thursday across Los Angeles County as firefighters struggled to control a patchwork of deadly blazes that has forced mass evacuations and leveled entire communities.
High-Speed Winds and Fires in Santa Ana, California, as Described by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Public Works
A wind advisory will remain in effect until at least 2 p.m. PT on Friday. The NWS recommends that residents stay at least 100 feet away from downed power lines.
It is common for Santa Ana wind events like the one we had in the past two days to be strong enough to cause a destructive windstorm.
According to the chief meteorologist for the NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard, the winds are typically between 30 to 60 mph when they occur.
Santa Ana winds blow towards the coast, and this week’s fires have been fueled by them. Not at this strength they are relatively common in the region.
Since the NWS recorded speeds as high as 89 mph at Saddle Peak on Wednesday, winds have weakened.
“The confluence of factors — wind, fire and smoke — have created dangerous, complex situations that present unsafe conditions for our school communities,” the district said.
US president Joe Biden is receiving real-time information on the situation and has offered “all federal assistance needed” to put out the fires. The president said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had granted a fire-management grant to help support the affected areas and help pay for the immediate costs of fighting the fires. The president has declared the fires a major disaster.
“Southern California, we are with you. The president canceled a planned trip to Italy because of the fire response.
Analyzing Los Angeles Fires: A two-pronged attack in the aftermath of the January 24th LA Fire and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office
Several movie premieres—such as those of the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, the Jennifer Lopez vehicle Unstoppable, and Wolf Man, starring Julia Garner and produced by Ryan Gosling—have been canceled due to dangerous conditions. On Thursday, California authorities ordered the evacuation of the Hollywood neighborhood after a fire broke out a few hundred yards from Hollywood Boulevard. The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to delay the announcement of Oscar nominations by two days because of the situation.
AccuWeather, a company that gives data on weather and its impact, said on Thursday that it had increased its estimate of the economic loss to the region from between $135 billion and $150 billion.
The NBA has postponed a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Charlotte Hornets to an unannounced date, while the NFL has moved a game between the Vikings and Rams from Inglewood, Calif., to Glendale, Ariz.
The giant fires that are scouring Los Angeles have officially become the most destructive in the city’s history, killing at least six people and destroying at least 5,000 buildings. But as the winds driving the inferno have slackened, experts are cautiously optimistic that the blazes can soon be beaten back.
“Tuesday and Wednesday our priority was saving lives and protecting as much property as possible,” says LA Fire Department spokesperson Margaret Stewart. “Now that we’re able to operate at our full capacity, we’re able to have a more powerful assault.”
In a two-pronged attack, in the air and from the ground, aircraft are dousing fires while firefighters and bulldozers starve them of fuel. At times earlier in the week, planes had to be grounded because of the severity of the wind.
The tide is turning according to Ken Pimlotte, a former director of the California Department of Fire Protection. Today and tomorrow are very important times to get through red flag fire weather conditions. We will start to see a lot more progress after that.
The key factor has been the winds of up to 99 miles per hour. They’ve been raking down from the northeast to the southwest, fanning the flames and throwing burning embers half a mile in front of the main fire. Canyons running largely the same direction have funneled and intensified that movement of air, creating what Pimlott called a “blowtorch” that spread the Palisades Fire. The flames have been uncontrollable.
“These pressurized winds literally explode out of these canyons,” says Janet Upton, former deputy director of Cal Fire. “All you can do is work to get anything with a heartbeat out of the way.”