Firefighters launch an all-out attack to prevent the largest deadly wildfires threatening Los Angeles from spreading to one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods.
Crews bombarded the burning hills with water and fire retardant to hold back the Palisades Fire, which has grown to an additional 1,000 acres and is now threatening Brentwood.
Officials have been on the defensive amid growing anger at how hydrants are running dry as firefighters struggle to contain the fast-spreading blazes.
The winds are expected to pick up again overnight, further fanning the fires that have already left at least 11 dead.
Reuters“Los Angeles County witnessed another night of unimaginable horror and heartbreak,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said Saturday.
Firefighters have made modest progress against the worst of the blazes, the Palisades Fire, which has burned nearly 23,000 acres and is 11% contained.
But the fire has spread to the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood, prompting evacuation orders for vast swaths of Brentwood, a luxury enclave where Arnold Schwarzenegger, Disney CEO Bob Iger and NBA star LeBron James have homes.
Also in the evacuation zone is the Getty Center, a hilltop museum that houses more than 125,000 works of art, including masterpieces by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet and Degas. The building has not been damaged yet.
The second largest fire, the Eaton Fire, has destroyed more than 14,000 acres and is 15% contained. Firefighters were mostly able to contain two smaller fires, the Kenneth and Hurst fires.
But the National Weather Service warned that the gusty Santa Ana winds that initially sparked the fires would increase again on Saturday and Sunday.
Seven neighboring states, the federal government, Canada and Mexico have rushed to send resources to California.
No cause for the fires has been determined yet. Combined, the largest of these two destroyers destroyed an area more than twice the size of Manhattan.
About 153,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders, and another 166,000 have been warned that they may have to flee as well.
The political repercussions have begun.
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat with rumored White House aspirations, ordered an investigation into why a major tank was out of service and some fire hydrants ran dry.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Christine Crowley complained about the lack of water.
“When a firefighter approaches a hydrant, we expect there to be water,” she said.
Chief Crowley also attacked city leadership for cutting her department's budget and eliminating mechanical jobs, which she said left more than 100 fire apparatus out of service.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — who was criticized for being in Ghana for the African nation's president's inauguration when fires broke out in Los Angeles on Tuesday — alluded to her tensions with President Crowley on Saturday.
“Let me be clear about something,” Bass said in a press conference. “The fire chief and I are focused on fighting these fires and saving lives, and any disagreements we may have will be resolved in private.”
More than 70,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding the mayor's immediate resignation.
The official said that with growing fears of looting, a sunset-to-sunrise curfew is being strictly enforced in the evacuated areas.
Newsom announced Saturday that he would double the number of National Guardsmen on the ground “to keep communities safe.”
About twenty people were arrested, including for robbery, looting and curfew violations.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said cadaver dogs are helping 40 search and rescue teams comb through devastated neighborhoods.
The death toll is expected to rise once house-to-house searches are carried out.
The fires were so intense that the alloy wheels of cars melted into pools of liquid metal.
Rick McGaig, a real estate agent, told Reuters that only six of the 60 homes in his Pacific Palisades neighborhood did not survive the disaster.
Only a statue of the Virgin Mary remained in his house.
“Everything else is ashes and rubble,” the 61-year-old father of three said.
