During a short break from dangerous fire weather over the weekend, crews kept working to put out the deadly inferno fires in Los Angeles County. But now, Southern California is getting ready for another round of Santa Ana winds that will make the fires worse.
From noon Monday to 10 a.m. PT Tuesday, “Particularly Dangerous Situation” red flag warnings are in effect for most of the foothills and mountainous areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including Malibu. This means that conditions like low humidity and strong winds will make fires more likely, according to the National Weather Service.
“This, along with the very dry fuels, will make it very likely for critical fire weather conditions and for any new fires to spread quickly,” the Weather Service said on Sunday.
A statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office on Sunday said that “more than 130 fire engines, water tenders, and aircraft” would be sent to Southern California.
Even worse, most of Southern California is in a serious drought, and it’s not supposed to rain this week.
The red flag warnings cover most of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, according to the weather service. They come at a time when people are questioning how the area responded to the disaster and whether the Los Angeles Fire Department was ready.
A lot of people don’t like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s decisions, like when she went on vacation overseas and how budget cuts made months ago hurt the fire department.
The winds that are expected late Monday night into Tuesday aren’t as strong as recent storms, but they could reach up to 100 mph gusts in the foothills and mountains, and 50 to 70 mph gusts in the valleys and along the coast.
It was reported on Sunday that the Palisades Fire, which had burned 23,713 acres, was 56% contained and the Eaton Fire, which had burned 14,021 acres, was 81% contained.
Fire and medical examiners in Los Angeles County say that at least 27 people have died and that thousands of homes have been destroyed by the flames. The sheriff’s office said that about 41,000 people in Los Angeles County were still under an evacuation order or warning on Saturday.
Residents were able to return to some places that had been ordered to evacuate, but many others are still waiting to be able to go back to their homes to look at the damage, get things they need, find out how much their insurance covers, and see what they can salvage from the things they still own.
A press release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Sunday said that evacuation orders were lifted in some areas of Altadena that had been hit hard.
But many people won’t be able to go back for at least another week, said LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone on Thursday.
Crystal Kolden, a professor at the University of California, Merced and a wildfire researcher, said, “There’s this extreme level of frustration.”
“But I’m really just frustrated because I want to keep them safe.”
A spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Hart, said Sunday that the agency has already given more than $32 million to people who have lost their homes in wildfires.
The city of Pasadena said in a press release Sunday that red flag parking limits will start on Monday. “Better fire department access and resident evacuation” will be possible on the “narrow and/or winding roads within Pasadena’s urban-wildland interface areas,” the city said.
Lisa Derderian, the city’s public information officer, told CNN on Sunday, “We don’t want to scare people; we just want them to be ready.”
At the same time, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health sent out a windblown dust and ash warning because of the fires’ debris and the strong winds.
The city’s fire chief told leaders that the city’s ability to fight flames was “weak.”
A head of the Los Angeles Fire Department named Kristin Crowley told the city’s board of fire commissioners two years ago that the lack of a regularly filled wildland “hand crew” could be a problem if it wasn’t fixed.
Crowley wrote in a January 5, 2023, memo, “Without this resource methodically creating and supporting fire line on a wildland fire, weakness in the line can mean the difference in containment or out of control spread.” The Washington Post was the first to report on this.
The Post says that Los Angeles only has a part-time, volunteer hand crew made up mostly of teens. They use axes, shovels, and chain saws to stop flames from spreading.
The newspaper said that when the fire broke out last week in the Pacific Palisades, there was no trained Los Angeles Fire Department unit ready to launch the first attack. The Palisades Fire broke out on January 7. The first crews to arrive were from Los Angeles County and the state of California.
ABC News has asked the Los Angeles Fire Department what they think about the memo.
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office told CNN on Saturday, “The Mayor quadrupled the allocation for wildland hand crews. Fully resourcing our LAFD has always been a priority for the Administration, and with climate change getting worse every year we’re accelerating these efforts to protect Angelenos.”
CNN looked at the most current data from the 10 biggest cities in the US and other departments that are similar to the LAFD and found that it has fewer employees than almost every other big city.
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