Los Angeles weather forecasts this week are raising a red flag warning for wildfires
Dangerously strong winds were expected to resume Monday in Los Angeles, potentially hampering efforts to put out the stubborn wildfires that have swept across the area and claimed at least two dozen lives.
Santa Ana's dry winds of 80 to 112 kilometers per hour are expected to resume Monday and continue through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said as it issued a “very dangerous” red flag warning.
The peak time to worry about those winds, officials said, will begin Tuesday morning.
In anticipation of the return of strong winds, officials warned all of Los Angeles County's nearly 10 million residents to prepare to evacuate. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone, in a press conference on Monday morning, urged residents to complete their preparations to leave their homes before such an order is issued, and not to silence alerts on their phones, because the order could come at any time. an hour.
At least 24 people died in the fire that started on Jan. 7. The flames have reduced the entire area to smoldering ruins, leaving a terrible scene. Officials said at least 12,300 structures were damaged or destroyed, and firefighters from Canada, Mexico and seven other US states converged on the Los Angeles area to help their California-based counterparts.
Marrone said the Quebec water-dropping plane that was damaged by a private plane last week will be ready for shipment Tuesday morning, pending approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The contact led to a three-six-foot hole in the side of the plane, known as the “super scooper.”
Significant progress on the Hurst Fire
The return of strong winds threatens the hard-won progress of firefighting crews. Over the weekend, aerial and ground firefighters were able to contain the Palisades Fire as it entered the upper Brentwood area and advanced toward the densely populated San Fernando Valley to the north.
That fire west of the city has consumed 96 square kilometers and is at 14 percent, a figure that represents the percentage of the fire boundary that firefighters are controlling.
The Eaton fire in the mountains east of Los Angeles has burned 57 square kilometers – itself almost the size of Manhattan – although its content has risen to 33 percent.
In the north of the city, the Hurst Fire was 95 percent contained, and three other fires that destroyed other parts of the region are now 100 percent contained, said the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection of California (Cal Fire), although the areas inside. it's possible that the wiring harness is still burning.
LA County Sheriff Robert Luna says his team is in the third day of searching the grid in Altadena, a community devastated by the fire north of Los Angeles. 'Please bear with us,' she said.
Kristin Crowley, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, urged residents not to ignore even the gains made in fighting fires.
“At the moment we are not clear and we must not stop being vigilant as we are doing, right now, very bad behavior,” he said.
'Like something out of a movie'
In Altadena on the edge of the Eaton Fire, Tristin Perez said he never left his home, defying police orders to evacuate as the fire raced down the hill.
Instead, Perez persisted in trying to save his property and the homes of his neighbors.
“Your front yard is on fire, the palm trees are lit up – it looked like something out of a movie,” Perez told Reuters in an interview on the way.
“I did everything I could to stop the line and save my house, help save their houses.”
Caleb Serban-Lawler recounts the time he drove up a mountain and into the wildfires of Los Angeles to rescue a homeless woman and her four dogs.
Marrone said the search for the grid in Altadena was “a very bad job.”
“The sad thing is that every day we do this, we grind the remains of individual members of the community,” he said.
As of Sunday afternoon, more than 100,000 people in Los Angeles County were under evacuation orders — down from a previous peak of more than 150,000 — and another 87,000 faced evacuation warnings.
In areas of mandatory evacuation, a curfew remains in place for 12 hours from 6 p.m., while residents of the region are advised to wear N95 masks outside as the air quality advisory lasts at least until next week.
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