تاریخ انتشار: 1403/10/20 22:8 / کد خبر : 7463 / دسته خبر : اقتصادی
A central part of the city was under threat as a new fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills. Firefighters were already struggling to fight the worst blaze in Los Angeles history, and more than 100,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders.
Follow continuing coverage of the wildfires in Southern California.
Corina KnollSoumya Karlamangla and Mike Ives
Corina Knoll is reporting from Los Angeles.
A new wildfire broke out on Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, an area of central Los Angeles indelibly associated with the American film industry, as emergency crews struggled against several other devastating blazes that were raging out of control and forcing desperate evacuations.
Even though wildfires are a fact of life in the hills of Southern California, the experience of watching one encroach upon a metropolitan area left residents deeply unsettled and afraid.
The 60-acre Sunset fire, burning among the hiking trails and secluded mansions of the Hollywood Hills, was zero percent contained as of 9 p.m. local time. A mandatory evacuation order was in effect for a wealthy area bordered by Mulholland Drive and Hollywood Boulevard, and an evacuation warning extended west along Sunset Boulevard toward West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
The street names evoke the grandeur and romance of the movies, and the iconic “Hollywood” sign stands nearby, on the other side of the 101 Freeway.
As of Wednesday evening, five people had died as a result of the wildfires, more than 25,000 acres had burned, more than 100,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders and hundreds of thousands of customers had lost power. Glowing embers were floating through the sky like lightning bugs as thick black smoke turned day into night.
The largest of the blazes is the uncontained, 15,000-acre Palisades Fire. It has already consumed more than 1,000 structures, making it the most destructive in Los Angeles history, according to Cal Fire, the state fire agency.
About 16 million people in Southern California were under a red flag warning, the highest fire-related alert issued by the National Weather Service, by 9 p.m. on Wednesday. The agency said “extremely critical” fire weather conditions — the result of strong winds and dry conditions — were forecast to wane overnight. But conditions would remain “critically elevated” through at least Thursday and potentially into Friday, it said.
Here’s what else to know:
Other fires: East of Los Angeles in Eaton Canyon, the day-old Eaton fire had reached Pasadena and consumed more than 10,000 acres as of Wednesday night. Another blaze that started on Tuesday, the Hurst fire in the San Fernando Valley, had grown to about 850 acres. Read more about the three major fires.
Water availability: A lack of water has hampered crews’ efforts to beat back the major fires and several smaller ones The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power said that the department had filled reservoirs across the city before the windstorm. But with so many trucks connected to hydrants, and no aerial support possible, the tanks were depleted.
Climate context: Santa Ana winds are notorious for spreading wildfire, and they often occur in colder months. By January, though, their impacts are usually less dramatic, as the landscape is typically less flammable after rains in the fall and early winter. But this year, the rains have not come, leaving most of Southern California extremely dry. Scientists have also found that fires across the region have become faster-moving in recent decades.
Yan Zhuang, Jacey Fortin, and Ken Bensinger contributed reporting.
Qasim Nauman
Most of the evacuation zone set up because of the Sunset fire in the Hollywood Hills has now been lifted, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. At its largest, the zone included some of the best-known landmarks in Los Angeles, including the TCL Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
The remaining area is closed until Thursday morning as firefighters ensure fires don’t flare up again, the fire department said, asking residents to be cautious as they return to their homes.
The Palisades fire, which is already the most destructive in Los Angeles's history, has grown to more than 17,200 acres, according to Cal Fire.
Evacuation areas
Evacuation order
Evacuation warning
Sources: L.A. County, L.A. Fire Dept.
By The New York Times
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Yan Zhuang
Santa Monica declared a curfew from sunset to sunrise for the part of the city under a mandatory evacuation order because of the Palisades fire. The curfew was necessary because of the risk of theft in areas under evacuation orders, according to a proclamation signed by David White, the city manager, late Wednesday.
Erin Mendell
The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water is also warning residents of Pacific Palisades, which has been devastated by the Palisades fire, about unsafe water. There, people should use boiled tap water or bottled water for drinking and cooking because of low water pressure in the distribution system.
Corina Knoll
The city of Pasadena is warning residents of evacuated areas that their water is unsafe for drinking or cooking. Debris from the Eaton fire might have affected the water system in those regions, and residents are advised to stick to bottled water. “Do not try and treat the water yourself.” The city said a resolution was dependent on evolving fire, wind and related conditions.
The Sunswept fire that burned homes in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles has been extinguished, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. More than 50 firefighters were on the scene, and no injuries were reported.
Soumya Karlamangla
Los Angeles is used to fires, but this amount of destruction is unusual. The Palisades and Eaton fires, which have destroyed at least 1,000 structures each, both rank among the 20 most destructive fires in California history. And they are the two most destructive fires to hit Los Angeles.
The fact that they’re burning at the same time — while more fires keep popping up across the region — makes it that much scarier.
The Los Angeles area is experiencing a newfound sense of vulnerability as reports of new wildfires keep appearing throughout the day. Many are quickly snuffed out, while others linger for a while. They all prompt anxiety, considering the volatile nature of the Palisades and Eaton fires. A map of the current blazes across the region appears nearly like a ring of fire.
There have been problems with fire hydrants running dry. Gov. Gavin Newsom just said that California will mobilize as many as 140 2,500-gallon water tenders to help fight the Palisades and Eaton fires.
Shawn Paik
The Magic Castle in Los Angeles has temporarily closed as the Sunset fire spreads through nearby Runyon Canyon Park. The private club is attached to the Academy of Magical Arts, an order of magicians and a school devoted to the mastery of props like coins, cards and silks.
Firefighters are beginning to make progress containing some of the out of control blazes. The Hurst Fire, in the San Fernando Valley, is 10 percent contained and now 855 acres, the Angeles National Forest said in a statement.
Extreme winds have helped the fires in Southern California grow rapidly this week. The National Weather Service’s San Diego office said that the strongest wind gust it recorded on Wednesday was 94 miles per hour, around 4 a.m. in Fremont Canyon. The red flag warning in place for parts of Los Angeles until Friday extends to San Diego.
A blaze involving homes in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles and dubbed the Sunswept fire has prompted the Los Angeles Fire Department to alert residents to prepare for a potential evacuation.
This fire is about eight miles northeast of the Sunset fire in the Hollywood Hills.
Soumya KarlamanglaOrlando Mayorquín and Tim Arango
When a series of dangerous, wind-driven fires broke out on Tuesday in the Los Angeles area, Mayor Karen Bass was on the other side of the globe, part of a delegation sent by President Biden to Ghana for the inauguration of its new president.
Ms. Bass, a former Democratic congresswoman who became mayor in late 2022, did not return to Los Angeles until Wednesday afternoon, by which point more than 1,000 homes had burned and 100,000 people across the region had been forced to flee from their homes.
The mayor’s absence has drawn criticism from some Angelenos. Many said there was insufficient warning from officials about the likelihood of devastating fires, even as weather forecasts predicted extreme danger this week.
By Thursday last week, the National Weather Service in Los Angeles had begun warning of “extreme fire weather conditions.” By Sunday, the warnings had become even more dire — “rapid fire growth and extreme behavior with any fire starts.”
But Mayor Bass posted her first warning on X about the wind storm on Monday, when she was already in Ghana. Her office did not send out a news release about fire risk until nearly 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning, after the blaze in Pacific Palisades had already broken out.
“There was zero preparation. There was zero thought here,” said Michael Gonzales, 47, whose home burned down in Pacific Palisades, a wealthy neighborhood that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. His family of five was camped out in a hotel in Santa Monica on Wednesday as they began figuring out where they will live.
Mr. Gonzales, a lawyer, said he believed Mayor Bass made a poor decision to remain overseas despite forecasters warning of the most dangerous fire conditions in more than a decade.
“It was an utter breakdown in leadership and it starts with the mayor’s office,” he said in an interview.
In her first news conference since returning to Los Angeles, Mayor Bass on Wednesday defended her administration when asked about criticisms of the city’s response to the fire. She said the disaster was the result of months of little rain and winds that had not been seen in the city for at least 14 years.
“We have to resist any, any effort to pull us apart,” she said.
Ms. Bass said that she returned home as quickly as she could after the fires tore through Pacific Palisades and other parts of Southern California.
“I took the fastest route back, which included being on a military plane,” she said.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power filled all 114 available water reservoirs and storage facilities ahead of the windstorm, including the ones in the Palisades area, said Janisse Quiñones, the department’s chief executive. Without aerial water supply, the heavy use of fire hydrants depleted the tanks, which crews were now working to refill, she said.
Rick Caruso, a real estate developer who lost to Ms. Bass in the mayoral race in 2022, said that he had a team of private firefighters in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday night helping to protect a major outdoor retail space he owns, as well as some nearby homes. All night, he said, they were telling him that water was in short supply.
City officials confirmed that water tanks ran dry during the intense firefight early Wednesday in Pacific Palisades because demand surged to four times the normal rate for 15 hours. The system, they suggested, was not designed to supply so much water in such a short period.
“The lack of water in the hydrants, I don’t think there’s an excuse,” Mr. Caruso said. “This was very predictable,” he said, referring to the forecasts that predicted the devastating windstorm.
Mr. Caruso, who served two stints as president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said that it will take to time to account for why firefighters struggled to get enough water to fight the fires.
“This is a massive failure of epic proportions,” he said. “To know the storm was coming and then to leave, and not rush back. Leadership matters and the first thing is to be present.”
Isabelle Taft contributed reporting.
Hannah Yi
On the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, about a 10-minute walk from sites like the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the TCL Chinese Theater, people watched a helicopter drop water on the fast-moving Sunset fire.
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