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Firefighters are conducting an all-out assault to prevent the largest of the deadly wildfires threatening Los Angeles from spreading to one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods.
Aerial crews have been bombarding the burning hills with water and fire retardants to contain the Palisades Fire, which has expanded an additional 1,000 acres and now threatens Brentwood.
Officials have been on the defensive amid growing anger over how hydrants ran dry as firefighters struggled to contain the fast-moving flames.
Winds are expected to increase again overnight, further fanning the flames that have already left at least 11 dead.
Reuters“Los Angeles County had another night of unimaginable terror and anguish,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said Saturday.
Firefighters have made modest progress against the worst of the infernos, the Palisades Fire, which has burned nearly 23,000 acres and is 11% contained.
But the conflagration has spread to the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood, prompting evacuation orders for parts of Brentwood, an upscale enclave home to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Disney CEO Bob Iger and NBA star LeBron James.
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 suffered damage so far.
The second largest fire, the Eaton Fire, has burned more than 14,000 acres and was 15% contained. Firefighters have mostly contained two smaller fires, the Kenneth and Hurst fires.
But the National Weather Service warned that the gusty Santa Ana winds that fueled the fires at first would increase again on Saturday and Sunday.
Seven neighboring states, the federal government and Canada and Mexico have rushed resources to California.
The cause of the fires has not yet been established. The two largest combined have devastated an area more than twice the size of Manhattan.
Some 153,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders and another 166,000 have been warned they may also have to flee.
The political repercussions have begun.
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat with rumored White House aspirations, ordered an investigation into why a key warehouse was out of service and some fire hydrants ran dry.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley complained about the lack of water.
“When a firefighter approaches a hydrant, we expect there to be water,” he said.
Chief Crowley also attacked city leaders for cutting her department’s budget and eliminating mechanic positions, which she said had put more than 100 fire apparatus out of service.
On Saturday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has been criticized for being in Ghana attending the inauguration of the African country’s president when fires broke out in Los Angeles on Tuesday, hinted at her tensions with Chief Crowley.
“Let me make something clear,” Bass said at a news conference, “the fire chief and I are focused on fighting these fires and saving lives, and any differences we may have will be resolved privately.”
More than 70,000 people have signed a petition on change.org demanding the mayor’s immediate resignation.
As fears of looting grow, a dusk-to-dawn curfew is being strictly enforced in evacuated areas, the official said.
Newsom announced Saturday that he would double the number of National Guard on the ground to “keep communities safe.”
About two dozen arrests have been made, including robberies, looting and curfew violations.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said cadaver dogs are helping 40 search and rescue teams scour razed neighborhoods.
The death toll is expected to rise once house-to-house searches are carried out.
The fires were so intense that alloys in car tires melted into pools of liquid metal.
Rick McGeagh, a real estate agent, told the Reuters news agency that in his Pacific Palisades neighborhood only six of 60 houses survived.
The only thing left standing in his house was a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Everything else is ashes and rubble,” said the 61-year-old father of three.
