[
]
Los Angeles:
Winds were expected to drop Friday around Los Angeles, bolstering a huge firefighting effort at the five major blazes wreaking havoc around America’s second biggest city.
At least ten people have died as infernos ripped through neighborhoods, razing thousands of homes in one of the worst disasters ever to hit California, with one estimate suggesting the bill could hit $150 billion.
As the scale of the damage started to come into focus, individuals grappled with heart-rending ruin.
“I lost everything. My house burned down and I lost everything,” Hester Callul, who reached a shelter after fleeing her Altadena home, told AFP.
As fears of looting and crime grow, California Governor Gavin Newsom deployed the National Guard to bolster law enforcement and soldiers were on the streets, with Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna also imposing a nightime curfew in some areas.
“This curfew will be strictly enforced and is being taken to enhance public safety, protect property and prevent any burglaries or looting in the area that the residents have evacuated,” he said.
Luna said anyone who falls foul of the rule could be jailed, stressing “we are not screwing around with this.”
The five separate fires have so far burned more than 35,000 acres (14,000 hectares), California’ fire agency reported.
‘Death and destruction’
The biggest of the blazes has ripped through over 20,000 acres of the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where firefighters said they were starting to get the fire under control.
By Friday morning eight percent of its perimeter was contained — meaning it can’t spread any further in that direction.
The Eaton fire in the Altadena area was three percent checked, with almost 14,000 acres scorched and key infrastructure — including communication towers at Mount Wilson — threatened.
A third fire that exploded Thursday afternoon near Calabasas and the wealthy Hidden Hills enclave, home to celebrities like Kim Kardashian, added to the feeling of encirclement.
“You just feel surrounded,” one woman told a local broadcaster.
But after a massive response to the blaze, including retardant drops from planes and helicopters dumping vast quantities of water, the fire was 35 percent surrounded, firefighters said on Friday.
Some of those forced out of their homes began to return to find scenes of devastation.
Kalen Astoor, a 36-year-old paralegal, said her mother’s home had been spared by the inferno’s seemingly random and chaotic destruction. But many other homes had not.
“The view now is of death and destruction,” she told AFP. “I don’t know if anyone can come back for a while.”
An AFP overflight of the Pacific Palisades and Malibu revealed mile after mile of obliteration.
‘Heartbroken’
“This is crazy… All these homes, gone,” said helicopter pilot Albert Azouz.
On highly coveted Malibu oceanfront plots, skeletal frames of buildings indicated the fire’s power, with many multimillion-dollar mansions vanishing entirely.
Socialite and hotel heiress Paris Hilton was among those whose homes were lost.
“Heartbroken beyond words,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Sitting with my family, watching the news, and seeing our home in Malibu burn to the ground on live TV is something no one should ever have to experience.
“This home was where we built so many precious memories.”
The fires could be the costliest ever recorded, with AccuWeather estimating total damage and loss between $135 billion and $150 billion.
Beyond the immediate carnage, life for millions of people in the area was disrupted: schools were closed, hundreds of thousands were without power and major events were canceled or, in the case of an NFL playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings, moved elsewhere.
Meteorologist Mike Woofford of the National Weather Center told AFP winds would lessen Friday and Saturday, offering a vital opportunity to firefighters.
“We’re seeing a little bit of a decrease now, but more so this afternoon dropping off, and then not much wind tomorrow, until later in the day,” he said.
“For sure, good news,” he said, but cautioned it remained dry and winds were expected to return.
Wildfires occur naturally, but scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather and changing the dynamics of the blazes.
Two wet years in Southern California have given way to a very dry one, leaving ample fuel dry and primed to burn.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
