Firefighters are mounting an all-out attack to contain the deadliest blaze ever to threaten Los Angeles, sweeping through the city's most exclusive neighborhoods.
Aerial crews are bombarding the burning hillside with water and fire retardant to contain the Palisades fire, which has spread an additional 1,000 acres and is now threatening Brentwood.
Officials are on the defensive amid growing anger over how hydrants ran dry as firefighters battled to contain the fast-moving blaze.
Winds are expected to pick up again overnight, fueling more fires that have already killed at least 11 people.
Reuters“L.A. County had another night of unimaginable terror and heartbreak,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath said Saturday.
Firefighters have made little progress against the worst inferno, the Palisades fire, which has burned about 23,000 acres and is 11% contained.
But as the wildfire spread around Mandeville Canyon, Brentwood, a ritzy enclave home to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Disney chief executive Bob Iger and NBA star LeBron James, sparked evacuation orders.
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 been damaged so far.
The second largest wildfire, the Eaton fire, had destroyed more than 14,000 acres and was 15% contained. Firefighters mostly contained two smaller fires, the Kenneth and Hearst fires.
But the National Weather Service warned that the gusty Santa Ana winds that initially whipped the wildfires will pick up again Saturday and Sunday.
Seven neighboring states, the federal government, and Canada and Mexico have brought wealth to California.
The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. The two largest combined destroyed an area more than twice the size of Manhattan.
About 153,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders, and another 166,000 have been warned they may also have to flee.
A political backlash has begun.
On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat with rumored White House ambitions, ordered an investigation into why a main reservoir was out of service and some fire hydrants ran dry.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Christine Crowley complained about the shortage.
“When a firefighter comes to a hydrant, we expect there to be water,” he said.
Chief Crowley also attacked city leadership for cutting his department's budget and eliminating mechanic positions, which he said left more than 100 fire appliances out of service.
On Saturday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — who has been criticized in Ghana for attending the inauguration of the African country's president when a fire broke out in LA on Tuesday — signaled her tension with Chief Crowley.
“Let me be clear about something,” Bass said at a news conference, “The fire chief and I are focused on fighting this fire and saving lives, and any differences we may have will be resolved privately.”
More than 70,000 people have signed a change.org petition demanding the mayor's immediate resignation.
As the threat of looting increases, a sunset-to-sunrise curfew is being strictly enforced in the evacuated areas, the official said.
Newsom announced Saturday that he would double the number of National Guard troops on the ground to “keep the community safe” by deploying 1,680 troops.
About two dozen arrests were made for theft, looting and curfew violations.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said cadaver dogs were helping 40 search and rescue teams comb through devastated neighborhoods.
It is feared that the number of dead may increase if house-to-house searches are carried out.
The fire was so intense that the alloys of the car's wheels melted into puddles of liquid metal.
Rick McGeagh, an estate agent, told Reuters news agency that only six of the 60 houses in his Pacific Palisades neighborhood survived.
All that stood in his house was a statue of the Virgin Mary.
“Everything else is ash and rubble,” said the 61-year-old father of three