Weather forecasters in Los Angeles expect fast, dry winds to return towards the end of the weekend, threatening to fuel wildfires that have already destroyed 10,000 structures and killed 10 people.
Urgent “red flag” alerts – meaning critical fire weather conditions – announced by the US National Weather Service (NWS) said moderate to strong wind and low humidity would continue on Friday morning, as five fires raged across the metropolis.
Barbara Bruderlin, head of the Malibu Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce, described the impact of the infernos as “total devastation and loss”.
“There are areas where everything is gone, there isn’t even a stick of wood left, it’s just dirt,” Bruderlin said.
Cadaver dogs and crews were searching through rubble to see if there are more victims.
Two of the dead were Anthony Mitchell, a 67-year-old amputee, and his son, Justin, who had cerebral palsy. They were waiting for an ambulance to come when the flames roared through, Mitchell’s daughter, Hajime White, told The Washington Post.
In another incident, Shari Shaw told local media outlet KTLA that she tried to get her 66-year-old brother, Victor Shaw, to evacuate Tuesday night but he wanted to stay and fight the fire. Crews found his body with a garden hose in his hand.
Winds were likely to diminish on Friday afternoon, the NWS said, but warned an “extended period of elevated to potentially critical fire weather conditions are in the forecast for Sunday through Wednesday”.
Officials urged more people to heed evacuation orders after a new blaze, called the Kenneth fire, ignited on Thursday afternoon. About 400 firefighters remained at the location overnight to guard against the fire spreading.
Firefighting efforts in such tough conditions, with effectively no rain for months and none forecast in the days ahead, have stretched crews and left the country’s second-largest city reeling.
The largest of the fires burning in the LA area, the Pacific Palisades, obliterated neighbourhoods in the scenic hilltops. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection website, that blaze has been only 6% “contained”.
To the east, the Eaton fire near Pasadena that started Tuesday night has burned more than 5,000 structures, a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles.
Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, including wildfires. In California, the fire season now begins earlier and ends later.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service released on Friday showed the annual global temperature reached above the internationally agreed 1.5C target for the first time last year. That jump represented levels of heat never experienced by modern humans.
At least 180,000 people were under evacuation orders, and the fires have consumed about 45 sq miles (117 sqkm), which is roughly the size of San Francisco.
At least 20 arrests have been made for looting. The city of Santa Monica, which is next to Pacific Palisades, declared a curfew because of the lawlessness, officials said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
