LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles firefighters braced for high winds overnight into Tuesday, gusts that could fuel two monstrous wildfires that have already leveled entire neighborhoods, killed at least two dozen people, and burned an area the size of Washington, D.C.
\nDry, dangerous Santa Ana wind gusts reached 30 to 50 mph (48 to 80 kph) later on Monday, but the red flag warning was not due to start until 10 p.m. PST (0600 GMT) with the peak winds that could hit 75 mph (120 kph) starting around 4 a.m. Tuesday (1200 GMT), said David Roth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service\u2019s Weather Prediction Center.
\nMore than 8,500 firefighters attacked the fires from the air and on the ground, preventing the conflagrations at either end of Los Angeles from spreading overnight.
\n\u201cThis setup is about as bad as it gets,\u201d and Los Angeles City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told Angelenos, \u201cWe are not in the clear.\u201d
\nOfficials said the state was pre-positioning firefighting crews in vulnerable areas, not just in Los Angeles but also in other Southern California counties that were also under elevated fire danger.
\nThe two main wildfires erupted last week, fueled by hurricane-force winds bringing dry air from the inland deserts.
\nAt least 24 people have died in the fires since then, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner reported.
\nThe wildfires have destroyed or damaged more than 12,000 structures, turning entire neighborhoods into smoldering ash and piles of rubble, leaving an apocalyptic landscape.
\nAs of Monday, more than 92,000 people in Los Angeles County were under evacuation orders \u2014 down from a previous high of more than 150,000 \u2014 while another 89,000 faced evacuation warnings.
\nThe Palisades Fire, which wiped out upscale communities on the western flank of Los Angeles, burned 23,713 acres (96 square km) and was 14 percent contained, a figure representing the percentage of the fire\u2019s perimeter that firefighters have under control.
\nThe Eaton Fire in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains east of the city consumed another 14,117 acres (57 sq km) and was 33 percent contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) reported.
\nA third fire of 799 acres (3.2 sq km) north of town was 95 percent contained and three other fires in the county have been fully brought under control in recent days.
\nThe Eaton fire damaged the Altadena home of Lorraine Bryan, 63, and destroyed two other dwellings on her property. She told Reuters she worries about getting additional doses of insulin that she needs to manage her diabetes.
\n\u201cI\u2019m worried about insurance and about rebuilding and getting back on my feet,\u201d Bryan said Monday, standing in the doorway of her charred home. \u201cI need my medication. I\u2019m trying to see who can help us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles firefighters braced for high winds overnight into Tuesday, gusts that could fuel two monstrous wildfires that have already leveled entire neighborhoods, killed at least two dozen people, and burned an area the size of Washington, D.C. Dry, dangerous Santa Ana wind gusts reached 30 to 50 mph (48 to 80 kph) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":75620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75623,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75590\/revisions\/75623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}