A new fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills late last night, just a few hundred meters from the famous Hollywood Boulevard, prompting an evacuation order in the entertainment capital of the world. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said his crews were overwhelmed by the scale and speed of the disaster.
“We’re doing everything we can. But we don’t have enough fire personnel in L.A. County to deal with this.”
The Pacific Palisades fire has burned about 6,500 acres since yesterday, destroying at least 1,000 homes and businesses. A 4,300-acre fire is burning around Altadena, north of the city, where flames are burning on suburban streets.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said five people are known to have died and more are feared dead. Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustine said up to 500 buildings were lost in the blaze.
The Runyon Canyon Fire in the heart of Hollywood, near historic sites such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Fame and the El Capitan Theatre, was active as of late last night. Evacuation orders were in place for many streets, including Hollywood Boulevard.
The executive director of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Janice Quinones, asked people to conserve water after hydrants in Pacific Palisades ran dry.
President-elect Donald Trump took to his social media platform to claim that the water shortage was the result of the state’s environmental policies.
In fact, much of Los Angeles’ water comes from the Colorado River.
US President Joe Biden canceled a trip to Italy this week to focus on the federal response to the fires.
“We are doing everything we can to contain these fires,” Biden told reporters earlier.
AccuWeather reported that the estimated damage from the fires so far is $57 billion.
More than 300,000 homes are without power in the region, according to the website outage.us. California utilities often turn off lines during high winds to minimize the risk of new fires.
Scientists say human-caused climate change is changing weather patterns.
Southern California has had two decades of drought followed by two exceptionally wet years, which has caused a lot of vegetation growth. Winds in the area are reaching about 100 mph (160 km/h) and are further complicating the situation, US media reported, recalling that the lack of rain and exceptionally high air temperatures, as well as the drought over the past six months – is “something we haven’t seen in records since the 1800s.”
