LA fires live: risk of ‘rapid fire spread’ as near hurricane-force winds forecast in some areas | California wildfires

LA mayor, Karen Bass, has shared a phone number for residents who have evacuated to get assistance in finding and retrieving pets in evacuation areas.

Posting on X, Bass wrote:

Pets are family.

The City is making help available to find and retrieve pets in evacuation areas.

Call (213) 270-8155 for assistance.”

“Conditioning aid is simply un-American,” the California governor, Gavin Newsom, said in response to suggestions that additional aid might come with certain conditions.

House speake, Mike Johnson, has said he believes there should be conditions on disaster aid to California, citing “state and local leaders [who] were derelict in their duties”.

Asked by an MSNBC journalist what his reaction was to Johnson’s comments and those from other leaders in Washington DC that echo the sentiment, Newsom said:

Well if that’s leadership, I have a different definition. I imagine it would be universally felt here.

I’m not meeting Democrats, I’m not meeting Republicans, I’m not meeting Californians. I’m meeting American citizens, desperate [and] in need, and what they need is empathy, care, compassion [and] understanding. They need support, not rhetoric, not ‘strings attached’.

I mean, I met families who lost not only their home, but their business and their church, their sense of self, place [and] community.”

In the video of the interview with MSNBC, posted on Newsom’s X account, he added:

They [residents] had a Zoom the other night and everyone broke down crying because all they wanted to do is see the faces of one another. And yet, that’s the face of leadership in the United States of America? Conditioning aid to the American people in need? Politicising this tragic moment?

So, I’ll spare any more commentary on it, except to say I would encourage these people – they’re human beings, they’re parents, I respect that – to come out here visit, visit with these folks and let’s have a conversation after that.”

As a reminder, here is the status of the southern California fires, as of midday on Tuesday:

• The Palisades fire, at 23,700 acres and 17% containment.

• The Eaton fire, at 14,100 acres and 35% containment.

• The Hurst fire, at nearly 800 acres and 97% containment.

• The new Auto fire, which broke out on Monday night in Ventura, is now fully contained, and no evacuation orders remain in effect.

Lauren Aratani

As fires continue to burn across Los Angeles, several utilities in areas most affected by the fires have declared their drinking water unsafe until extensive testing can prove otherwise. Toxic chemicals from fires can get into damaged drinking water systems, and even filtering or boiling won’t help, experts say.

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, announced on Tuesday that he had signed an executive order to “fast-track recovery efforts for students and families displaced by LA’s firestorms”, a move that may in part be a response to ongoing political frustration with slow school reopenings in parts of California during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We’re cutting red tape to help damaged and destroyed schools quickly set up temporary facilities, ensuring students can return to classrooms as soon as possible,” Newsom said.

School districts in Pasadena and Los Angeles reported that hundreds of teachers and staff had lost their homes in the fires, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Angelenos have responded to the destruction with an outpouring of support for the wildfire victims, and for the firefighters working around the clock to prevent the fires from moving further down into densely populated city neighbourhoods. Some informal donation centers have been overwhelmed with contributions, as restaurants and clothing boutiques across the city offer up free meals for first responders and free clothing for the people who have lost their homes.

The celebrated hip-hop producer Madlib has confirmed the loss of his extensive record collection and much of his recording equipment along with his home in the wildfires that have swept across California and killed at least 25 people.

The influential musician, who has worked with some of the most prominent names in rap including Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and MF DOOM, is known for his sample-heavy production style. His record collection, amassed over 30 years, acted as the backbone of that work.

The collection is understood to have comprised thousands of rare vinyls, CDs and cassettes encompassing many musical genres, and included records he collected on his global travels. As well as creating and producing hip-hop, Madlib worked on experimental music including the Sound Ancestors collaboration with the electronic musician Four Tet, and founded the Madlib Invazion label.

Some of his most frequent collaborators were creators of alternative hip-hop including Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli and J Dilla, and his work often included elements of world music and jazz. His best known collaborator is probably the late MF DOOM, with whom he used his archive and equipment to produce the critically acclaimed album Madvillainy in his LA studio.

News of the loss was met with consternation by fans online, while an online fundraiser, shared by fellow artists such as Flying Lotus and Freddie Gibbs, has been set up for Madlib – whose birth name is Otis Lee Jackson Jr – and his family.

On Tuesday afternoon, officials said at least 25 people had died from the southern California fires. But the death toll is likely to rise, according to Los Angeles county sheriff, Robert Luna.

Nearly 30 people were still missing, Luna said on Tuesday. Some people reported as missing earlier have been found.

According to the Associated Press, just under 90,000 people in the county remained under evacuation orders, half the number from last week.

Here are some of the latest images that have come in on the newswires:

Millions of southern Californians were on edge as a final round of dangerous fire weather was forecast for the region on Wednesday, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Police announced roughly 50 arrests, for looting, flying drones in fire zones, violating curfew and other crimes.

Of those, three people were arrested on suspicion of arson after being seen setting small fires that were immediately extinguished, LA police chief Jim McDonnell said. One was using a barbecue lighter, another ignited brush and a third tried to light a trash can, he said. All were far outside the disaster zones. Authorities have not determined a cause for any of the major fires.

Among nine people charged with looting was a group that stole an Emmy award from an evacuated house, Los Angeles county district attorney, Nathan Hochman, said.

The biggest worry remained the threat from intense winds. Now backed by firefighters from other states, Canada and Mexico, crews were deployed to attack flareups or new blazes. The firefighting force was much bigger than a week ago, when the first wave of fires began destroying thousands of homes in what could become the nation’s costliest fire disaster.

Kaylin Johnson and her family told the AP that they planned to spend the night at their home, one of the few left standing in Altadena, near Pasadena. They intended to keep watch to ward off looting and to hose down the house and her neighbors’ properties to prevent flareups.

“Our lives have been put on hold indefinitely,” Johnson said via text message to the AP, adding that they cannot freely come and go because of restrictions on entering the burn areas. “But I would rather be here and not leave than to not be allowed back at all.”

Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, has cautioned residents that the emergency isn’t over yet, but she wants them to start thinking about recovery and rebuilding if possible.

“While we’re going through what I hope is the final hours of this emergency, it’s also time to begin to talk about our recovery,” she said.

You can listen to her comments in this video:

1:54

Hello. It is just past 8.30am in London and 00.30am in Los Angeles. This is the Guardian’s latest live blog with coverage of the wildfires in southern California.

Forecasters have warned of another “particularly dangerous weather situation” across northern Los Angeles where residents are braced for new wildfire evacuation orders.

Los Angeles, and parts of Ventura county to the north, faced “extreme fire risk” warnings through Wednesday, with officials warning of “significant risk of rapid fire spread” due to the Santa Ana winds – which have gusts of up to 75mph.

The “particularly dangerous weather situation” designation is used very rarely, and was designed by meteorologists to signal “the extreme of the extremes”. The winds were predicted to reach near hurricane-force in some areas.

This is the fourth time in recent months that Los Angeles has faced a “particularly dangerous weather situation”, and the three previous warnings all resulted in major wildfires, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“I don’t want people to start thinking everything’s OK now. Everything’s not OK yet,” the Los Angeles county sheriff, Robert Luna, said in a Tuesday morning press conference. “It is still very dangerous for the next 24 hours.”

Meanwhile, the official death toll from last week’s fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades is expected to rise.

Here is the latest on the evolving situation in southern California:

• As of Tuesday morning, 84,800 people had been warned they might be ordered to evacuate because of fire risk, while another 88,000 people remained under current evacuation orders.

• On Tuesday afternoon, officials said at least 25 people had died from the fires, but this number is expected to rise. At least two dozen people have been reported missing, 18 of them in the Eaton fire in north-east Los Angeles, and six around the Pacific Palisades.

• More than 12,000 structures had been destroyed. Estimates put the cost of damage at about $250bn, which could make it the costliest fire in American history.

• Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass, and other officials – who have faced criticism over their initial response to the fires – expressed confidence that the region was ready to face the new threat with scores of additional firefighters brought in from around the US, as well as from Canada and Mexico. At a press conference, Bass described the level of destruction across parts of the city as the aftermath of a “dry hurricane”, and pledged that city officials would work hard to reduce the bureaucracy residents may face as they start to recover from the fires.

• More than 75,000 households, most of them in Los Angeles county, were without power on Tuesday morning, but Southern California Edison had warned nearly half a million customers on Monday that their power may be shut off temporarily because of the expected high winds on Tuesday and Wednesday.

• As of midday on Tuesday:

  • The Palisades fire, at 23,700 acres and 17% containment.

  • The Eaton fire, at 14,100 acres and 35% containment.

  • The Hurst fire, at nearly 800 acres and 97% containment.

  • The new Auto fire, which broke out on Monday night in Ventura, is now fully contained, and no evacuation orders remain in effect.