The wildfires that engulfed the Los Angeles metropolitan area on Tuesday have claimed at least two lives. With reference to the district fire chief Anthony Marrone, the AP agency reported on this on Wednesday, from which TASR drew.
Marrone added that the cause of death of the victims is currently unknown. He added that several other people were seriously injured.
The authorities in the area ordered a mandatory evacuation, which concerns more than 80,000 people. More than 400,000 people are without electricity. Fires in California were caused by a combination of drought and strong winds, reaching a speed of 120 kilometers per hour. The latter contributes to the spread of fire in city streets. Wind gusts will peak Thursday night local time, according to Governor Gavin Newsom.
Currently, more than 250 firefighters are deployed to fight the fire, and they are also struggling with a lack of water when extinguishing fires, as the high consumption of water has caused a drop in pressure in the fire hydrants, which are therefore filled with water more slowly than is now necessary. The authorities are therefore calling on residents throughout the region to save water, so that there is enough of it if the firefighters also have to use reservoirs designed to supply cities.
The fire started on Tuesday in the Pacific Palisades district, located in the mountains northwest of Los Angeles and known for celebrity villas. There, the fire ravaged an area of almost 1,200 hectares and destroyed at least 1,000 buildings. Two other fires near Pasadena and in the San Fernando Valley also spread quickly inland, authorities said, adding that a fourth, smaller fire broke out in the area on Wednesday.
As a result of the smoke from the fires, the air quality in the area has also deteriorated significantly. The AP added that a state of emergency is considered when the air pollution index reaches the level of 300. Some parts of Los Angeles exceed the index of 500, while some places in Pasadena have indices of 600 to 1,200.
Meteorological services have been predicting the risk of forest fires in California for several days. This is a situation that is surprising in the middle of winter, and made worse by the seasonal Santa Ana winds. It is a hot and dry wind that usually appears in autumn and winter. This year, it started blowing on Tuesday and contributed to the spread of the forest fire in an area that is also relatively dry.
Santa Ana wind power is exceptional this year: with maximums between 120 and 160 km/h measured on high ground, this year’s occurrence could be recorded as the strongest in more than a decade.
The weather situation in the area should improve significantly on Thursday – the low pressure over the California peninsula moves to the south and the high pressure over the Great Basin region will also change position, so strong dry winds will no longer blow from there. This should subsequently facilitate the liquidation of fires.
After firefighters failed to bring the fires under control in their initial stages, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency. In a statement, President Joe Biden offered California federal support to fight wildfires.
