Caroline Brehman / EPA
The number of fatalities rises to 25. And the next few days will not be better, indicates the weather forecast.
Almost a week after the start of fires in Los Angelesthere is 25 dead confirmed and 23 missing and a situation that remains volatile, with the threat of worsening of the wind and three fires to be controlled.
The biggest fire in Pacific Palisades, It has a containment level of just 14%, making it the highest and most destructive in the county, where eight people died.
The fire of Eaton, in Altadena (near Pasadena) it is 33% contained at a time when 17 deaths have already been confirmed. In Sylmar, the Hurst fire is the closest to being controlled, with containment at 95%.
There are at least 2,500 agents fighting the fires in Los Angeles, which includes the National Guard and firefighters from Mexico and Canada. After some lull in the Santa Ana winds that sparked these fires, the county is again under a red warning for the next two days.
“Elevated Critical Fire Weather Conditions Will Continue Through Wednesday,” warned Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone. “Those winds, combined with low humidity, will keep the fire threat throughout Los Angeles County very high.”
To “guilt”
Los Angeles is in full swing winter. As is the case in the rest of the northern hemisphere, Portugal included, the USA is in winter.
But climatologist Carlos da Câmara reinforces that the origin lies in the unusual combination that had already been: very low humidity, very strong winds and an unusual drought – it has practically not rained for three months.
But, more than the origin, the professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon highlights the consequences. Many of these fires are urban; and cause such destruction due to “maladjustment of the urban landscape, mixed with vegetation“.
The expert admits that this meteorological event is related to climate change, but warns: “Neither should media changes be the scapegoat, nor should we blame ignitions. What we have to blame is the absence of strategy, which takes years to implement.”
Whether due to electrical failure, carelessness, or crime, the biggest problem with this wave of fires is understand “how one or two ignitions reach this scale”.
“The houses burned, the trees didn’t!“, highlights Carlos da Câmara, on the radio. It is the result of a “creeping biomasstypical of construction” in the USA.
The spread of the fire was essentially due to “projections, winds, incandescent biomass that travels for kilometers. There must to change radically a shape as if build and how fuel is managed in the suburbs of Los Angeles.”
“This architecture is not compatible with these situations, which will be increasingly frequent in the near future”, comments the climatologist.
