Category: World

More than 15,000 firefighters, law enforcement officers and other emergency personnel are battling the wildfires, or working to support the crews who are, Cal Fire said.

“While smoke has cleared in most of the areas impacted by the Eaton and Palisades Fires, evacuations and curfews remain in place,” the agency wrote in a social media post. “Officials are maintaining these precautions to prepare for potential fire activity, complete damage inspections, complete critical infrastructure repairs, and address hazards like fallen trees and downed utility lines.” 

The wildfires have burned more than 40,000 acres so far across Southern California, Cal Fire said.

The Oscars voting period and nominations announcement are being delayed due to the wildfires, The Academy announced Monday.

“We feel it is necessary to extend our voting period and move the date of our nominations announcement to allow additional time for our members,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said in a news release.

Academy members from 18 branches, including actors and film editors, will have until Jan. 17 to vote on the nominees for their categories, the organization said. The nominations announcement has been rescheduled for Jan. 23 and it will be held virtually without in-person media coverage. 

Kramer and Yang noted they “want to be sensitive to the infrastructure and lodging needs of the region in the next few weeks.”

The 97th Oscars will still be held Sunday, March 2, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood.

Authorities have resumed sifting through the rubble near Altadena for a third day.

“It is a very grim task. And we, unfortunately every day we’re doing this, we’re running across the remains of individual community members,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Monday.

“I believe we will continue to find remains,” Luna said, asking people for patience, adding that many are saying “‘I just want to go look at my house and I want to see what’s left.’ We know that but we have people literally looking for the remains of your neighbors.”

The victims who died in the fire include a man who was found holding a garden hose as well as an 82-year-old man who died in his bed, family members told CBS News.

–CBS/AP 

A disaster recovery center will open Wednesday at the UCLA Research Park, an institute near the university’s campus. It is one of several centers that Los Angeles is working to establish, with help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for L.A. residents impacted by the wildfires. 

The recovery centers will offer a range of services, including assistance for people who’ve lost important records like birth or death certificates, driver’s licenses and social security documents, and for those who’ve lost their homes or businesses and need to apply for disaster relief loans. 

These centers will also help connect people with mental health counselors. The one at UCLA will be open every day of the week from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

More than 1,800 California National Guard troops have been activated to help with firefighting efforts, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Monday.

He also said eight C130s with the modular airborne firefighting system are on station at Channel Islands Air National Guard Station, which is an Air Force base in Ventura County that is not far from the fires.

More than 16,000 gallons of fire suppressant were dropped over the weekend by the military, he said, and more missions are expected on Monday.

Additional forces, including 10 Navy helicopters with water delivery buckets and 500 active duty Marines from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, are ready to provide support if requested, Ryder said.

There are upwards of 35,000 electrical outages Monday in Los Angeles County alone, according to tracking site poweroutage.us, and a breakdown of outages by provider suggests the connection problems extend past county lines.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison, two of the main energy providers in the region, are collectively reporting more than 50,000 customers out. LADWP has reported at least 16,810 outages, and Southern California Edison, which services parts of L.A. County and adjacent counties like Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura, reported at least 35,123, the tracking site shows. 

City and county law enforcement have made close to 50 arrests since last week for crimes linked to the wildfires. At least four people were taken into custody overnight between Sunday and Monday, said L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna.

Two of the latest arrests stemmed from curfew violations and two involved a single “drone incident.” Despite warnings from local officials and the FAA to keep private drones away from Southern California air spaces currently being used for fire suppression, Luna said the sheriff’s office has dealt with at least two drone incidents since the wildfires broke out, resulting in three arrests.

Overall, county authorities have arrested 34 people during the fires. LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said police have made another 14 arrests as of Monday for crimes committed inside city limits, including three curfew violations, four burglaries, three shoplifting incidents, vandalism, impersonating a firefighter and driving under the influence.

“It’s not just for looting or burglary that you’re going to jail, or curfew,” said Choi. “If you’re in the area and you don’t belong in the area, you will be stopped and questioned. And whatever crime is being committed, you will be held accountable for that. So please stay away from these evacuation areas.” 

Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Anthony Marrone said at a news conference Monday that all fire departments and law enforcement agencies in the area will be prepared as severe fire weather conditions are expected to continue through Wednesday.

“The anticipated winds combined with low humidities and low fuel moistures will keep the fire threat in all Los Angeles County critical,” he said.

L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said “we are not in the clear as of yet and we must not let our guard down.”  

Authorities in L.A. County are actively searching for 23 people reported missing in the wildfires, said Sheriff Luna. A majority of the missing person reports — 17 — have come out of the Eaton Fire area, while the other seven came from Malibu near the Palisades Fire. All of the individuals reported missing are adults.

The sheriff said he expects the number of people missing will continue to increase and urged anyone with concerns over another’s whereabouts to report it to his office as soon as possible.

There are also at least six people unaccounted for in the city of L.A., said LAPD Assistant Chief Dominic Choi. Of 26 people reported missing in the city since last Tuesday, Choi said 17 were found safe, two are believed to have died in the fires and one is likely staying in a local shelter. Police are waiting to confirm the identities of those last three people.  

About 92,000 residents of Los Angeles County are under mandatory evacuation orders Monday morning, L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said at a news briefing. That number was down from Sunday, when over 100,000 people were under those mandates.

Evacuation warnings are in place for another 89,000 residents, according to the sheriff.

Evacuation orders require residents in certain areas to leave due to imminent threats. Warnings are issued as precautions, so people within the warning areas can prepare to evacuate if conditions deteriorate. 

Beyonce has contributed $2.5 million to a newly launched LA Fire Relief Fund created by her charitable foundation, BeyGOOD.

The announcement arrived via the BeyGOOD foundation Instagram account on Sunday.

“The fund is earmarked to aid families in the Altadena/Pasadena area who lost their homes, and to churches and community centers to address the immediate needs of those affected by the wildfires,” the caption read.

Founded in 2013, the BeyGOOD foundation concentrates on economic equity, by “supporting marginalized and under-resourced programs,” according to its mission statement.

Last week, Beyoncé’s mother Tina Knowles shared that her Malibu bungalow was destroyed in the Los Angeles-area fires.

“It was my favorite place, my sanctuary, my sacred happy place. now it is gone,” she wrote on Instagram. “God Bless all the brave men and women in our fire department who risked their lives in dangerous conditions.”

The Screen Actors Guild announced over the weekend it would commit $1 million to help members affected by the fires. While a lot of attention has been paid to stars who have lost homes, numerous less-famous industry workers have also lost homes or been displaced by the fires.

The Hurst Fire, which has covered nearly 800 acres, was 95% contained as of early Monday morning local time, fire officials said.

Here’s the latest on containment for the fires burning across Southern California.

FEMA has reactivated its online rumor response site to address false claims about the agency as it responds to the deadly wildfires.

The agency posted responses to rumors that resurface during major disasters, including setting the record straight on whether FEMA assistance is limited to one payment (it’s not), and whether applying for assistance grants FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership of a person’s property (it doesn’t). 

The Los Angeles Fire Department has also directly refuted falsehoods as it continues to respond to the fires. 

The rapid and direct response to false claims reflects a new approach to communicating with the public during disasters, according to Jason Davis, a research professor at Syracuse University specializing in disinformation detection. Davis says the rapid spread of false claims, combined with the rise of AI-generated content, has prompted officials to be more direct in confronting the falsehoods. 

“In the past, the idea was to be above the mis- and disinformation, to not say anything because it would give it credibility,” Davis said. “That conversation has changed because of its prevalence and the quality that’s now being generated.”  

Read more here.

Los Angeles County fire chief Anthony Marrone said the department is working with local, state and federal partners to ensure they have enough resources for the “next wind event” as the wildfires in Southern California continue to burn.

“We know on Tuesday, those 70 mph winds, if we get another fire start it’s going to be very difficult to contain even with all of the resources that we have from out of state and from the federal government,” Marrone said on “CBS Mornings Plus.”

He called the wildfires that have devastated the Los Angeles area an “absolutely unprecedented event for the L.A. County Fire Department.”

“It’s been relentless for my personnel,” he said. “However, our focus is on the residents and communities that we’ve been sworn to protect.” 

The wildfires are not spreading as rapidly as they once were, and some that sparked last week are now completely under control.

Fanned by unusually powerful Santa Ana winds, the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire grew exponentially in size between Tuesday and Wednesday, engulfing tens of thousands of acres and either destroying or seriously damaging pockets of Los Angeles along the way. Firefighting crews were unable to contain even small portions of those fires for days, and, at the same time, multiple smaller blazes were burning across the county.

Those smaller fires, like the Woodley and Lidia fires, have been contained as of Monday, and 89% of the moderately sized Hurst Fire is also under control, Cal Fire said.

Crews have also managed to slow the expansion of the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, while working steadily toward containment. But fire officials are preparing for a formidable wind forecast this week that could worsen the situation. 

An updating map created by CBS News’ data team is documenting the spread of the Los Angeles wildfires in real time, as two massive blazes, the Palisades and Eaton fires, continue to burn on opposite ends of the county.

Two massive wildfires continue to burn Monday on opposite ends of Los Angeles County. The Palisades Fire, which is the largest, has spread to at least 23,713 acres since first erupting out of a brush fire near the Pacific Palisades last Tuesday. The fire is 14% contained, according to the latest update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

The Eaton Fire and Hurst Fire are still actively burning, too. Eaton, a deadly blaze that erupted in Altadena and spread over some 14,100 acres in northern L.A. County, is 33% contained. The smaller Hurst Fire, at just under 800 acres, is mostly under control. 

The Los Angeles area and surrounding parts of Southern California are preparing for another bout of heavy winds starting Monday, after intense gusts last week fueled the wildfires still scorching thousands of acres of land.

Fire weather outlooks were deemed “critical” to “extreme” Monday with winds expected to pick up during the late morning and become more widespread heading into the afternoon, said CBS News Los Angeles meteorologist Olga Ospina. The situation is forecast to intensify midday, and Ospina noted certain places could experience wind gusts of 30, 40 or 50 miles per hour along with low humidity, raising wildfire risks.

Red flag warnings are in place for inland sections of Southern California, including parts of the San Bernardino Mountains and Orange County, through Wednesday evening. A mix of high wind warnings and other wind advisories were in place outside of those red flag warning areas.

Conditions are expected to ease toward the end of this week.   

An Australian mother has spoken of how she tried in vain to save her blind son from the Los Angeles area wildfires as water supplies ran dry.

Shelley Sykes, a TV production entrepreneur, told Australian media of a desperate battle to save her 32-year-old son Rory Sykes, who had cerebral palsy. Sykes said on social media that she and her son lived in Malibu, a beachside city in Los Angeles County.

Rory Sykes, who appeared in British TV show “Kiddy Kapers” in the 1990s, had his own self-contained cottage on the estate, she said. He was blind and had difficulty walking.

Shelley Sykes said she saw embers on the roof of her son’s cottage and tried to extinguish them with a hose, but “there was no water coming out.”

Read more here.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday he is deploying another 1,000 members of the California National Guard to help fight the wildfires burning in the Los Angeles area. 

Newsom said the additional deployment brings the number of National Guard service members helping with the fire response to about 2,500. 

The L.A. County Unified School District — the nation’s second-largest after New York City’s — says it’s reopening all but a handful of its schools Monday. The only exceptions will be the ones “in the highest impact areas that will remain closed due to mandatory evacuation orders.”

The Santa Monica Malibu district says it’s reopening all Santa Monica schools except one elementary school, but keeping Malibu schools shut through at least Wednesday “due to ongoing safety concerns of the Palisades Fire and the need for campus assessment, cleaning and road reopenings.”

And the Beverly Hills district says it’s “fully reopening” Monday. The district’s superintendent, Dr. Michael Bregy, says in a letter on the district’s website that the decision “was not made lightly.”

The L.A. County coroner’s office said Sunday night it is investigating at least 24 deaths related to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area. 

Eight suspected deaths were linked to the Palisades Fire while 16 were attributed to the Eaton Fire.

Only two of the victims were identified as of Sunday night. Charles Mortimer, 84, was killed in the Palisades Fire and Victor Shaw, 66, was killed in the Eaton Fire. Both died on Wednesday, according to the coroner’s office.

Several Los Angeles power companies have started to try to get ahead of the potentially volatile and erratic wildfires, working to mitigate risks by clearing dry vegetation and protecting valuable power lines.

They’ve been at work for days, stopping at as many power poles as possible along the edges of the Palisades Fire along the Los Angeles coast and the Eaton Fire in the mountains above Pasadena and Altadena. 

“We are way ahead from the fire,” said Connor Norton, one of the PG&E employees working in North Hollywood on Sunday.

First, they clear dry shrubbery from the area surrounding the poles, using hoes and power tools to clear as much vegetation as they can that may pose a risk to the power grid.

“Our job is to get out along the fire’s edge where the fire may go,” said Rob Cone, also of PG&E. 

Afterwards, they use their trucks to douse each power pole with fire retardant, the same thing that’s dropped by firefighting aircraft from above. 

They try to spray the substance as far up the pole as they can and into the cracks of each pole, so embers can’t latch inside and start a fire.

-Dillon Thomas, Dean Fiorisi

 Now that almost all of the nearly 800-acre the Hurst Fire in Sylmar has been contained, authorities say they’re investigating whether downed Southern California Edison equipment sparked it.

The blaze was first reported at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, hours after both the Palisades and Eaton fires had erupted elsewhere in Los Angeles County.

On Friday, SCE officials said a preliminary investigation revealed that a circuit in the Eagle Rock/Sylmar area experience a glitch in power at 10:11 p.m, just before the fire was reported. They also said a downed conductor was found near an electrical tower. The company says it’s unsure if the damage occurred before or after the fire broke out. 

Thousands of people were forced to evacuate in the wake of news that the fire had broken out. All related evacuation orders have since been lifted. There was no structural damage sustained in the fire, crews said. 

The National Weather Service Los Angeles office has posted “particularly dangerous situation” (PDS) red flag winds warnings for 4 a.m. local time Tuesday through noon Wednesday.

The office says winds during that span won’t be as strong as last week’s but will still be strong enough to cause “explosive fire growth.”

Gusts could be in the 45-70 mph range, with some “locally damaging,” the office says, adding that the relative humidity is forecast to be relatively low, in the 8-15% range. Higher humidity helps firefighters.