What happened during the first four days of the Eaton, Palisades fires in Southern California

Wildfires engulfing Los Angeles are likely to exacerbate the region’s housing affordability crisis now and long into the future, housing analysts and advocates said.

Rents will increase, especially near the epicenter of massive fires around the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Those planning to rebuild their homes will face intense competition for contractors. And impacts on wavering home insurance markets could lead to greater costs for all Angelenos.

Before the fires they mostly tracked police pursuits and crimes in progress — maybe the occasional building fire.

But over the last week, since major fires began ravaging huge swaths of Los Angeles County, “scanners” on X — accounts who listen obsessively to police and fire radio chatter, then transcribe what they hear into digestible posts — have grown exponentially in popularity.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump on Friday inviting the incoming leader to California to meet with fire victims, survey the devastation in Los Angeles County and join him in thanking first responders.

The invitation, which the governor’s office said was emailed to Trump’s team, marks a change in tone in the political battle between Newsom and Trump.

When Mayor Karen Bass unveiled her budget plan for 2024-25, she called for a 2.7% reduction in spending at the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Her proposal, unveiled in April, sought $23 million in cuts to the department, with much of it focused on reduced equipment purchases.

But while her citywide spending proposal was being reviewed, Bass was also in closed-door negotiations over a major boost in pay for the city’s 3,300 firefighters. Those pay hikes — four years of raises and an array of other financial incentives — were not finalized until several months after her budget went into effect.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered an investigation into the causes behind water supply problems that left fire hydrants dry and hampered firefighting efforts during the devastating fires in Southern California.

Newsom’s demand for answers came amid criticism of city officials in Los Angeles over their handling of the disaster and questions about whether local water-related decisions and planning played a role in depriving firefighters of water during the most destructive fires in L.A. history. The governor has also come under criticism, largely on social media and in right-wing media coverage, for the state’s handling of the disaster.

A large reservoir in Pacific Palisades that is part of the Los Angeles water supply system was out of commission when a ferocious wildfire destroyed thousands of homes and other structures nearby, the Los Angeles Times found.

Officials said that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed since about February for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117-million-gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades for nearly a year.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has issued a moratorium that bars insurers from canceling or non-renewing home policies in the Pacific Palisades and the San Gabriel Valley’s Eaton fire zones.

The moratorium, issued Thursday, protects homeowners living within the perimeter of the fire and in adjoining ZIP codes from losing their policies for one year, starting from when Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Wednesday.

As quickly as the Sunset fire started charring through Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening, an AI-generated photo of the Hollywood sign ablaze was rapidly circulating on social media.

It was just one example of misinformation surrounding the Los Angeles-area fires spreading on social media, and experts warn that false information during natural disaster events disrupts recovery efforts and harms community trust.

A man “attempting to start a fire” Thursday in a West Hills neighborhood that was burning from the Kenneth fire is under investigation in connection with the nearly 1,000-acre blaze, according to law enforcement officials and a document reviewed by The Times.

Juan Sierra, 33, was arrested by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Topanga Division around 5:30 p.m. after he was seen attempting to spark a fire, according to a law enforcement email obtained by The Times.

It is expected to take some time to determine the death toll from this week’s Los Angeles firestorms.

Officials confirmed 10 people died in the Eaton and Palisades fires, but Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna said that number is likely to rise.

A brush fire broke out Friday in Granada Hills.

The Archer fire had burned about three acres near the 17000 block of Sesnon Boulevard and was growing at a moderate speed, said fire officials. Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said the area was hit with erratic winds.

LAFD firefighters are on the scene along water-dropping aircraft. Officials said they were making progress.

It is burning west of the Hurst fire, which erupted in Sylmar earlier this week.

Evacuations

At 11:45 a.m., a mandatory evacuation order was downgraded to an evacuation warning for Balboa Boulevard at the 5 Freeway to Tampa Avenue; Session Boulevard to Sunshine Canyon Road.

Roads

Residents in those areas should leave, officials say. Others should avoid the area.

A small brush fire broke out Friday in Granada Hills.

The Archer Fire had burned about three acres near 17278 Sesnon Boulevard and was growing at only a moderate speed, said fire officials, who hoped to control it.

Walt Disney Co.’s KABC-TV Channel 7 station, which uses communications towers near Mt. Wilson, lost its over-the-air signal Friday as the Eaton fire continued its rampage through mountainous terrain.

Separately, radio station KLOS-FM 95.5, which also uses transmission facilities in the Angeles National Forest, went off the air overnight. Public broadcaster PBS SoCal lost signals for nearly 24 hours before transmissions were restored Friday morning.

The rapidly spreading wildfires are not only upending the lives of tens of thousands of Los Angeles County residents and business owners, but also stressing the region’s hospitals, health clinics, first responders and nursing homes.

At least one medical clinic burned down. Senior patients were evacuated by ambulance from nursing facilities as embers swirled around them and their providers. Medical offices have closed, and routine appointments have been canceled. Some providers have lost homes or had to evacuate their neighborhoods, keeping them from work in many cases and making it a challenge for some healthcare centers to maintain sufficient staffing.

Los Angeles County is experiencing a once-in-a-generation wildfire event, spurred on by a once-in-a-decade windstorm. A true catalog of the destruction is almost impossible to assemble at this date, since any figures are quickly rendered obsolete by the ongoing infernos.

What is possible is to trace the natural factors that conspired to produce such an apocalyptic result, and explain how these factors will likely continue to cause devastation across the country in the coming days.

County officials announced Friday they are overhauling their emergency alert system after residents across the Los Angeles area continued to receive erroneous emergency alerts that urged them to prepare to evacuate, even though many were not close to any of the fires sweeping across the foothills of the sprawling metropolis.

Residents were awoken in the middle of the night Friday by the now-familiar buzz and chime: “An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area.” Panic ensued as many were left to make a quick decision — was it time to grab their bags and leave?

The Palisades fire, the most devastating in L.A. history, is now 6% contained.

Firefighters are beginning to make progress on the blaze, which burned about 20,000 acres and a huge swath of Pacific Palisades.

L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna announced several measures Thursday to ramp up security in areas that have been evacuated because of devastating fires in the area. More than 20 arrests have been made on suspicion of looting over the last few days.

“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has officially requested the support of the California National Guard for both fires,” Luna said. “They will be assisting us with traffic control and critical infrastructure protection.”

Officials said they are making progress in protecting two key institutions from the Eaton fire.

Don Fregulia, an operations section chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which has joined in the Eaton fire response, said that efforts to protect Mt. Wilson had proved successful and he expected that to remain the case.

The unprecedented scale of the destruction in Pacific Palisades came into horrifying focus Thursday from a fire that flattened a large swath of the community, rendering it unrecognizable.

As the smoke began to clear after two days of intense fire, Pacific Palisades appeared more like a moonscape of destruction than an upscale neighborhood known for its ocean views, beautiful vistas and celebrity denizens. Entire swaths of the residential district, from its quaint village to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, were completely gone, the architectural whimsy and lush landscaping reduced to burned-out ruins with white smoke still billowing from the wreckage.

SACRAMENTO — As lawmakers regrouped Thursday after fiery devastation across Los Angeles, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas vowed to back legislation to help homeowners expedite insurance claims, while Senate leader Mike McGuire delivered a tearful floor speech addressing California’s “hellish week.”

“Words cannot explain the absolute shock, horror, sorrow surrounding the devastation that we see day in and day out,” McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said. “The residents of L.A. County need to hear us loud and clear. We have your back. But first and foremost, we have to get these damn fires out.”

All evacuation warnings have been lifted for the Kenneth fire, which was burning in eastern Ventura County near Calabasas.

The fire broke out Thursday evening and burned about 900 acres.

The confirmed death toll in the Los Angeles wildfires doubled Thursday night — from five fatalities to 10.

The office of the Los Angeles County medical examiner announced it was investigating 10 fire-related deaths as of 9 p.m. Thursday. No information was available on the identity of the deceased or the location of the deaths.

As crews have fought the fast-spreading fires across the Los Angeles area, they have repeatedly been hampered by low water pressure and fire hydrants that have gone dry. These problems have exposed what experts say are vulnerabilities in city water supply systems not built for wildfires on this scale.

The water system that supplies neighborhoods simply doesn’t have the capacity to deliver such large volumes of water over several hours, said Martin Adams, former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

An experimental smoke forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests smoke will move east toward the Los Angeles area by Friday night.

The Palisades fire broke out Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. amid dangerously high winds and dry conditions, leaving dry vegetation primed to burn.

These maps show the blaze’s rapid spread.

World Central Kitchen, the global humanitarian aid organization spearheaded by celebrity chef José Andrés, is operating in three locations in Los Angeles to provide meals for first responders and families affected by the Southern California fires.

The local relief team mobilized on Tuesday, partnering with L.A. chefs and restaurants including Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken of Socalo and Border Grill, Roy Choi’s Kogi BBQ and Nate ’n Al’s chef Tony Leitera.

World Central Kitchen is serving free meals at the following locations: the Pasadena Convention Center, the Rose Bowl and St. Francis High School in La Cañada Flintridge.

As of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the relief team had served 3,250 meals — 1,850 sandwiches and 1,400 hot meals.

Locations could expand and change, depending on the fires’ projected movements, said Carrie Hayes, a spokesperson for World Central Kitchen.

“Currently our teams are scouting for communities and first responders in need … and delivering the meals,” she said. “As always, we will scale our meal counts according to hour-by-hour assessments on the ground as to the need in particular areas.”

After the firefighters had moved on from neighborhoods reduced to rubble, officials from a different arm of local government arrived in white vans.

Investigators from the Los Angeles County medical examiner sifted through razed homes in Altadena and Malibu on Thursday as they continue to recover the remains of those killed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Los Angeles police have taken a man into custody on suspicion of arson after a witness reported seeing him attempting to start a fire in the Woodland Hills area, an LAPD spokesperson said.

A caller reported a man attempting to light a fire in the 21700 block of Ybarra Road at 4:22 p.m.

LAPD Senior Lead Officer Charles Dinse told News Nation that the department believes the Kenneth fire was intentionally set. But police told The Times that they could not connect the suspect to the Kenneth fire at this time.

The investigation is ongoing, police said. The suspect was being held at the LAPD Topanga station.

A fire broke out at the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties on Thursday afternoon and was spreading rapidly, threatening numerous hillside homes in the Calabasas and Hidden Hills areas.

The Kenneth fire ignited adjacent to a trailhead near Victory Boulevard around 2:30 p.m.

Around 5,300 of these structures were destroyed in the Palisades fire, while another 4,000 to 5,000 structures were estimated to be damaged or destroyed in the Eaton fire burning in the Altadena area.

Wind speeds dipped slightly Thursday morning in Los Angeles County, offering a brief respite for firefighters battling the deadly wildfires that have continued to ravage the region.

But after that lull, winds are expected to pick back up Thursday night, according to Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard.