Dozens Missing in LA as High Winds Threaten to Spark More Fires

(Bloomberg) -- Hot, dry winds are pummeling Los Angeles and surrounding areas of Southern California, raising wildfire risks through at least Wednesday as the region reels from blazes that have killed at least 24 people and burned neighborhoods to the ground. 

Tropical-storm-strength winds were raking the mountains around LA on Tuesday, with gusts reaching 60 miles (97 kilometers) per hour. About 2 million people face extreme fire conditions across a swath of land that includes Oxnard, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, according to the US Storm Prediction Center. Red-flag fire warnings extend south to San Diego.

“This is a particularly dangerous situation from now through tomorrow,” LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said Tuesday at a press conference. “The strongest winds will be this evening and we ask everyone to get prepared now to evacuate.”

About 88,000 residents are under evacuation orders and another 84,800 are under warnings, LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said. Two dozen people have been reported missing in the area of the Eaton Fire, while six are unaccounted for near Malibu, he said.

The winds are poised to ease through the second half of the week, giving firefighters a better chance to corral the blazes. Humidity will also rise through the weekend, although there isn’t any rain in the forecast, said Marc Chenard, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. The moisture in the air can help slow the drying of plants, potentially preventing them from turning into fuel for more fires.

Wind “conditions should improve some by Thursday,” Chenard said. “It is a gradual trend down.”

By early Tuesday, the Palisades Fire had scorched 23,713 acres and was 17% contained, while the Eaton Fire had consumed 14,117 acres and was 35% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. A new blaze called the Auto Fire broke out near Oxnard late Monday, but officials said crews have managed to keep it from spreading.

The Eaton and Palisades fires are expected to rank among the costliest in modern US history. Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimate insured losses could reach as much as $30 billion, considerably higher than a $20 billion forecast last week from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Governor Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $2.5 billion of state spending on emergency response efforts and recovery, which would need approval from the Democratic-led state legislature. His office said $1 billion in funding would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At a White House briefing on Monday, President Joe Biden said Congress would need to provide tens of billions of dollars to help the rebuilding process. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has issued an executive order that aims to expedite recovery by “clearing away red tape and bureaucracy.”

Officials are continuing to hunt for the causes of the fires. Luna said investigators are looking at whether power lines owned by Edison International’s Southern California Edison utility sparked the Eaton Fire, although they are also examining other potential causes.

The utility has already been accused in a lawsuit of starting the blaze. But Chief Executive Officer Pedro Pizarro said on Bloomberg Television on Monday that the company’s internal data showed no problems on its power lines in the area at the time the fire erupted.

“We have not seen any of the signatures that we typically see when a line causes a fire,” he said on The Close.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, meanwhile, has been hit with a lawsuit faulting the utility for not supplying enough water to fight the Palisades Fire. The complaint appeared late Monday on the Los Angeles Superior Court’s website, but hasn’t yet been fully processed by the court.

While conditions will gradually improve through the weekend, meteorologists are watching forecast models that suggest another round of dry, dangerous winds may arrive next week.

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(Updates with LA County officials’ comments starting in third paragraph)

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