For several weeks, local authorities had sounded the alert. After two rather wet years, the risk of fires in California this winter was particularly high, due to the violent winds blowing in the south of the state as well as the return of drought. Tuesday, January 7, the first fires broke out in the forests bordering the city of Los Angeles. In one week, the provisional toll is estimated at 24 deaths and more than 4,000 buildings. These fires are the deadliest since the “Camp fire” which caused the death of 85 Californians in 2018.
In total, five blazes have hit Los Angeles County in recent days. The fires named “Kenneth” and “Lidia” were quickly brought under control. The Hurst Fire is more than 95% contained. There remains the Eaton fire (in the northeast of the city) and that of the Palisades district (in the west), the largest, which continue to progress. For the moment, the latest figures from the State of California show more than 40,000 acres of forests razed by these megafires, or approximately 162 km². This corresponds to approximately 1.5 times the surface area of Paris.
Note that in the reports from the California Department of Forest Management and Fire Protection, the figures have not been updated since the morning of January 12. We can fear that the areas affected will be even larger, especially as the Santa Ana winds – these hot and dry winds which are currently blowing in the region – are strengthening and could reach up to 120 km/h in places.
According to meteorologists in the region, weather conditions are not expected to improve before Wednesday, January 15. The maximum alert level has therefore been triggered. “Emergency services and their equipment have been pre-deployed in areas near the Palisades fire and in all fire stations in the city,” explained the city’s mayor in a message on the social networkbefore inviting his constituents to prepare for “extreme climatic conditions.”