The tide may finally be turning against the LA fires

“With those winds being very calm this morning, I think we can really make some progress, turn a corner, and start building some containment on these fires,” Brent Pascua, a Cal Fire battalion chief, said The Today Show on Thursday

So far, the response to the disaster has been marked by misinformation and controversy. After some fire hydrants ran dry, President-elect Donald Trump baselessly accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of mismanaging the state’s water supply to save an endangered fish.

City employees have now been able to reach three water tanks on the hills near the Palisades Fire to raise the pressure. That allows the tanks to be refilled more quickly so they can continue to supply the hydrants, Stewart says. Each tank can hold 1 million liters. “We have full hydrants,” she says.

More firefighters began arriving from Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Washington and New Mexico. Several dozen task forces are en route, according to Stewart, each with five fire engines plus a command vehicle.

The plane started flying again on Wednesday. Twelve helicopters fill huge buckets of water hanging from cables and suck seawater through snorkels. Six planes are also working on the fires, including a pair of “super scoop” planes that have gone down on the surface of the Pacific to collect water. Helicopters and scoop planes dump water on the fire on the spot, leaving firefighters to close in and put it out.

Meanwhile, other planes drop fire retardants ahead of the inferno, covering the potential fuel with a layer of non-flammable chemicals and slowing its progress. A C-130 cargo plane that Cal Fire acquired from the Coast Guard and recovered this summer can drop 4,000 gallons of retardant. That buys time for firefighters to dig and bulldoze bare ground firebreaks.

With the ocean forcing the Palisades Fire to the south, those responsible will try to prevent it from spreading to the east or west. “The real spread will be on the side,” says Pimlott.

A red flag warning for an increased fire risk will remain until Friday, with humidity at just 8-12 percent. California suffered an abnormally dry winter, with 40 percent of the state in drought conditions.

“Fuels remain critically dry,” Cal Fire’s James Magana he said at a Thursday morning briefing. “You can expect to see critical rates of spread, especially on those ridgetops or those drainages that are in alignment with the wind.”

On Saturday, the winds are expected to reverse. If firefighters are not ready, the heel of the fire could become the front and escape to the north.

Even once they are able to contain the conflagration in a circle of firebreaks and natural barriers, this will not be the end of the task. Firefighters should put out smaller fires in that footprint.

“This is a critical stage, to clean up these hot spots or something that could restart if the winds were to increase again,” says Upton.

Moving forward, the city will need to clean up debris, restore utilities, and analyze environmental damage before allowing people to move back. With the canyons stripped of trees and soil-holding vegetation, mudslides could become a threat once the rains return.

Los Angeles will face the prospect of rebuilding destroyed communities. It’s an opportunity to make them less vulnerable to the next fire, says Max Moritz, a fire specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Although the houses are in many cases must be built with fire-resistant materials, California law says nothing about how they must be arranged. Techniques such as grouping houses together rather than spreading them among trees can make it easier to defend against fire, and easier to evacuate, he says.

“That’s part of the hope here, that we can make some of this better, smarter and safer,” says Moritz.

Updated 1-10-2024 1:10 GMT: The number of structures destroyed has been updated.