Los Angeles wildfires rage as dry winds likely to return this week

By Lauren Rosenthal and Laura Curtis

 

At least two rounds of vicious, dry Santa Ana winds are expected to blast through Southern California early this week, bringing powerful gusts that will challenge fire crews struggling to contain two destructive blazes and likely force thousands more residents to evacuate. 

After a brief respite from the winds over the weekend, a shifting pressure gradient is set to send bone-dry gusts of up to 70 miles per hour (113 kilometers per hour) through foothill communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties from late Sunday evening into Monday. Gusts approaching 50 mph may whip along the coast and at lower elevations.

 

The winds are set to ease during the afternoon hours before picking up again late Monday into Tuesday. That pattern will repeat across the region through at least midweek. Authorities are also concerned about fire conditions in portions of Riverside, Orange and San Diego counties. 

High winds will limit opportunities for firefighters to make progress against the fast-moving Palisades and Eaton fires, which have left at least 16 people dead and consumed more than 12,000 buildings in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods of Los Angeles. 

 

By Monday, more than 7.7 million people will face critical fire-weather conditions, the US Storm Prediction Center said. 

 

Red flag warnings are in effect through Wednesday evening across a large swath of Southern California, extending from the Santa Clarita Valley into Riverside County. San Diego is also on alert for wildfires fueled by high winds. The gusts are linked to a stagnant pattern of high pressure and low pressure across the West, which has created a natural funnel over Southern California.  “It is a disastrous pattern and there is not much chance of it changing,” said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. “If anything it just looks like it reloads across the West and it looks like it gets worse by the end of the month.” 

On Sunday, President Joe Biden received a briefing on the federal response to the fires from relevant agencies, the White House said.

 

Approximately 105,000 residents in the Los Angeles area were still under evacuation orders as of Sunday morning with another 87,000 on warning to leave.

 

California’s Office of Emergency Services Director Nancy Ward said Sunday there were engines, fire crews, helicopters, bulldozers and water tenders prepositioned across all of Southern California.

 

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Ward said. “We have some very significant fire weather ahead of us.”