Evacuations have been ordered for areas of Los Angeles east of the uncontained Palisades fire – as the Santa Ana winds that initially fueled the four-day inferno are expected to moderately pick up.
The Los Angeles fire department issued a new immediate evacuation order at 7pm local time on Friday to areas that cover Sunset Boulevard north to the Encino reservoir and from the 405 Freeway west to Mandeville Canyon.
The evacuation order covers parts of the Brentwood – one of the city’s most affluent areas – and Encino neighborhoods in west LA after the fire department warned that the Palisades fire, now at 21,596 acres, saw a “significant flare-up” on Friday evening.
The area was already under an evacuation warning, but it is now an immediate evacuation order.
“The Palisades fire has got a new significant flare-up on the eastern portion and continues to move northeast,” Capt Erik Scott of the Los Angeles fire department told KTLA.
The new evacuation order comes as the three major fires in Los Angeles remain out of control after having killed at least 11 people, displaced 200,000, and destroyed more than 10,000 homes and structures, including entire residential neighborhoods.
Early on Saturday, Los Angeles county officials said they had made 22 arrests – 19 people in Eaton and three in the Palisades. At least some of those charges were for burglary and looting. Hours earlier, the sheriff’s office had issued a 6pm to 6am curfew in all mandatory evacuation areas affected by the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, in part to protect the property of homeowners who obeyed orders to evacuate from being looted.
The Los Angeles county sheriff, Robert Luna, said the death toll is expected to rise as authorities deploy search dogs to devastated areas. The sheriff also said 13 people are reported missing.
More than 35,000 acres – an area about two and a half times the size of Manhattan – are estimated to have been consumed by the blazes.
The new areas under evacuation orders are close to Brentwood’s Mandeville Canyon Road, a two-lane road that makes emergency access to the pricey homes difficult. The orders also encompass the Getty Center, with its priceless art collection, the Los Angeles Times reported.
A spokesperson for the J Paul Getty Trust, which funds the museum, said the institution was complying with the evacuation order and is now closed, with only emergency personnel in place.
The Veterans Affairs Medical Center in west LA says it relocated residents from its community living facility on the north campus “out of an abundance of caution”.
Earlier, US officials declared a public health emergency due to the air quality effects of the California fires.
The LA public health department said it had declared a local health emergency and issued a public health order in response “to the widespread impacts of the ongoing multiple critical fire events and windstorm conditions”. The order applies to all areas of Los Angeles county.
The department said in a statement that “the fires, coupled with strong winds, have severely degraded air quality by releasing hazardous smoke and particulate matter, posing immediate and long-term risks to public health”.
It advises anyone who must go outside for long periods of time in areas with heavy smoke or where ash is present to wear a mask.
According to the California department of forestry and fire protection, the Palisades fire is 8% contained, and the Eaton fire, affecting Altadena and Pasadena, is 3% contained. Smaller wildfires – such as the Kenneth, Hurst, Lydia and Archer fires, some of which may have been set deliberately – are more in the control of firefighters.
The Santa Ana winds that drove the wildfire destruction earlier in the week are forecast to come and go over the next several days. Strong gusts are forecast for Monday night and into Tuesday, but they are not expected to attain the 100mph strength that drove the firestorms earlier.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has ordered an inquiry into LA county’s water management after reports emerged that a critical reservoir was offline when the fires started, leaving some emergency hydrants with low water pressure before running dry.
A spokesperson for the water and power department confirmed on Friday that the Santa Ynez reservoir, which helps supply water in the Pacific Palisades, was offline for scheduled maintenance when the Palisades fire ignited.
“We need answers to how that happened,” Newsom said in a letter dated 10 January to the heads of the Los Angeles department of water and power and Los Angeles county public works.