Los Angeles wildfire live updates: Searching for victims continues
The death toll is likely to rise, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Monday. At least two dozen were missing, he said.
Luna said he understands that people are eager to return to their homes and neighborhoods to survey the damage, but he asked for their patience. “We have people literally looking for the remains of your neighbors,” he said.
At a Monday evening community meeting about the Palisades Fire, a Los Angeles Police Department official said many people reported as missing had been found. It wasn’t clear if there was overlap in the numbers shared by the sheriff.
LA wildfire evacuees scramble to find sleep in cars, shelters and hotels
Tens of thousands of wildfire evacuees in Los Angeles are now scrambling to find — and hold onto — temporary shelter, exacerbating the housing shortage in one of America’s least affordable cities.
With 105,000 people across Los Angeles still under evacuation orders Monday, the displaced were scattered across Southern California, in shelter beds, hotel rooms, relatives’ spare rooms and friends’ couches, unsure about where to go next as extreme fire danger looms for yet another week.
The hunt for longer-term housing has sparked bidding wars in some neighborhoods on the edges of the fires. In the ritzy Brentwood neighborhood adjacent to the Palisades fire, one real-estate agent suddenly got 1,000 applicants for a new rental listing. In Pasadena, a family whose home burned in the Eaton fire in Altadena said they were about to lose their emergency short-term rental where they have been staying since the fires to a family willing to pay $8,000 a month.
Some evacuees, like Lila King, have ended up staying in their vehicles.
King, 75, has been bouncing between motels and sleeping in her truck with her 40-year-old son since they were displaced by the Eaton fire.
King recently had surgery after she broke several ribs in a fall, and the nights sleeping in her truck have left her aching. She said she has been living on tacos from a nearby gas station, and wondering when, if ever, she will be able to return to her mobile home in Altadena, the unincorporated community at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains that was devastated by the Eaton fire.
Los Angeles wildfire live updates: ‘Stubborn’ janitor camps out amid rubble of Los Angeles fires
Among the charred ruins of Pacific Palisades, Jeff Ridgway walks his dog Abby as if nothing has happened. Unlike the tens of thousands of people driven out by the wildfires, this janitor refused to evacuate.
He has been holed up in his home in this upscale Los Angeles neighborhood for a week now, after defending the building with garden hoses and buckets of water.
“It was just a war,” the 67-year-old Californian told AFP, pointing to a blackened eucalyptus tree that he prevented from burning, just in front of the apartment building where he lives and works.
“But I was just stubborn. I was like: ‘I’m not going to be defeated by you. I’m sorry, this is just not gonna happen.'”
After nearly 35 years living in this complex, Ridgway was determined to save its 18 apartments from the devastating fla.
As wildfires continue to ravage Los Angeles, millions of residents are bracing for another week of uncertainty. Many are preparing by packing go-bags with essential documents and irreplaceable keepsakes while anxiously monitoring evacuation orders. With high winds expected to fuel the flames, eyes are fixed on live TV broadcasts and the Watch Duty app, tracking the unpredictable path of the fires.