Hughes fire
- Containment: The fire was 56% contained as of 7 a.m. Friday morning. It has burned more than 10,396 acres.
Evacuations: Los Angeles County reduced evacuation orders to warnings for areas in and around Castaic Lake. This zone roughly encompasses an area east of Ridge Route and Old Ridge Route roads, south of Liebre Mountain Road and west of South Portal Road, including an area north of Tapia Canyon Road and east of Lake Hughes Road.
Ventura County lifted evacuation orders and warnings Thursday morning. However, the Lake Piru Recreation Area remains closed until further notice.
Most updated evacuation instructions can be found here, and here.
Road closures included San Francisquito Canyon Road, from Copper Hill Drive to Elizabeth Lake Road; Lake Hughes Road, from the Old Road to Pine Canyon Road; Ridge Route Road, from Parker Road to Templin Highway; San Francisquito Canyon Road, from Spunky Canyon Road to Copper Hill Drive; Templin Highway, from Golden State Highway to Ridge Route Road
More road closure information can be found here.
Laguna fire
- The fire had burned about 94 acres and was 70% contained as of Thursday night, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. No structures were damaged, authorities said.
- Evacuations: Evacuation orders for Cal State Channel Islands and University Glen were downgraded to warnings around noon on Thursday.
Palisades fire
- Containment: The fire was 77% contained as of 7 a.m. Friday morning. It has burned more than 23,400 acres.
- Damage: Officials have confirmed, so far, 6,809 structures have been destroyed and 972 damaged.
- Lives lost: Officials have confirmed that 11 people are dead from the Palisades fire.
- Evacuations: Mandatory evacuation zones have been reopened to residents. Details here. Residents must bring a valid photo ID that shows their name, photo and physical address, such as a driver’s license, according to the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. But most of Pacific Palisades and parts of communities including Malibu, Brentwood and Topanga remained under evacuation orders Tuesday.
Eaton fire
- Containment: The fire was 95% contained. It has burned more than 14,000 acres.
- Damage: Officials have so far tallied 9,418 structures destroyed and 1,073 damaged.
- Lives lost: Officials have confirmed 17 are dead from the Eaton fire.
- Evacuations: All evacuations have been lifted.
Resources
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Rain is finally coming to Southern California: What you need to know
After an epic dry streak that helped fuel devastating fires, Southern California this weekend will get its first real rain of the winter.
Any moisture will help with the region’s parched, combustible landscape. Yet there is concern that the upcoming rain may provide only temporary relief. After this weekend, a dry spell could return — raising serious questions about whether dangerous fire weather could return sooner than later.
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Trump lands in Los Angeles to survey damage after criticizing fire response
President Trump landed in Los Angeles Friday afternoon to survey the devastation from the firestorms that swept through the county. It was his first presidential visit since taking office — and a potentially contested one after his repeated threats to withhold federal aid to California.
The trip to Los Angeles is part of a broader national disaster recovery tour. On Friday morning, Trump arrived in North Carolina to inspect damage after Hurricane Helene ravaged the area in October.
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Officials were warned of failing water system before Palisades fire. Fixes never happened
Los Angeles County officials missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say probably would have enabled firefighters to save more homes during the Palisades fire, public records show.
As crews battled the blaze, attempting to extinguish flames that burned huge swaths of L.A. County and killed at least 11 people, some hydrants ran dry.
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L.A. County’s evacuation alert system broke down during fires. It’s part of a larger problem
When the federal government in 2012 launched Wireless Emergency Alerts — a new system that allowed officials to send loud, screeching alarms to cellphones across a large area — many local emergency management officers were wary of the technology.
In 2017, as the Tubbs fire engulfed Northern California’s wine country, officials in Sonoma and Napa counties decided against sending such mass wireless alerts, worrying that they would cause county-wide gridlock and panic. Instead, they relied on an older system that sent messages to a smaller number of landlines and cellphone numbers voluntarily submitted by residents. Ultimately, 22 people perished.
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Why water advisories are triggered after a fire emergency
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Eight water districts have issued do-not-use or do-not-drink advisories following the Palisades and Eaton fires
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Estimated cost of fire damage balloons to more than $250 billion
As raging wildfires continue to torment Southern California, estimates of the total economic loss have ballooned to more than $250 billion, making it one of the most costly natural disasters in U.S. history.
Early estimates by AccuWeather and JP Morgan put the damage in the $50-billion range, but the expected toll quickly rose to more than triple that amount as fires spread through neighborhoods in Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu.
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With rain on the way, dread grows in fire-ravaged Palisades, Altadena and landslide-prone Rancho Palos Verdes
Michael Gessl’s house survived the Palisades fire that destroyed much of his neighborhood, but something else is making him nervous.
Rain.
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This reservoir was built to save Pacific Palisades. It was empty when the flames came
After flames leveled nearly 500 homes in Bel-Air and Brentwood in 1961, Los Angeles had a reckoning over firefighting.
By 1964, city leaders had added 13 fire stations, mapped out fire hydrants, purchased helicopters and dispatched more crews to the Santa Monica Mountains. To accommodate growth in Pacific Palisades, they built a reservoir in Santa Ynez Canyon, as well as a pumping station “to increase fire protection,” as the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s then-chief water engineer, Gerald W. Jones, told The Times in 1972.
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Some L.A. fire victims are not getting claims advances as required by law, state says
Some policyholders who lost their homes in the Los Angeles fires are not getting claims advances that are due to them, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara alleged Thursday.
In response, Lara issued a bulletin reminding all California insurers that the law requires victims who have suffered total losses to get advance payments for their living expenses and loss of contents.
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Mayor Bass says her brother lost his home in the Palisades fire
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday that her brother was among the thousands of people who lost their homes in the Palisades fire.
“The loss that you’re going through, I share indirectly. It’s hit my family too,” Bass said at a meeting of the Pacific Palisades Community Council. “My brother, who has lived in Malibu for 40 years, been through many fires, evacuated many times — this time didn’t get away.”
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Winds and dry conditions across SoCal driving new fires
Southern California’s fire season refuses to quit, even with rain on the horizon.
In the last day, hundreds of weary firefighters have battled multiple fires in the hills around Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including a massive blaze near Castaic, an early morning fire in the Sepulveda Pass that threatened Brentwood and Bel-Air, and another that pushed into Ventura County farmland Thursday morning.