‘We don’t know the half of it’: More deaths feared in ever expanding LA fires
The cuts “did not allow us to do what we needed to do” to fight the current fires, Crowley had told NBC, and she had eventually agreed with a FOX News interviewer who asked her whether the City of Los Angeles had failed.
“We took a $US17 million [$27.6 million] budget cut. Any budget cut would negatively impact our ability to carry out our mission,” Crowley told CNN, adding that the department did not have enough firefighters. But she acknowledged the scale of the disaster was unprecedented. “Even with an additional 100 [fire] engines … we were not gonna catch that fire,” she said of the Palisades blaze.
Los Angeles Fire Department chief Kristin Crowley addresses the media alongside Mayor Karen Bass (left).Credit:
A City of Los Angeles spokesperson confirmed that Bass and Crowley had met but said reports Crowley was fired were false. “The priority remains fighting these fires and protecting Angelenos.”
Amid a partisan political fight over whether to blame climate change or negligence and “woke” policies for the disaster, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, invited President-elect Donald Trump to visit fire-ravaged areas, writing in a letter to the Republican that “we must not politicise human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines”.
“Let’s turn the page … we’d like [Trump] to have the spirit of the current president and have the backs of people so we can recover,” Newsom said. Trump has said Newsom, whom he calls “Newscum”, should resign.
Newsom also ordered an independent inquiry into why fire hydrants ran dry when they were needed most, a failure that has caused significant anger in the aftermath of the disaster. In a letter to relevant Los Angeles departments, he noted the hydrants were not designed to extinguish massive wildfires, but he said the failures “likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors”, and answers were required.
Firefighters work a hydrant in front of the Bunny Museum in Altadena, which was burnt to the ground.Credit: AP
There was also speculation water pressure was too low to run the hydrants because the Santa Ynez reservoir in the Pacific Palisades was out of service during the fire.
Meanwhile, California residents Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, comforted residents affected by the infernos. Footage shared by the BBC showed Meghan hugging a crying woman and shaking her head as they spoke at the Pasadena Convention Centre, while Harry put his hand on the woman’s shoulder.
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Mel Gibson joined the ranks of Hollywood stars to lose their homes in the fires. The actor’s Malibu property was destroyed by the Palisades blaze, and he joked to NewsNation that he would no longer have to deal with its “pesky plumbing problems”. Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton and Jeff Bridges have also lost homes.
An overnight curfew continued in evacuation zones, imposed to combat looting. While lighter winds have been favouring firefighting efforts in some locations, strong gusts are expected to return as soon as Sunday – though not as damaging as the famous Santa Ana winds that whipped up the fires earlier.
Other blazes in the area were brought under greater control. The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the Kenneth fire was 50 per cent contained, the Hurst fire 70 per cent and the Lidia fire 98 per cent.
