Death toll from Los Angeles wildfire rises to 16, looters dressed as firemen raid homes
The death toll from the Los Angeles wildfire has risen to 16 as looters dressed as firemen raid people's homes.
Across the city, the death toll from ferocious wildfires sweeping Los Angeles has risen to at least 16 people killed by multiple fires ripping through residential areas since January 7, razing thousands of homes.
The Palisades Fire, the largest Los Angeles fire, spread toward previously untouched neighborhoods on Saturday, forcing new evacuations and dimming hopes that the disaster was under control.
The two largest wildfires in Los Angeles, the Eaton and Palisades infernos, have not been contained further over the past 24 hours.
Firefighters said that over 100 square miles of homes and vegetation had been consumed in the flames, which have burned down more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, also forcing 150,000 people to evacuate their residences. More than 700 people have sought refuge in emergency shelters across the county.
An overnight curfew has been imposed in fire areas to deter looting from homes affected by the fires.
A Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson said several people looting in the burned areas had been arrested. Reports said two looters were even "posing as firefighters coming in and out of houses."
In Mandeville Canyon, home to several actors and celebrities including Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen, Harrison Ford, and Tom Selleck, helicopters dropped water as flames charged downhill through chaparral-covered terrain.
The inferno threatens to jump Interstate 405, potentially endangering densely populated areas in the Hollywood Hills.
The international firefighting effort includes crews from nine US states and Mexico, with 1,354 fire engines, 84 aircraft and more than 14,000 personnel battling to contain the blazes, which remain at just 11 percent and 15 percent containment for the Palisades and Eaton fires, respectively.
President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday criticized political officials in charge of fighting the Los Angeles wildfires, calling them “incompetent” and asking why the blazes were not yet extinguished.
“The fires are still raging in LA,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. “The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out."
“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost,” he wrote. “There is death all over the place. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?”
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who hails from the Democratic Party, has accused Republican Trump of politicizing the devastating California fires.
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