California fires death toll rises as L.A. area braces for more winds: Live Updates

FEMA has reactivated its online rumor response site to address false claims about the agency as it responds to the deadly wildfires.

The agency posted responses to rumors that resurface during major disasters, including setting the record straight on whether FEMA assistance is limited to one payment (it’s not), and whether applying for assistance grants FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership of a person’s property (it doesn’t). 

The Los Angeles Fire Department has also directly refuted falsehoods as it continues to respond to the fires. 

The rapid and direct response to false claims reflects a new approach to communicating with the public during disasters, according to Jason Davis, a research professor at Syracuse University specializing in disinformation detection. Davis says the rapid spread of false claims, combined with the rise of AI-generated content, has prompted officials to be more direct in confronting the falsehoods. 

“In the past, the idea was to be above the mis- and disinformation, to not say anything because it would give it credibility,” Davis said. “That conversation has changed because of its prevalence and the quality that’s now being generated.”  

Read more here.

Los Angeles County fire chief Anthony Marrone said the department is working with local, state and federal partners to ensure they have enough resources for the “next wind event” as the wildfires in Southern California continue to burn.

“We know on Tuesday, those 70 mph winds, if we get another fire start it’s going to be very difficult to contain even with all of the resources that we have from out of state and from the federal government,” Marrone said on “CBS Mornings Plus.”

He called the wildfires that have devastated the Los Angeles area an “absolutely unprecedented event for the L.A. County Fire Department.”

“It’s been relentless for my personnel,” he said. “However, our focus is on the residents and communities that we’ve been sworn to protect.” 

The wildfires are not spreading as rapidly as they once were, and some that sparked last week are now completely under control.

Fanned by unusually powerful Santa Ana winds, the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire grew exponentially in size between Tuesday and Wednesday, engulfing tens of thousands of acres and either destroying or seriously damaging pockets of Los Angeles along the way. Firefighting crews were unable to contain even small portions of those fires for days, and, at the same time, multiple smaller blazes were burning across the county.

Those smaller fires, like the Woodley and Lidia fires, have been contained as of Monday, and 89% of the moderately sized Hurst Fire is also under control, Cal Fire said.

Crews have also managed to slow the expansion of the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, while working steadily toward containment. But fire officials are preparing for a formidable wind forecast this week that could worsen the situation. 

An updating map created by CBS News’ data team is documenting the spread of the Los Angeles wildfires in real time, as two massive blazes, the Palisades and Eaton fires, continue to burn on opposite ends of the county.

Two massive wildfires continue to burn Monday on opposite ends of Los Angeles County. The Palisades Fire, which is the largest, has spread to at least 23,713 acres since first erupting out of a brush fire near the Pacific Palisades last Tuesday. The fire is 14% contained, according to the latest update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

The Eaton Fire and Hurst Fire are still actively burning, too. Eaton, a deadly blaze that erupted in Altadena and spread over some 14,100 acres in northern L.A. County, is 33% contained. The smaller Hurst Fire, at just under 800 acres, is mostly under control. 

The Los Angeles area and surrounding parts of Southern California are preparing for another bout of heavy winds starting Monday, after intense gusts last week fueled the wildfires still scorching thousands of acres of land.

Fire weather outlooks were deemed “critical” to “extreme” Monday with winds expected to pick up during the late morning and become more widespread heading into the afternoon, said CBS News Los Angeles meteorologist Olga Ospina. The situation is forecast to intensify midday, and Ospina noted certain places could experience wind gusts of 30, 40 or 50 miles per hour along with low humidity, raising wildfire risks.

Red flag warnings are in place for inland sections of Southern California, including parts of the San Bernardino Mountains and Orange County, through Wednesday evening. A mix of high wind warnings and other wind advisories were in place outside of those red flag warning areas.

Conditions are expected to ease toward the end of this week.   

An Australian mother has spoken of how she tried in vain to save her blind son from the Los Angeles area wildfires as water supplies ran dry.

Shelley Sykes, a TV production entrepreneur, told Australian media of a desperate battle to save her 32-year-old son Rory Sykes, who had cerebral palsy. Sykes said on social media that she and her son lived in Malibu, a beachside city in Los Angeles County.

Rory Sykes, who appeared in British TV show “Kiddy Kapers” in the 1990s, had his own self-contained cottage on the estate, she said. He was blind and had difficulty walking.

Shelley Sykes said she saw embers on the roof of her son’s cottage and tried to extinguish them with a hose, but “there was no water coming out.”

Read more here.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday he is deploying another 1,000 members of the California National Guard to help fight the wildfires burning in the Los Angeles area. 

Newsom said the additional deployment brings the number of National Guard service members helping with the fire response to about 2,500. 

The L.A. County Unified School District — the nation’s second-largest after New York City’s — says it’s reopening all but a handful of its schools Monday. The only exceptions will be the ones “in the highest impact areas that will remain closed due to mandatory evacuation orders.”

The Santa Monica Malibu district says it’s reopening all Santa Monica schools except one elementary school, but keeping Malibu schools shut through at least Wednesday “due to ongoing safety concerns of the Palisades Fire and the need for campus assessment, cleaning and road reopenings.”

And the Beverly Hills district says it’s “fully reopening” Monday. The district’s superintendent, Dr. Michael Bregy, says in a letter on the district’s website that the decision “was not made lightly.”

The L.A. County coroner’s office said Sunday night it is investigating at least 24 deaths related to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area. 

Eight suspected deaths were linked to the Palisades Fire while 16 were attributed to the Eaton Fire.

Only two of the victims were identified as of Sunday night. Charles Mortimer, 84, was killed in the Palisades Fire and Victor Shaw, 66, was killed in the Eaton Fire. Both died on Wednesday, according to the coroner’s office.

Several Los Angeles power companies have started to try to get ahead of the potentially volatile and erratic wildfires, working to mitigate risks by clearing dry vegetation and protecting valuable power lines.

They’ve been at work for days, stopping at as many power poles as possible along the edges of the Palisades Fire along the Los Angeles coast and the Eaton Fire in the mountains above Pasadena and Altadena. 

“We are way ahead from the fire,” said Connor Norton, one of the PG&E employees working in North Hollywood on Sunday.

First, they clear dry shrubbery from the area surrounding the poles, using hoes and power tools to clear as much vegetation as they can that may pose a risk to the power grid.

“Our job is to get out along the fire’s edge where the fire may go,” said Rob Cone, also of PG&E. 

Afterwards, they use their trucks to douse each power pole with fire retardant, the same thing that’s dropped by firefighting aircraft from above. 

They try to spray the substance as far up the pole as they can and into the cracks of each pole, so embers can’t latch inside and start a fire.

-Dillon Thomas, Dean Fiorisi

 Now that almost all of the nearly 800-acre the Hurst Fire in Sylmar has been contained, authorities say they’re investigating whether downed Southern California Edison equipment sparked it.

The blaze was first reported at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, hours after both the Palisades and Eaton fires had erupted elsewhere in Los Angeles County.

On Friday, SCE officials said a preliminary investigation revealed that a circuit in the Eagle Rock/Sylmar area experience a glitch in power at 10:11 p.m, just before the fire was reported. They also said a downed conductor was found near an electrical tower. The company says it’s unsure if the damage occurred before or after the fire broke out. 

Thousands of people were forced to evacuate in the wake of news that the fire had broken out. All related evacuation orders have since been lifted. There was no structural damage sustained in the fire, crews said. 

The National Weather Service Los Angeles office has posted “particularly dangerous situation” (PDS) red flag winds warnings for 4 a.m. local time Tuesday through noon Wednesday.

The office says winds during that span won’t be as strong as last week’s but will still be strong enough to cause “explosive fire growth.”

Gusts could be in the 45-70 mph range, with some “locally damaging,” the office says, adding that the relative humidity is forecast to be relatively low, in the 8-15% range. Higher humidity helps firefighters.