Crews make progress on LA fires as search for missing continues: Friday live updates

Slower winds and cooler temperatures on Friday provided some reprieve for crews battling the Los Angeles-area wildfires as search teams looked for dozens of missing people and thousands of evacuees waited to reenter their homes.

Local officials have told most evacuees to stay away until hazardous materials and search and rescue teams sifted through the ash and rubble. Though dangerous fire weather conditions have eased, officials warned of other potential risks in impacted neighborhoods, including toxic waste and hazardous electricity and gas lines.

Firefighters, meanwhile, increased containment on the three active blazes – the Palisades, Eaton and Auto fires – which have burned nearly 40,000 acres, an area larger than the city of Miami. The National Weather Service cautioned the colder temperatures and light winds may be short-lived as extreme fire weather was forecast to return early next week.

At least 27 people have died in the fires and another 31 remain missing, officials said. Some 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been leveled or damaged in the blazes, Cal Fire said. About 82,400 people were still under evacuation orders while another 90,400 were under evacuation warnings.

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Developments:

∎ The Palisades Fire has burned 23,713 acres with 31% containment as of Friday morning, according to Cal Fire. The Eaton Fire was 65% contained at 14,117 acres. The Auto Fire remains at 61 acres with 85% containment.

∎ After more than a week of remote learning, classes at the University of California, Los Angeles, will be in-person again starting next week, the university announced in a statement.

∎ About 23,600 homes and businesses remain without power in Los Angeles County on Friday, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.

Palisades Fire: Containment grows as crews search through buildings

Crews made gains on the Palisades Fire on Friday as they focused on quelling hotspots and searching buildings and other structures scorched in the blaze.

"There's been no fire growth over the last 24 hours," said Erich Schwab, an operations section chief for Cal Fire, during an incident update Friday. He said authorities were working to extinguish areas where the fire was burning most actively, which are identified using drones and infrared technology.

Meanwhile, six search and rescue teams forged ahead, systematically looking through every building that was destroyed by the fire. Schwab said all structures along the Pacific Coast Highway have been searched and crews were steadily making their way into the interior of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and other areas.

Search continues for dozens of missing people amid LA wildfires

Rescue teams searched on Friday for 31 people missing since the Eaton and Palisades fires ignited and spread across Los Angeles County, authorities said.

Twenty-four of the missing were from the Eaton Fire, while seven were from the Palisades Fire area, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.

Investigators have discovered human remains at 13 locations associated with missing persons, but their identities were yet to be confirmed, sheriff's officials said in a written statement. They included nine at the Eaton Fire and four at the Palisades fire.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office on Friday continued requesting the public's help in their search for missing people in the cities of Altadena and Malibu, posting their photos, names, last known whereabout and addresses.

– Brian Day

Read more: 31 remain missing amid Southern California wildfires, death toll reaches 27

Eaton Fire expected to 'stay within its current footprint,' officials say

In an operation update Friday morning, fire officials said they've managed to shore up additional containment lines around the deadly Eaton Fire.

"Containment continues to grow, and the fire is expected to stay within its current footprint," the incident update said. "Fire suppression repairs are in progress, along with watershed assessments to evaluate potential risks to life, property, and infrastructure from debris flow, flooding, and rock hazards."

The blaze has destroyed nearly 8,000 structures and has been tied to at least 17 deaths since it ignited on Jan. 7. Its size was most recently measured at over 14,100 acres with 65% contained. Damage inspection teams have assessed about 75% of "all structures within the fire footprint," the Friday update said.

How the Getty museums in LA protect world-renowned art collections

The Getty Center museum announced it was "no longer under threat" from the wildfires and will re-open to the public on Jan. 28. The Getty Villa, which had been threatened by the Palisades Fire, will remain closed until further notice.

Both facilities, campuses that are part of the J. Paul Getty Museum, have managed to keep their revered collections of art, antiques and archives safe from the recent blazes and pluming smoke. The Getty Center in Brentwood is about a 25-minute drive southwest of the Getty Villa, a older museum and education center located in the Pacific Palisades area.

The Getty Villa, which saw some of its land seared by the raging Palisades Fire, credits its safe keeping to extensive "fire mitigation efforts," including the clearing of brush, the maintenance of on-site water storage and "state-of-the-art air handling systems" that seal off galleries from ash and smoke.

The Getty Center, meanwhile, boasts even more protections with walls of reinforced concrete or fire-protected steel. The museum – which houses iconic works from the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Rembrandt and Pierre-Auguste Renoir – describes itself as "the safest place for art during a fire."

Read more: A massive wildfire reached Getty Villa in LA. How the museum protected its collection.

Forecasters warn of strong winds returning to LA, 'high fire risk'

Though dangerous winds have subsided and red flag warnings expired, the Los Angeles area could see a resurgence in fire-stoking Santa Ana winds next week.

The National Weather Service office in Los Angeles said the forecast conditions likely won't be as intense as the initial windstorm that fueled the explosives growth of the Palisades and Eaton fire, though it still poses a risk.

AccuWeather meteorologist Heather Zehr warned in an online forecast that "Winds look strong and, with a return to lower humidity, will create a very high fire risk again."

"This event could bring stronger gusts than usual into downtown Los Angeles and surrounding areas, like last week," Zehr said. "Winds would start to pick up during the day on Monday and be strongest from Monday night into Tuesday but continue into next Wednesday."

Can LA still host the Olympics? Debate swirls amid burning wildfires

The devastating wildfires in Los Angeles have fueled a growing debate over whether the city will be prepared to host the 2028 Olympics as planned, as well as the 2026 World Cup games and the 2027 Super Bowl.

“Of course there is a doomsday scenario that would force the cancellation of such major sports events,’’ Gary Roberts, a retired longtime sports law expert familiar with the international sports landscape, told USA TODAY Sports. “The issue is not yes or no, but rather how severe the situation would have to get before a relocation decision would be made, and by whom and through what process would such a decision be made.’’

Los Angeles city officials and Olympic officials have limited their comments about the Games and focused on the plight of the victims and rebuilding that lies ahead.

Two leading sports economists and professors, Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College and Victor Matheson of Holy Cross, expressed confidence the 2028 Games can be held in Los Angeles as scheduled.

– Josh Peter

Read the full story here: Debate over LA's fitness to host 2028 Olympics widens amid wildfires

'We're going to rebuild': Pacific Palisades resident denies land offer

Pacific Palisades resident Beverley Auerbach said someone has already tried to buy the land - sight unseen - where her house once sat, telling her to name the price. She declined, telling the prospective buyer that she and her husband were well-insured and plan to rebuild. She said many of her neighbors planned to do the same thing.

Auerbach and her husband bought their house in 1980, periodically renovating and upgrading. Before the fire, real estate company Zillow estimated that Auerbach's three-bedroom, 1,676 square foot home was worth around $3.1 million. An empty and slightly smaller lot up for sale before the fire was listed at $3.2 million.

"Here, what's really valuable is the land," said Auerbach of her neighborhood overlooking Santa Monica Bay. At least 30 of her neighbors also lost their homes in the Alphabets neighborhood when the Palisades Fire stormed through.

Auerbach said she expects an "extended" bout of litigation before anyone rebuilds. But she's looking forward to living around her neighbors again. "We are going to rebuild. And almost everybody else is saying that," she said. "It's going to be a long row to hoe to get back. But we'll do it."

In an executive order issued Tuesday, Newsom temporarily banned "unsolicited undervalued offers" to buy properties in 15 specific fire-damaged ZIP codes, including Pacific Palisades. In his order, Newsom said he worried that "predatory" developers would try to buy land from traumatized residents facing the loss of everything they own.

– Trevor Hughes

Read more: California governor bans 'predatory' land offers following Los Angeles wildfires

Rebuilding better after Los Angeles wildfires subside

The natural forces that contribute to California’s wildfires aren’t going to change anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean areas like the Pacific Palisades and Altadena can’t be rebuilt, said Frank Frievalt, director of the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Institute at California Polytechnic State University.

Frievalt argued that people must avoid “building back in the same places, in the exact same way.” Doing so, he said, will lead to similarly destructive wildfires in the future and the tactics each community takes must be tailored to their needs.

Frievalt sees the push to implement better wildfire building protections as similar to other public health initiatives, including COVID-19 vaccine campaigns and efforts by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to decrease vehicle deaths.

Implementing such protocols could take decades and, as with a vaccine, a majority of people in wildfire-affected areas will need to apply the methods to decrease the spread of wildfires. But if the policies take hold, they could save lives, he said.

“We're the ones in the petri dish, and we've got to figure out how to adapt to really a hotter, drier world,” Frievalt said. “If we don't do that, we're in peril.”

– Karissa Waddick

Read the full story: LA residents contemplate rebuilding better as fires burn

Unique aid efforts help wildfire victims: 'That meant the world'

Yvonne Garcia forgot to grab Mr. Guacamole. In the rush of evacuating her home last week in Altadena, California, the mother of two didn’t think to pack her 13-year-old daughter’s beloved avocado toast Squishmallow stuffed animal.

She thought the family would return to their home. When Garcia found out it burned to the ground last Tuesday, her daughter's sadness at the loss of her fluffy companion only compounded the devastation.

"They kept asking, like, 'Why me? Why us? Why is my stuff gone?" Garcia said of her daughter and 7-year-old son.

She couldn't believe it when she saw a post on Instagram days later about a group of volunteers offering to find exact replacements for stuffed animals children lost in the fires. Less than 10 minutes after Garcia entered her information into the Google spreadsheet, someone had already reached out and ordered a stand-in for Mr. Guacamole that was on its way to the family's temporary address, at Garcia's brother-in-law's house in San Dimas.

"To think that someone, whether it's far or close, could think about a child out there that lost absolutely everything, and want to send them something to just make them feel even slightly of home – that meant the world." Read more here.

– Karissa Waddick

Death toll from wildfires rises to 27

Search and rescue efforts resumed Friday as authorities attempted to recover and identify charred human remains.

As of Thursday, rescuers were searching for 31 people who went missing amid the chaos of the flames. Twenty-four of the missing were from the Eaton Fire, while seven were from the Palisades Fire area.

At least 27 have died in the fires, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner. Seventeen of them died in the Eaton Fire, while another 10 died in the Palisades Fire.

Of the victims killed, only four autopsies have been completed, the medical examiner said in an update Thursday afternoon. Three died from smoke inhalation and burn injuries, while one died from acute myocardial infarction, with a secondary cause of smoke inhalation and thermal burns, records show.

All four deaths were ruled accidental.

Families mourn LA wildfire victims: Surfers, adventurers, matriarchs, fathers and sons

Contributing: Brian Day, Victorville Daily Press; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LA fires update: Containment of blazes grow as dozens remain missing