The iconic landscape of Los Angeles County and its surrounding region have been forever transformed by a massive, multi-front firestorm that has leveled an area more than twice the size of
Los Angeles was forced to slash funding for the fire department after mayor Karen Bass awarded gilded contracts to city workers, a review of public records by the Manhattan Institute shows.
The wildfires in Southern California have led to the evacuations of over 130,000 people and have destroyed over 10,000 structures. Overlaying the wildfire outbreak across other major U.S. cities shows that the blaze is one of the worst in United States history, as it continues to spread across residential areas in Los Angeles.
For more perspective, Central Park in NYC is only 843 acres. So, the wildfire is currently the equivalent of almost 24 Central Parks combined. Actually, the entirety of Manhattan is 14,600 acres, or 22.81 square miles, so the Palisades Fire is bigger than the whole borough.
The scale of the destruction is hard to comprehend: The fires have consumed more the 60 square miles, according to state fire officials, and killed at least 24 people even as the search for additional victims remains ongoing.
The scale of the effort will be vast — the area scorched by the major fires is equal to three times the size of Manhattan.
The Pacific Palisades blaze has wreaked havoc on over 5,000 structures and is set to reshape Los Angeles long after it burns out.
The damage the Southern California wildfires have inflicted in the Los Angeles area so far is estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.
Even as four wildfires continued to burn in Los Angeles County, the blazes were already rewriting the record books.
The Palisades Fire, the largest and the first to spark, has grown quickly because of the dry and vicious Santa Ana winds after igniting Tuesday morning. As of Friday, the fire has scorched through 20,438 acres in Malibu and Pacific Palisades and is at 8% containment as of 10:43 a.m., according to Cal Fire.
Jennifer Medina, a political reporter who lives in Los Angeles, writes about a reporting trip that took her to both the Palisades and Eaton fire zones.
The lawsuits were filed by the relatives of Xiujuan Yu, Yu Lun Kao, LiLan Li and Mymy Nhan, who were among those killed when Huu Can Tran opened fire at Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park.