The situation in Los Angeles is not improving. What’s more, it threatens to get worse, since starting this Monday the Santa Ana winds will blow strongly again. They will do so, at least, until Wednesday.
They are already at least 24 people who have died since the flames broke out on Tuesday of last week, as well as more than 15,000 hectares burned, 12,000 structures damaged and 150,000 citizens evacuated.
In parallel with guaranteeing the safety of the population and controlling the flames, the authorities are trying to find the cause of the fires. According to reports Guardianalthough its intentionality is not ruled out, a theory that is gaining ground is that overhead electricity transmission and distribution wiringshaken or knocked over by winds, may have generated sparks that ignited the dry vegetation below.
It is apparently common for utility companies to shut off power during “warning events,” such as the onset of the Santa Ana winds, but that was not the case on this occasion. In any case, according to the publication The Washington PostLos Angeles Department of Water and Power does not have a program to preventively cut off the electricity supply in urban areas when the risk of fire is high.
Robert McCullough, an electrical services consultant, points out, for his part, that New York Times that the department’s power outage plan is “woefully inadequate“.
The expert also explains that the utility’s electrical grid was designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 90 km/hwhich is considered “quite low in the current climate.” During these days, gusts of up to 150 km/h have been recorded.
For now, three fires remain active in Los Angeles, the most serious being Palisadeswhich since Saturday remains contained at only 11%, and that of Eatonwhich is 27% contained, according to the latest data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Cal Fire. Meanwhile, firefighters have managed to contain the fire by 89%. Hurst.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has signed an executive order that suspends important environmental regulations with a view to expediting the reconstruction of homes and buildings after what he has described, in terms of “scale and scope”, as the worst natural disaster in US history.
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