Multiple large blazes have erupted around the City of Angels, causing economic damage and losses which could total $150 billion.
At least 10 people have now been killed and thousands of homes destroyed by the wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area, LA County officials have confirmed.
The vicious winds which whipped the flames into LA and caused chaos as hundreds of thousands of Angelenos evacuated have begun to weaken.
However, forecasters say the high-fire weather risk will continue into Friday.
Multiple blazes erupted around the City of Angels, causing damage and losses some estimates indicate could be as high as $150 billion.
Some 180,000 people are still subject to mandatory evacuation orders and firefighters continue their battles to bring the infernos under control.
The most recent blaze to ignite was the Kenneth Fire, which started late Thursday afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, just 2 miles from a school acting as a shelter for evacuees from another fire.
Its flames scorched their way into the neighboring Ventura County, but hundreds of firefighters managed to curtail the blaze.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a social media post on Thursday evening that 900 additional firefighters had been being deployed to battle the Kenneth Fire.
Some 400 firefighters remained on the scene throughout the night to guard against any flare-ups.
Just hours before the Kenneth Fire broke out, officials had expressed hope that firefighters, aided by calmer winds, and out of state crews, had begun to rein in the area’s two most devastating wildfires.
Some Containment Achieved
The Eaton Fire near Pasadena which began on Tuesday night has so far incinerated more than 5,000 structures, a term covering homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles.
It already ranks as the most destructive single blaze in LA’s history, engulfing more than 34,000 acres and incinerating entire neighborhoods.
Thursday saw firefighters establish the first element of containment of that particular blaze.
Out in the west of LA, in Pacific Palisades, the largest of the fires raging in the area has destroyed over 5,300 structures, with firefighters still having no containment of the blaze.
All the major conflagrations which broke out this week are located in a roughly 25-mile band just north of downtown LA, with no cause as yet identified as the spark of the largest fires.
By Guy Birchall
