“significant flare-up” of the deadly Palisades fire on Friday evening. That fire is now 11 percent contained, with more than 3,000 firefighters working on the blaze. That fire, one of the most destructive in California’s history, has now burned through 22,660 acres.
“We are hurting, grieving, still in shock, and angry,” Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said during a Saturday morning news conference. Despite the anger and shock, she said, “We have got to stay focused until this time passes, until the fires are out.”
Mayor Bass said Los Angeles would undertake a full review of what went right and what mistakes were made, once the fires are out.
Mayor Bass hinted at tension between her and the city’s fire chief, saying: “Any differences that we might have will be worked out in private, but right now, our first and most important obligation to Angelenos is to get through this crisis.”
Chief Kristin Crowley of the Los Angeles Fire Department said that she and the mayor met on Friday to “discuss our shared priorities.”
By dawn on Saturday, two dozen vehicles lined Sunset Boulevard as residents tried to return to Mandeville Canyon, though they said authorities were prohibiting them from doing so. A flare-up forced an evacuation on Friday night, but there were no signs early Saturday that the fire had damaged homes along the canyon road.
National Guard troops arrived to handle the roadblock keeping access to Mandeville Canyon Road closed. Meanwhile, the line of cars carrying residents who want to be let in to inspect their homes is more than 100, with some who had been waiting before dawn.
