A fierce battle against the flames was underway in Mandeville Canyon, home to Arnold Schwarzenegger and other celebrities not far from the Pacific coast, where swooping helicopters dumped water as the blaze charged downhill.
Firefighters on the ground used hoses in an attempt to beat back leaping flames as thick smoke blanketed the chaparral-covered hillside.
Allegations of leadership failures and political blame have begun as LA grapples with tragedy. (AP PHOTO)
At a briefing, CalFire Operations Chief Christian Litz said a main focus on Saturday would be the Palisades fire burning in the canyon area, not far from the UCLA campus.
"We need to be aggressive out there," Litz said.
County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the LA area "had another night of unimaginable terror and heartbreak, and even more Angelenos evacuated due to the northeast expansion of the Palisades Fire".
Only light breezes were fanning the flames, but the National Weather Service warned that locally strong Santa Ana winds — the nemesis of firefighters — could soon return.
Those winds have been blamed for turning wildfires into infernos that levelled entire neighbourhoods in the LA area, where there has been no significant rainfall in more than eight months.
The fire also was threatening to jump over Interstate 405, a main traffic artery through the area, which could become a gateway to densely populated areas in the Hollywood Hills and San Fernando Valley.
NEW: As of 8:30am, the — Governor Newsom (@CAgovernor) #PalisadesFire is currently at 11% containment across 22,660 acres.Continue to stay alert and heed all emergency orders from local authorities. pic.twitter.com/3UZ4tgSdmjJanuary 11, 2025
Even as the fires spread, the grim work of sifting through the devastation continued on Saturday, with teams conducting systematic grid searches with cadaver dogs, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.
The fires have consumed about 145 square kilometres — an area larger than San Francisco.
Since the fires first began popping up around a densely populated, 40-kilometre expanse north of downtown LA, they have burned more than 12,000 structures, a term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles.
No cause has been identified yet for the largest fires.
The fires are still burning but early estimates indicate the losses so far could make the wildfires the nation's costliest ever.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between $135 billion and $150 billion.
On Friday, many residents returned in a state of shock.
Bridget Berg, who was at work when she watched television coverage of her house in Altadena erupt in flames, came back for the first time with her family two days later "just to make it real."
Their feet crunched across the broken bits of what had been their home for 16 years.
Her kids sifted through debris on the footpath, finding a clay pot and a few keepsakes as they searched for Japanese wood prints they hoped to recover.
Her husband pulled his hand out of rubble near the still-standing fireplace, holding up a piece of petrified wood handed down by his grandmother.
"It's OK. It's OK," Berg said as much to herself as others as she took stock of the destruction, remembering the deck and pool from which her family watched fireworks.
"It's not like we just lost our house — everybody lost their house."
Tens of thousands of people remain under evacuation orders in Los Angeles. (AP PHOTO)
Allegations of leadership failures and political blame have begun and so have investigations.
Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered state officials to determine why a 440 million-litre reservoir was out of service and some hydrants had run dry.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said city leadership failed her department by not providing enough money for firefighting.
She also criticised the lack of water.
"When a firefighter comes up to a hydrant, we expect there's going to be water," she said.
At least 11 people have been killed, five in the Palisades Fire and six in the Eaton Fire, according to the LA County medical examiner's office. Officials said they expected that number to rise.
