The tide may finally be turning against the Los Angeles fires

“With the winds calming down this morning, I think we can actually make some progress, turn the corner, and start building some containment for these fires,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brent Pasqua said. He said The Today Show is on Thursday.

So far, the response to the disaster has been marred by misinformation and controversy. After some fire hydrants ran dry, President-elect Donald Trump baselessly accused California Governor Gavin Newsom of mismanaging the state’s water supply to save an endangered fish.

City staff now have access to three water tanks on the hills near the Palisades Fire to increase pressure. Stewart says this allows the tanks to be refilled more quickly so they can keep supplying the taps. Each tank can hold 1 million gallons. “We have full-flowing faucets,” she says.

More firefighters began arriving from Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Washington and New Mexico. According to Stewart, there are dozens of work teams on their way, each including five fire trucks plus a command vehicle.

Planes began flying again on Wednesday. Twelve helicopters fill huge water buckets suspended from cables and suck up seawater through snorkels. Six aircraft were also working to extinguish the fires, including two “Super Scoop” aircraft that were flying across the surface of the Pacific Ocean to pick up water. Helicopters and scoop planes drop water on spot fires, allowing firefighters to get closer to them and extinguish them.

Meanwhile, other aircraft drop fire retardant materials ahead of the fire, coating potential fuel in a layer of non-flammable chemicals and slowing its progress. A C-130 cargo plane that Cal Fire acquired from the Coast Guard and modified this summer can dispose of 4,000 gallons of retardant. This saves time for firefighters to dig and shovel firebreaks into bare soil.

With the ocean confining the Palisades Fire to the south, responders will try to keep it from spreading to the east or west. “The real spread will be on the side,” says Pimlott.

A red flag warning for increased fire danger will remain in place through Friday, with humidity only between 8 and 12%. California is experiencing an abnormally dry winter, with 40 percent of the state experiencing drought conditions.

“The fuel is still very dry,” Cal Fire’s James Magaña He said In a press conference Thursday morning. “You can expect to see critical spread rates, especially on hilltops or those banks that are aligned with the wind.”

The winds are expected to reverse their direction on Saturday. If firefighters are not ready, the heel of the fire may become ahead and move north.

Even once they are able to contain the fire within a circle of firebreaks and natural barriers, that will not be the end of the job. Firefighters will have to put out small fires within that space.

“It’s a critical phase,” Upton says, “to get rid of these hotspots or anything that could ignite again if the winds pick up again.”

Moving forward, the city will need to clean up debris, restore facilities, and analyze damage to the environment before allowing people to return. With gullies depleted of soil-bearing trees and plants, mudslides could become a threat once rains return.

Los Angeles will face the prospect of rebuilding devastated communities. This is an opportunity to make them less vulnerable to the next fire, says Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Although in many cases homes are required to be built with fire-resistant materials, California law says nothing about how they should be designed. He says techniques such as grouping homes rather than spreading them out among trees could make them easier to defend from fires, and easier to evacuate.

“That’s part of the hope here, is that we can do some of this better, smarter and safer,” Moritz says.