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US Environmental Protection Agency contractors remove hazardous waste as they search homes damaged and destroyed by the Eaton Fire in California © Patrick T. Fallon / AFP/File
The death toll from the fires that ravaged Los Angeles in January has risen to at least 30 after the remains of another victim were discovered, local authorities said.
The fires around the United States’ second-largest city burned for three weeks, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.
The blazes destroyed thousands of structures, devastating the affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, as well as Malibu and Altadena in the wider county.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said a team went to Altadena on Wednesday to “investigate possible human remains found there” and “determined the remains were human,” according to a statement.
“The death toll related to the wildfires is now 30 – 18 in the Eaton Fire and 12 in the Palisades,” it said.
The Palisades and Eaton fires were the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles, burning more than 37,000 acres (150 square kilometers) and over 10,000 homes, causing damage estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Both blazes started on January 7 and their exact cause is under investigation.
But human-driven climate change set the stage for the infernos by reducing rainfall, parching vegetation, and extending the dangerous overlap between flammable drought conditions and powerful winds, according to an analysis published in January.
Almost three months after the fires, authorities in California are still cleaning up the debris, some of it toxic, from the thousands of buildings destroyed in the region.
AFP
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