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As the wild inferno makes way towards Hollywood, the death toll in Los Angeles has risen to 10, as per US reports.

According to Cal Fire, these are the different fires that that took place in Los Angeles:

Palisades fire spread over  19,978 acres and 6% contained

Eaton fire spread over 13,690 acres and 0% contained.

Kenneth fire spread over 1000 acres and 35% contained

Hurst fire spread over 771 acres and 37% contained.

Lidia fire spread over 348 acres and 60% contained.

Los Angeles fires in map (Image: CalFire)

The total emergency response number reached 13,926, as the wildfire burned 29,053 acres.

According to Cal Fire, the Los Angeles fire has destroyed 10,000+ structures, and DINS assessments are underway for the Palisades and Eaton Fires.

Office of California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted on Friday, “The #KennethFire is 1,000 acres and now 35% contained. The forward rate of spread has been stopped”.

“Grateful for the heroic firefighters from Los Angeles and Ventura counties who are actively engaged on the scene, deploying both ground crews and aerial resources,” he added.

In an earlier post, he wrote, “To those who would seek to take advantage of evacuated communities in Los Angeles County, let me be clear: Looting will not be tolerated”.

Thousands have fled as wildfires spread across the US Los Angeles region. The cause of the two main blazes, the Palisades and Eaton fires, is still under investigation, but weather conditions have helped fuel their spread. Experts call the areas “the wildland-urban interface” (WUI). 

“An increasing number of people around the United States now live in that transition zone where open lands meet human development, and it’s becoming more dangerous as climate change fuels more intense fires,” a Chinese news agency reported quoting Bloomberg News.

What makes WUI zones susceptible to wildfires is the combination of open space, parks and houses, says Crystal Kolden, the director of the Fire Resilience Center at the University of California, Merced. “Many of those houses and subdivisions are laid out in ways that have lots of highly flammable shrubs and trees growing on and in-between lots.”

“Yet despite the risks, more people are living in the WUI. Research shows that between 1990 and 2010, 25 million people moved there and 12.7 million homes were built,” said the report.

In part that’s a response to high housing costs elsewhere and a desire to live in “proximity to nature,” says Rebecca Paterson, a spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center, the US wildfire logistics and coordination body. At the same time, studies indicated that access to green space commands higher housing prices.

That growth “definitely creates a lot of challenges, especially with managing wildfires,” Paterson added.

Earlier, multiple major wildfires raging across Los Angeles County, the most populous US county, killed at least five people and damaged at least 1,100 buildings, authorities said. 

(With inputs from syndicated feed)