California officials told most residents evacuated from local wildfires in Los Angeles on Thursday (January 16) that they would have to wait at least another week to return home. This delay is due to the need for emergency rescuers to remove toxic waste from the burned areas and cut off dangerous electrical wires and gas pipelines buried in the rubble.
According to Reuters, landslides further endangered the devastated hillsides, where buildings have been leveled and unable to hold the soil in place. Water from firefighting hoses and burst pipes has saturated the ground, adding more pressure and suffering to those affected by the worst natural disaster in Los Angeles history.
The wildfires have been raging for ten days now, and the dangerous weather conditions of high winds and low humidity have not caused the two major fires in Los Angeles to continue spreading, much to the relief of firefighters.
However, the National Weather Service has warned that this respite will be short-lived, as dangerous fire weather conditions are expected to return on Sunday.
Evacuees are eager to return home to assess the damage, salvage their belongings, or retrieve other important items. Yet officials state that this is too dangerous and burdensome for the emergency responders still dealing with the ongoing crisis, which has already claimed at least 27 lives.
The two major fires have burned a total of 59 square miles, surpassing the area of Paris and nearly three times the size of Manhattan. A series of smaller wildfires in Southern California have been mostly or fully contained.
At least 12,000 structures, many of them homes, have been destroyed or damaged. 82,400 people remain under evacuation orders, while an additional 90,400 have received evacuation warnings.
Officials in Los Angeles County have stated that some residents in the evacuation zones will be allowed to return home within a week, while others may have to wait longer as authorities work to confirm the identities of the deceased in the burned areas.
Many of the damaged or destroyed homes contain hazardous materials that must be cleared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before local agencies can remove debris and repair damaged public utilities.