Updates from the 2025 Palisades fire in Los Angeles

Image credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

This article was published by the BBC on 1.9.2025

Read the original article here.

What's the latest?

More than 137,000 people have been forced to leave their homes - many of them simply carrying whatever belongings they can. Police say at least five people have died, and their bodies found near the Eaton fire - but their cause of death is not yet known.

Like the even larger Palisades fire, the Eaton fire remains totally uncontained. Meanwhile, the Sunset fire that has been menacing the well-known Hollywood Hills area has started to shrink but is not yet contained. Evacuation orders for the Hollywood Hills West area have been lifted.

Nearly 2,000 structures are known to have been destroyed - including houses and schools, and businesses on the iconic Sunset Boulevard. A fire ecologist has told the BBC that "entire neighbourhoods... have been wiped out". Among the celebrities who have lost their homes are Leighton Meester and Adam Brody, who attended the Golden Globes just days ago, and Paris Hilton.

The insurance industry fears this could prove to be one of the costliest wildfire outbreaks in US history, with insured losses expected above $8bn (£6.5bn) due to the high value of properties in the paths of the blazes.

There is a glimmer of hope for firefighters, as the fire weather outlook for southern California has been downgraded from "extremely critical" to "critical".

But BBC weather forecaster Sarah Keith-Lucas says there is no rain forecast in the area for at least the next week, meaning conditions remain ripe for fire.

Power has been cut to swathes of the city, and traffic jams have built up. Adding to the disruption, a number of schools and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have been forced to close. A political row about the city's preparedness has erupted after it emerged that some firefighters' hoses have run dry - an issue seized upon by US President-elect Donald Trump.