There is a great deal of fingerpointing going around on all sides concerning the wildfires that have ravaged homes and businesses in Los Angeles, but that's coming from a sense of pain, David Acuna, the battalion chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, told Newsmax Sunday.
"I think everybody is just in pain right now and when someone's in pain, they want to find someone to blame," Acuna told Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "And right now, we're focused on helping people begin this very, very long recovery process."
A single cause has not been identified for the fires, which have consumed nearly 50,000 homes and have claimed at least 16 lives, he added.
"Our investigation is just getting underway because every single person was initially focused on the life safety issue and getting everybody out from in front of the fire," said Acuna. "The Palisades fire is currently contained at 11% and the Eaton [fire] at 15%. And when people look at why it's such a small number, the reason is because the containment is when we're certain that the fire is not going to jump the line."
And now, with winds shifting from the east to the west, and then expected to shift again Monday or Tuesday from the east, "we're unable to give that confident statement," he said.
Acuna also rejected claims that there is not enough water to fight the fires, telling Newsmax that firefighters have "multiple sources."
"We have of course the tanks that already exist in the area," he said. "We have trucks that have water."
But the scale of the fires has caused problems with the water power as well, said Acuna.
"To have some perspective, imagine, even with a million-gallon tanks that were in the Pacific Palisades, if you picture a garden hose and you put two or three pinholes in it like you would have if you had two or three structure fires, you're going to be OK," he said. "But when you put 5000, 10,000 pinholes in your garden hose, you're simply not going to be able to keep up with the pressure and that's what happened."
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles area is traditionally breezy, but last week the winds last Tuesday, when the fires started burning, were 60-to-100 miles per hour from the north and the east, the chief said.
"Now we're having the winds come in from the south and the west as that system pushes back," said Acuna."But next week, when we again have it coming out of the north and the east, potentially less with less speed, but just as much danger because it is very, very dry and we still haven't had sufficient rainfall in the region."
Meanwhile, the best source of information is through the state of California's fire website, where all fires of over 10 acres wide are listed.
"Click on the fires and it will give you a whole host of information, [including] shelter locations for humans, small animals, and large animals, and also, some of the recovery efforts have started to be added in there, along with some of the air quality concerns and how to begin to protect yourself," said Acuna.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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