According to CBS News, at least five people have died due to the multiple wildfires raging across Southern California. Multiple fires in the Los Angeles area including the Palisades, Hollywood Hills, and Eaton, have been burning for acres. Around 180,000 people have been put on evacuation orders in L.A County because tens of thousands of buildings are threatened by the fires. 

Many of the fires have not been contained at all due to the lack of water in the city’s fire hydrants. As firefighters tried to fight the raging fires in the Palisades, water tanks went dry, leaving firefighters with nothing to try and combat the flames. According to NBC News, experts are saying that the water system in the area was not prepared for fires of such magnitude. 

Over 45 square miles of land has been on fire due to the wildfires and the Palisades fire has burned down more than 17,000 acres of land. The Sunset Fire, which is in the Hollywood Hills, started around 6 pm Wednesday evening, and caused standstill traffic since everyone in the area is trying to evacuate as quickly as possible to try and get away from the blaze. 

According to NBC News, more than 350,000 people were out of power Wednesday, which includes around 200,000 people in Los Angeles County. 

Enormously high wind speeds have caused the fires to spread rapidly across different parts of Los Angeles County and the surrounding areas. Wind speeds have supposedly gone down during the early morning hours of Thursday, however the wind speeds still control the rapid spread. 

Canada has joined the fight against the wildfires, sending CL-415 firefighting aircraft to try and subdue the fires in different parts of L.A county and wherever they have spread. 

The effort to end the fires continues into today and thousands of people are continuing the evacuation process, not just because of the fires, but because of the terrible air quality that continues to grow more dangerous due to the smoke and flames.