VOA News | Monday, January 13, 2025 
Los Angeles fires death toll rises to at least 24

The death toll in the wildfires that are raging in the Los Angeles area rose to at least 24 late Sunday, with officials worried that more bodies will be found by searchers and cadaver dogs in the neighborhoods that have been leveled by the blazes. Roaring flames continued to ravage the West Coast state of California as the top U.S. emergency official warned that increasing winds could pose new threats in the coming days. “The winds are potentially getting stronger and dangerous,” Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “You never know which way they’re going.” Local officials expressed fears that as the fires spread, they could endanger more highly populated areas and threaten some of the city’s key landmarks, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, which houses renowned art works, and the University of California, Los Angeles, one of the top public U.S. universities. California Senator Adam Schiff told CNN that driving through the devastated communities “frankly reminded me of visiting war zones. There are whole neighborhoods that are gone. We haven’t seen this before.” “The heartbreak is just overwhelming,” he said. California Governor Gavin Newsom told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the wildfires could be the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, “in terms of just the costs associated with it, in terms of the scale and scope.” A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between $135 billion and $150 billion. The damages are so high in part because much of the housing that has burned to the ground is among the costliest in the country...Read more