猛烈的大风威胁着在洛杉矶地区引发新的火灾
【中美创新时报2025 年 1 月 15 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）加利福尼亚州奥克斯纳德 — 官员表示，周二席卷南加州的强风有可能将该州历史上最具破坏性的野火推向新的地区，并引发更多可能危及生命和财产的火灾。《纽约时报》记者Sam Stanton、Claire Moses 和 Michael Levenson对此作了下述报道。
消防局长和其他官员敦促火灾多发地区的居民做好迅速撤离的准备，因为国家气象局发布了极为罕见的警告，警告称“特别危险”的天气可能导致“火势爆发”。
该警告涵盖洛杉矶和文图拉县，警告称，45 至 70 英里/小时的阵风和极低的湿度为该地区干旱的灌木丛和草地创造了理想的火灾条件。
在本火灾季节之前，气象局洛杉矶办公室仅发布过两次“特别危险”的警告，两次都是在 2020 年。
气象局称，周二，帕萨迪纳西北部的安吉利斯国家森林记录到 72 英里/小时的阵风，马里布西北部的文图拉县的砂岩峰记录到 62 英里/小时的阵风。
洛杉矶市消防局长克里斯汀·M·克劳利 (Kristin M. Crowley) 在周二的新闻发布会上表示，消防员已加强巡逻，并将消防车移至火灾多发地区，以便消防员能够迅速应对任何新的火灾。
“危及生命、破坏性强且范围广泛的强风已经到来，”她说，并敦促居民“立即遵守所有疏散警告和命令”。
预计强风和火势爆发性增长的风险将持续到周三，危及数千名消防员在控制两起最大、破坏性最强的火灾方面取得的进展：帕萨迪纳和阿尔塔迪纳的伊顿大火以及圣莫尼卡和马里布之间的帕利塞兹大火。
一周前开始的火灾已造成至少 24 人死亡，10 万人流离失所。它们还摧毁了整个社区，摧毁了悬崖边的豪宅、简陋的平房和移动房屋。
大面积破坏加剧了洛杉矶的住房危机，洛杉矶已经是美国最难负担的城市之一，并引发了人们对如何以及是否在火灾多发地区重建的疑问。
周一晚，洛杉矶市长凯伦·巴斯发布行政命令，加快批准为流离失所家庭提供临时住房，并加快许可程序，目的是让居民迅速重建家园。她周二表示，她和克劳利从空中勘察了破坏情况。
“这种大规模的破坏是难以想象的，除非你亲眼看到，”巴斯说。
控制火灾的战斗取得了一些进展，并得到了来自其他州以及墨西哥和加拿大的消防员的帮助。官员们表示，周二，烧毁了 14,000 多英亩土地的伊顿大火被控制了 35%，而烧毁了 23,700 多英亩土地的帕利塞兹大火被控制了 17%。
但完全扑灭这两场大火可能需要数周或数月的时间。即使在火势得到完全控制后，消防员仍需要清除火场周边的灌木丛，并翻动闷烧的堆物，以确保下面的火势不会再度燃烧。
由于风势可能吹起飞扬的余烬，并将小灌木丛火势煽成熊熊烈火，人们仍然担心新的火灾。
周一晚上，洛杉矶市中心西北部文图拉县的圣克拉拉河干涸河床中发生了一场小火灾，并迅速蔓延至 55 英亩以上，这一风险凸显出来。周二，文图拉县消防局发言人安德鲁·道德 (Andrew Dowd) 表示，这场被称为汽车火灾的火灾“基本被扑灭”，并且“火势的蔓延已经停止”。
官员们表示，电线或其他电力基础设施倒塌也可能引发新的火灾，就像过去一样。为了防止这种情况发生，美国最大的市政公用事业公司洛杉矶水电局周一晚间警告称，可能会切断火灾高风险地区客户的电力供应。另一家公用事业公司南加州爱迪生公司表示，已经切断了 6 万多名客户的电力供应。
南加州的天气可能会在本周晚些时候带来一些小幅缓解，但预计该地区至少要到下个月才会出现大量降雨。过去八个月，文图拉县以南的大多数地区仅记录了大约四分之一英寸或更少的降雨量。自四月以来，洛杉矶地区只下了点小雨。
从周四晚上开始，风向转变将给海岸和山谷带来一些较冷的海洋气流和云层，这可能会降低气温、增加湿度，帮助消防员取得更多进展。
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：1 月 13 日，洛杉矶太平洋帕利塞德社区发生帕利塞德大火，留下一片废墟。LOREN ELLIOTT/NYT
附原英文报道：
Fierce winds threaten to ignite new LA-area blazes
By Sam Stanton, Claire Moses and Michael Levenson New York Times,Updated January 15, 2025
Destruction left in the wake of the Palisades fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Jan. 13.LOREN ELLIOTT/NYT
OXNARD, Calif. — Intense wind gusts sweeping across Southern California on Tuesday threatened to drive some of the most destructive wildfires in the state’s history into new areas and ignite additional fires that could endanger lives and property, officials said.
Fire chiefs and other officials urged residents in fire-prone areas to be prepared to evacuate quickly as the National Weather Service issued an exceptionally rare warning for “particularly dangerous” weather that could lead to “explosive fire growth.”
The warning, which covered Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, cautioned that gusts of 45 to 70 mph and very low humidity were creating ideal conditions for fires across the region’s parched landscape of brush and grass.
The weather service’s Los Angeles office had issued a “particularly dangerous” warning only twice before this fire season, both times in 2020.
Wind gusts of 72 mph were recorded Tuesday in the Angeles National Forest, northwest of Pasadena, and reached 62 mph on Sandstone Peak, a mountain in Ventura County, northwest of Malibu, the weather service said.
Kristin M. Crowley, the fire chief for the city of Los Angeles, said at a news conference Tuesday that crews had stepped up patrols and had moved fire engines into fire-prone areas so that firefighters could respond quickly to any new blazes.
“Life-threatening and destructive and widespread winds are already here,” she said, urging residents to “follow all evacuation warnings and orders without delay.”
The strong winds and risk of explosive fire growth were expected to continue into Wednesday, jeopardizing the progress thousands of firefighters have made in containing the two largest and most destructive fires: the Eaton fire, in Pasadena and Altadena, and the Palisades fire, between Santa Monica and Malibu.
The fires, which started a week ago, have killed at least 24 people and displaced 100,000 others. They have also destroyed entire neighborhoods, ravaging cliff-side mansions, modest bungalows and mobile homes.
The widespread destruction has exacerbated a housing crisis in Los Angeles, already one of the country’s least affordable cities, and has raised questions about how and whether to rebuild in fire-prone areas.
On Monday night, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles issued an executive order to fast-track approval of temporary housing for displaced families and to accelerate the permitting process, with the goal of allowing residents to rapidly rebuild their homes. She said Tuesday that she and Crowley had surveyed the devastation from the air.
“The massive, massive destruction is unimaginable until you actually see it,” Bass said.
The battle to control the fires has yielded some modest gains and has been aided by firefighters who came to Southern California from other states as well as from Mexico and Canada. On Tuesday, the Eaton fire, which has burned more than 14,000 acres, was 35% contained, while the Palisades fire, which has burned more than 23,700 acres, was 17% contained, officials said.
But it could take weeks or months to fully extinguish the two fires. Even after the fires are fully contained, firefighters need to scrape away brush along the perimeter of the fires and to turn over smoldering piles to ensure that nothing underneath is hot enough to reignite.
And as the winds threatened to drop flying embers and to fan small brush fires into raging infernos, worries about new fires remained high.
That risk was underscored when a small fire ignited in the dry bed of the Santa Clara River in Ventura County, northwest of downtown Los Angeles, on Monday evening and quickly grew to engulf more than 55 acres. On Tuesday, Andrew Dowd, a spokesperson for the Ventura County Fire Department, said that fire, known as the Auto fire, had been “essentially knocked down” and that its “forward progress has been stopped.”
Officials said that downed power lines or other electrical infrastructure could also spark new fires, as they have in the past. To prevent that, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s largest municipal utility, warned Monday night that it could shut off power for customers in areas at high risk of fires. Another utility, Southern California Edison, said it had already shut off power to more than 60,000 customers.
The weather in Southern California could provide some small relief later this week, but significant rainfall is not expected in the region until at least next month. Most locations south of Ventura County have recorded only about a quarter-inch of rain or less in the last eight months. The Los Angeles area has received only sprinklings of rain since April.
Starting Thursday night, shifting winds will bring some cooler, ocean-based air and clouds to the coast and valleys, which could lower temperatures and increase humidity levels, helping firefighters make more progress.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
