California wildfires live updates: Biden likens LA devastation to ‘war scene’ as he warns death toll likely to rise | California wildfires

Matt Sadie, 41, an artist manager in the music business, from Altadena, has been in touch with the Guardian. He shared his family’s experiences:

My wife Sophie and I, with our eight-week-old daughter and cat Luna, live streets away from Eaton Canyon in Altadena, where one of the fires began. We go for walks down that canyon most mornings, it’s a beautiful place.

On Tuesday we were driving home – we’d gone to try and get our newborn to sleep – when we noticed this bright yellow and orange glow towards the canyon. It was a light you don’t see from an artificial source. And there was smoke.

We rushed home, fighting intense winds and keeping our baby safe. Once we were in I ran next door to warn our neighbor. He said, ‘We need to get out of here quickly.’ So I ran to tell my wife and we started packing. The power was out, but I but we had battery-powered tea lights – I grabbed passports, cash, documents, baby stuff like blankets and diapers. I got Luna into her carrier quickly, which she doesn’t like. We evacuated in under five minutes. I didn’t think about how we wouldn’t be back for a long time.

We managed to drive to family in Santa Barbara. The highway was insane, with trees and debris. Going to sleep that night around midnight, we mentally prepared ourselves for losing our home.

Miraculously, despite most of the houses on our street burned down, we saw from a neighbor’s video that ours remains standing, with only damage to the landscaping (like the fences). It’s as if the flames stopped right at our house. A neighbour, who stayed during the fire, helped protect our home from the flames, and saved all the houses beyond it, too.

We got insanely lucky, but we don’t feel lucky at all. We moved to the area to give my daughter the best start in life, near a really good school, in a great neighbourhood. Now the school’s burned down and the area is almost totally gone. It’s really hard to imagine life there again.

We can’t get back home, the national guard has closed off the streets. Looters in the area are the new challenge. The neighbor who stayed behind has been patrolling for other fires and looters, and caught two in the area already. He’s a hero.

Joe Biden said the death toll from the fires, which he described as a “war scene”, will likely increase, but “whether significantly or not, we don’t know yet.”

“It reminded me of more of a war scene, where you had certain targets that were bombarded,” Biden said from the White House’s Oval Office during a briefing on the fires.

Vice-president Kamala Harris, a Californian herself, said in the press briefing with Joe Biden and California governor Gavin Newsom that we are witnessing “mass devastation” and that the effect of the historic widlfires “is going to linger for quite some time.”

“There are moments where we should find optimism in the heroism of people.”

Sam Levin

Guardian reporter Sam Levin spoke to one Sierra Madre resident who detailed his harrowing experiencing trying to leave:

The timing of the evacuation order could not have been worse.

Galen Buckwalter and his wife, Deborah, were alerted around 9.30pm on Tuesday evening that the rapidly spreading Eaton fire near Pasadena, California, was endangering their home and they should immediately flee to safety.

Galen, 68, is paralyzed from the chest down and uses an electric wheelchair for mobility. Normally, he drives with his van that accommodates the chair, but as the extreme southern California windstorm was fueling the flames north of his home, his vehicle was sitting in a repair shop.

Earlier in the evening, he felt confident that the fire in Eaton Canyon would not travel all the way to his Sierra Madre neighborhood by the hills. Now, he was unsure how he could get to safety.

Here are the key takeaways from the latest news conference by Los Angeles city and county officials on the wildfires.

• A curfew order is in place between 6pm and 6am on all mandatory evacuation zones in the Palisades and Eaton areas. “You can’t not be in these affected areas. If you are, you are subject to arrest,” LA sheriff Robert Luna said. The curfew’s purpose is to enhance public safety, protect property, and prevent any burglaries or looting in areas evacuated by residents, Luna said.

• The Palisades fire, the largest of the five fires, currently stands at 8% contained. Firefighters were able to make overnight progress on the fire due to “favorable” overnight weather conditions. Wind gusts are expected to increase in daylight hours that will test containment lines. Red flag warnings continue in Los Angeles county through 6pm PT today.

• The Eaton fire, north of Pasadena, has burned 13,956 acres and is 3% contained. About 4,000 to 5,000 structures may be damaged and destroyed by the fire, and 1,527 firefighting personnel have been assigned to the fire. The blaze pushed toward Mount Wilson on Thursday, but the observatory is “OK” and no buildings have been destroyed there.

• The Hurst fire, just south of Santa Clarita, has spread to 771 acres and is 37% contained.

• The Kenneth fire, in the San Fernando valley, has burned 1,000 acres and is 35% contained. All evacuation orders and warnings in LA county for the Kenneth fire have been lifted.

• The Lidia fire is 75% contained. The causes of the fires are still under investigation.

• The number of residents under evacuation orders have dipped to 153,000. Approximately 57,830 structures are deemed to be at risk. An additional 166,800 residents are under evacuation warnings.

• A super scooper aircraft that was damaged by a drone flown by a civilian should be back in the air by Monday. “Flying a drone in the fire traffic area is not only dangerous but it’s illegal,” Los Angeles county fire chief Anthony Perron said, adding that those who fly them over the wildfire area will be prosecuted.

• A man arrested on suspicion of attempting to light a fire in Woodland Hills yesterday will not be charged. Officers found there was not enough probable cause to arrest the person, Los Angeles police department assistant chief Dominic Choi said.

• Officials apologized after evacuation order alerts were mistakenly sent on Thursday afternoon and again on Friday. LA county office of emergency management director Kevin McGowan said he could not “express how sorry I am” but implored residents not to disable the messages on their phones, adding: “Not receiving an alert can be a consequence of life and death.”