An arrest has been made in the Palisades Fires that decimated Los Angeles and destroyed dozens of celebrity mansions in January.
Officials have not released the name of the suspect but said they will provide additional details later on Wednesday.
Attending the 9am local time news conference will be Acting United States Attorney Bill Essayli, LA Police Chief Jim McDonnell, and Special Agent in Charge Kenny Cooper of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The fire that erupted on January 7 killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and buildings in the Pacific Palisades, a wealthy coastal neighborhood of LA.
A-listers such as Paris Hilton, Tom Hanks and Mandy Moore lost their mansions in the fires.
Investigators still haven’t determined the cause of that blaze or the Eaton Fire, which broke out the same day in the community of Altadena and killed 18 people.
Both fires burned for days, reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble and ash.
A wildfire breaks out near Pacific Palisades on the west side of Los Angeles during a weather driven windstorm in Southern California
Firefighters run as a brush fire burns in Pacific Palisades, California
An outside review released in September found that a lack of resources and outdated policies for sending emergency alerts led to delayed evacuation warnings.
The report commissioned by Los Angeles County supervisors said a series of weaknesses, including ‘outdated policies, inconsistent practices and communications vulnerabilities,’ hampered the county’s response.
The Associated Press found that the first evacuation order covering neighborhoods closest to the start of the devastating Pacific Palisades wildfire didn’t come until about 40 minutes after some of those homes were already burning.
The wildfire, the most destructive in California history, had spread rapidly in ornamental plantings and burning homes by 11:27am on January 7, recordings of scanner traffic reveal.
So many people fled on their own, as wind-whipped flames raced over the nearby hills, that by the time officials issued the order to evacuate at 12:07pm, traffic was gridlocked.
Authorities eventually urged people to exit their cars and leave on foot, and then used a bulldozer to clear away abandoned vehicles and make way for fire crews.
Despite the timing of the order, nearly all the residents of Pacific Palisades made it to safety — a relief that some attributed to the hyper-awareness of fire danger in a region frequently scarred by it, the efforts of first responders, the initiative that many took to evacuate on their own, and the fact that the fire broke out in broad daylight, when those nearby were awake to notice it.
A Los Angeles County firefighter battles the Palisades wildfire as a car burns
The time lag is one of several issues that may have complicated the fire response. With the severe winds preventing aerial firefighting, water hydrants ran dry amid unprecedented demand.
A reservoir near Pacific Palisades was empty because it needed repairs. Top Los Angeles Fire Department commanders decided not to deploy roughly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines in advance, the Los Angeles Times reported.
