Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. New LAFD chief won't look into who watered down Palisades fire report Deputy Chief Jaime Moore fields questions from city council members before being confirmed as the new LAFD chief after a unanimous vote by the L.A. City Council on Nov. 14. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . LAFD Chief Jaime Moore said he is taking a forward-looking approach and not seeking to assign blame for changes to the report.

In a move to help alert people to the spread of nearby blazes, Ring is partnering with Watch Duty to let users share their videos on the wildfire tracking app. The nonprofit Watch Duty is partnering with Ring, the Amazon-owned maker of doorbell cameras, to help users share videos of nearby wildfires on Watch Duty's wildfire tracking app. The result is Fire Watch, a new feature being added to Ring's Neighbors app, the stand-alone service that lets users see activity from nearby Ring cameras. If there is a fire in the area, users will be notified and can go into an emergency mode that lets them share videos from their Ring cameras to the feed about that specific fire on Watch Duty's platform . It's not a posting free-for-all; Watch Duty says it will choose which Ring videos to show in Fire Watch, based on relevance.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Among the evidence collected from the digital devices of Jonathan Rinderknecht of Florida, who was arrested in the Palisades fire, were images he generated on ChatGPT depicting a burning city, said acting U.S. Atty. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, a one-time L.A. Uber driver and now Florida resident, was arrested by the FBI on Oct. 7 and charged with destruction of property for allegedly starting a Jan. 1 blaze known as the Lachman fire that smoldered for six days until it became the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history.

When survivors from January's wildfires in Los Angeles County apply to rebuild their homes, their first interaction might be with a robot. Artificial intelligence will aid city and county building officials in reviewing permit requests, an effort to speed up a process already being criticized as too slow. "The current pace of issuing permits locally is not meeting the magnitude of the challenge we face," Gov. Gavin Newsom said when announcing the AI deal in late April. Some 13,000 homes were lost or severely damaged in the Eaton and Palisades fires, and many families are eager to return as fast as they can. Just eight days after the fire began and while it was still burning, the city received its first home rebuilding application in Pacific Palisades.

A man who was piloting a drone that collided with a firefighting aircraft working on the Palisades fire has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, pay a fine and complete community service, federal prosecutors said Friday. Peter Tripp Akemann, 56, of Culver City was charged with unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft. He could still face up to a year in federal prison, prosecutors said. The drone, which authorities say was flying in restricted airspace on Jan. 9, put a fist-sized hole in the left wing of a Super Scooper -- a massive fixed-wing plane that can drop large amounts of water onto a fire. The collision knocked the plane out of commission for about five days and destroyed the drone.

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. What's shaping up to be one of the worst wildfire disasters in US history had many causes. Before the blazes raged across Los Angeles last week, eight months with hardly any rain had left the brush-covered landscape bone-dry. Santa Ana winds blew through the mountains, their gusts turning small fires into infernos and sending embers flying miles ahead. As many as 12,000 buildings have burned down, some hundred thousand people have fled their homes, and at least two dozen people have died.

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of four significant California wildfires: Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, and Hurst, examining their impacts through multiple dimensions, including land cover change, jurisdictional management, structural damage, and demographic vulnerability. Using the Chebyshev-Kolmogorov-Arnold network model applied to Sentinel-2 imagery, the extent of burned areas was mapped, ranging from 315.36 to 10,960.98 hectares. Our analysis revealed that shrubland ecosystems were consistently the most affected, comprising 57.4-75.8% of burned areas across all events. The jurisdictional assessment demonstrated varying management complexities, from singular authority (98.7% in the Palisades Fire) to distributed management across multiple agencies. A structural impact analysis revealed significant disparities between urban interface fires (Eaton: 9,869 structures; Palisades: 8,436 structures) and rural events (Kenneth: 24 structures; Hurst: 17 structures). The demographic analysis showed consistent gender distributions, with 50.9% of the population identified as female and 49.1% as male. Working-age populations made up the majority of the affected populations, ranging from 53.7% to 54.1%, with notable temporal shifts in post-fire periods. The study identified strong correlations between urban interface proximity, structural damage, and population exposure. The Palisades and Eaton fires affected over 20,000 people each, compared to fewer than 500 in rural events. These findings offer valuable insights for the development of targeted wildfire management strategies, particularly in wildland urban interface zones, and emphasize the need for age- and gender-conscious approaches in emergency response planning.

California Fire Battalion chief David Acuna joins'Fox & Friends Weekend' to provide an update on the ongoing Los Angeles fires. Private drones being flown near the wildfires consuming Los Angeles County continued to interfere with aerial firefighting efforts Saturday evening, according to officials, as the death toll from the flames rises. Officials have detected 48 privately owned drones flying over the fires since the infernos erupted Tuesday, Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief Robert Harris said during a briefing Saturday evening. "When those privately owned drones are detected, we have to pause firefighting activities, so we ask you to please assist us by not operating drones in the area," Harris said, adding that the drones' owners are being sought by police and will face potential prosecution. Authorities urge civilians not to fly drones near wildfires because they can get in the way of low-flying firefighting aircraft and delay emergency responders.

Multiple unauthorized drones flew above the Palisades fire Friday afternoon, forcing firefighting aircraft to leave the area for safety and angering those working on the front lines, authorities said. These sightings came just a day after a drone collided with a Super Scooper fixed-wing aircraft, grounding the plane for several days of repairs and reducing the number of aircraft available to fight the fire. "This is not just harmless fun. This is incredibly dangerous," said Chris Thomas, public information officer for the Palisades fire. "Seriously, what if that plane had gone down? It could have taken out a row of homes. It could have taken out a school."

Experts say saltwater isn't a fire department's first choice, but is sometimes necessary to battle out-of-control flames. Federal authorities and California police are investigating after someone flew a drone into the wing of a firefighting aircraft as it carried water to battle the raging wildfires across Los Angeles – causing a "fist-sized hole" and knocking it out of service for days at a crucial time. It happened as the plane, the Quebec 1 Super Scooper that flew down from Canada to help, was working to contain the Palisades Fire, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson told Fox News Digital. It was one of only two Super Scooper aircraft in use in Southern California at the time. Around 1 p.m. Thursday, a civilian drone flew into its wing, according to Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott.