Biden cancels Italy trip as raging LA fires spread

What happened

The fast-spreading wildfires ravaging Los Angeles grew and multiplied Wednesday, prompting President Joe Biden to sign a sweeping federal disaster declaration and cancel his final foreign trip, to Italy. With the Sunset Fire that sprang up Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, there are five active fires in Los Angeles County, most of them 0% contained. Five deaths were reported in Altadena from the Eaton Fire, and at least 2,000 houses, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed.

Who said what

The "catastrophic blazes" have "erased entire neighborhoods" around this city of 10 million and scorched "more than 27,000 acres, equivalent to nearly 20,000 football fields," The New York Times said. In affluent Pacific Palisades, the "apocalyptic scenes spread for miles," The Associated Press said, with "block after block" of houses "reduced to charred remains." The area is a "ghost town," CNN's Leigh Waldman said. "Everyone keeps saying 'apocalyptic,' but that doesn't begin to cover it."

Biden had been due to fly to Rome on Thursday afternoon for three days of visits with Pope Francis and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but he decided to stay in Washington to focus on "directing the full federal response" to the "historic fires raging" in L.A., the White House said. At a briefing in Santa Monica earlier Wednesday, Biden said the federal government was "prepared to do anything and everything for as long as it takes to contain these fires."

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What next?

The "extraordinarily dangerous fire weather" in Southern California "improved somewhat" last night, the Los Angeles Times said, but "red flag fire weather conditions will persist through much of Friday." When the danger has passed, the decimation of areas "packed with multimillion-dollar homes" may be the "final straw that breaks California's insurance market," Politico said.