We've been hearing devastating stories of Los Angeles residents losing their homes and everything they own, while thousands others have been forced to evacuate in case the fires spread further.

Some of these, as yet undamaged, homes have come under a different threat in the form of looting.

So far police have arrested about 20 people for raiding abandoned buildings and a curfew was put in place overnight by authorities.

In a press conference yesterday, LA County Sherriff Roger Luna described looting as "unacceptable behaviour" and said having soldiers to "augment those resources will help send a stronger message".

Earlier, Luna said his office had officially requested support from the California National Guard and there were 400 troops ready to help with the response to the fires.

LA Mayor Karen Bass also said yesterday that the National Guard would take on non-emergency roles to keep burn areas secure and there would "be zero tolerance" for anybody who "would dare to enter houses or loot property".

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

"When I first saw the news, I was in complete shock - I couldn't process it," says Paris Hilton, who has returned to her home in Malibu after watching it burn down on live television.

"But now, standing and seeing it with my own eyes, it feels like my heart has shattered into a million pieces," she writes in a post on Instagram.

Sharing footage of the charred aftermath of the house, the 43-year-old says it wasn't just a place to live, but was "where we dreamed, laughed, and created the most beautiful memories as a family".

"To see it reduced to ashes... it's devastating beyond words."

She adds that, despite the pain, she knew she was "incredibly lucky" she and her family were safe, and "this isn't just my story. So many people have lost everything."

Image source, Getty Images

"There's really nothing left, everything is gone," Los Angeles resident Richard Weintraub says while describing the scenes in the city this morning.

Speaking to our colleagues over on BBC World Service's Newsday programme, he says everything seems to have turned into ash.

Richard adds the area he lives in has a wide range of wildlife likely impacted by the flames, along with the huge number of residents who have lost their homes.

"There is thick smoke in the air, dead animals everywhere in the mountains."

BBC Breakfast presenter Charlie Stayt has been comparing before and after images of buildings in Los Angeles, which show structures completely destroyed by the fires in the region.

You can see those images in the video below:

Helen Willetts
BBC Weather

A red flag warning - which means critical fire conditions - remains in place into Friday across Los Angeles and Southern California.

This is due to strong Santa Ana winds, together with very low humidity and temperatures a few degrees above average. Plus, southern California is in severe drought at the moment, having had little rain so far this winter.

But it’s a constantly changing situation and these warnings are being frequently updated by the US National Weather Service, external, where you can keep up to date.

The winds are now strengthening again in the area. The strongest are expected across the mountains and through the valleys with damaging gusts reaching up to 75mph (121km/h). More generally, there will be moderate to strong gusty winds, with gusts around 40 to 50mph.

This means it is an extremely dangerous situation as, with such dry vegetation and the gustiness of the winds, fires can develop and spread rapidly.

The winds are forecast to ease a little through Friday afternoon, but there’ll still be a moderate breeze gusting to 40mph. There’s no sign of any rain, so conditions remain dangerous throughout Friday afternoon and evening.

Warnings remain into Saturday despite some easing of the wind.

However, the winds are expected to strengthen again on Sunday and early next week, with no rain in the forecast.

Image source, Reuters

A resident in Pasadena - where the second-biggest wildfire (Eaton) is still 0% contained - has just been describing the chaos in his hometown to our colleagues at BBC Radio 5 Live.

"There's a lack of manpower on the ground, a noticeable lack of fire department personnel," says Raffi Bilemjian. "No-one really knows what's going on...it's pretty dire."

He says his family are safe and they were able to house evacuees.

The fire started to move into north Pasadena in the last two days, Raffi says, but is now moving west into more forested, empty areas.

"Pasadena seems to have escaped the brunt, but the city above Pasadena, which is called Altadena, has been completely devastated," he says, adding it's an "overwhelmingly working class part" of LA.

He also criticised an evacuation alert that was mistakenly sent out to the whole county, which caused panic among residents.

"It's really extremely chaotic... I don't know what the next few days or the next couple of weeks are going to hold."

About 100,000 homes and businesses are without power in Los Angeles, according to a site that tracks blackouts in the US.

The latest estimates from Poweroutages.us, external show that in LA county, about 59,800 customers of the LA Department of Water & Power are without power, while about 38,500 customers of the provider Southern California Edison (SCE) have no electricity.

In Ventura county, which borders LA and is where the Kenneth Fire is burning, about 20,000 SCE customers are without power.

Lynwen Hughes-Boatman was told to leave her home in Altadena on Tuesday evening as wildfires swept down from the hills above her neighbourhood.

"I looked out my upstairs bathroom window looking east and the sky was just crimson," she tells Radio Wales Breakfast earlier this morning.

"So I grabbed my passport and my green card and a few other things and I just fled."

"It happened so quickly. The winds were ferocious, I mean I've never seen winds like that at all and I just knew that a lot of properties were going to burn."

"The embers were flying everywhere. The palm trees were on fire."

The mother-of-one says she still has not been able to go back to her house but she knows that it is still standing thanks to videos taken by a neighbour.

"Two thirds of my street and almost the entire neighbourhood is burnt."

Lynwen - who moved to the US from Caerphilly, Wales in 1985 - says the city centre in Altadena is "gone" and the primary school her now-adult daughter went to is burnt to the ground.

"The shops… the post office, it's all gone."

James Kelly
BBC News

Image source, Harlan Boll

Publicist Harlan Boll lost his home and beloved pet cat to the Eaton Fire, which has burned nearly 14,000 acres in Los Angeles.

Boll, who has represented a number of Hollywood stars during his 35-year career, fled the suburb of Altadena, where he lived with his partner, before it was too late.

But his beautiful 100-year-old home has been reduced to rubble and ashes, he tells me.

Boll says he managed to secure some important items before leaving, but his cat "freaked out and ran back into the house and we couldn’t find him in the dark".

Many people in the area have "lost their entire family histories and were literally left with the shirt off their back", he adds.

Image source, Harlan Boll

“We’ve seen fires on the hills before so initially we weren’t overly concerned.

"We thought we’re fine and hopped in the car to Pasadena. When we headed back the hill next to our house had stated burning."

Boll also tells me that his neighbourhood has been decimated.

“There’s always a little part of me that thinks we’ll be fine, but in retrospect I’m glad I panicked.”

These satellite images of the residential areas in the Palisades show how destructive the fire has been in the last 48 hours.

One photo shows the area close to the well-known Palisades Charter High School - which counts celebrities including Will.i.am and Forest Whitaker among its alumni and has itself been a Hollywood filming location. It has sustained significant damage in the blaze.

In the second, we can see houses have burnt down in the Summit Residence, along with two separate fires still burning in the residential area.

Our colleagues have put satellite pictures of the same areas from before the fires for comparison below:

Image source, Getty Images

Actor and director Mel Gibson says his home of over a decade burned down in Los Angeles while he was recording a podcast interview with Joe Rogan.

In a later interview with NewsNation, Gibson says he returned to find his home "completely toasted".

The loss is "emotional" and "devastating", he says, but adds that his family are "happy and healthy and out of harm's way".

Gibson also expressed frustration at the city's response to the wildfires.

• A number of other celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Adam Brody, have also lost their LA homes

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

Image source, Reuters

Despite being in the midst of its own bushfire season, Australia has offered to help authorities in Los Angeles.

North American fire crews and aircraft were crucial when Australia faced its own unprecedented Black Summer fires, in 2019-20, and government minister Jenny McAllister has stressed that there is a "long history of co-operation between our countries on firefighting".

"We are yet to receive any response for assistance... We’d assess, of course, our own needs. But we’ll do everything we responsibly can to help our colleagues in the United States if they ask us," she told Sky News Australia on Friday morning, local time.

The breakout of fires in the middle of LA's winter has caused anxiety here in Australia, which has a comparatively small aerial firefighting fleet and relies on leasing aircraft from others. That leaves the country increasingly exposed as the northern hemisphere fire seasons expands and cuts into ours.

There are currently more than a dozen fires blazing in the Australian state of New South Wales alone, although none of them are currently at emergency status.

Christal Hayes & Max Matza
Reporting from Altadena, California

An alert was mistakenly sent to every cell phone in Los Angeles on Thursday, residents say, warning them a blaze would soon descend upon them.

Approximately 10 million people live in the county.

Rebecca Alvarez-Petit, who lives in west Los Angeles, was on a video work call when her phone started blaring. It echoed as each co-worker received the startling message that they might need to evacuate.

"It was like a massive panic that I was watching in real-time," she says.

While investigating whether they were in imminent danger, a further notification told them to disregard the evacuation alert. Alvarez-Petit says she felt relieved but also experienced a surge of anger.

"We're all on pins and needles and have been anxiously sitting by our phones, staring at the TV, having the radio going - trying to stay as informed as possible because there wasn't a good system in place.

"And then this. It's like - you have got to be kidding me."

Anna Boyd
Live reporter

Bonnie and Jason Matthews have lived in Altadena since 2017.

On Tuesday they heard a fire had taken hold in Eaton Canyon, about five miles away.

By 22:00, the power had gone and police drove by warning everyone to evacuate.

They took their cats and left.

"In the morning, we still had no word so my husband decided to drive up," Bonnie tells the BBC.

"That’s when he texted me, 'It’s gone. Altadena is all gone.'"

Jason took the below video upon arriving at their former home:

There are currently five fires burning in the Los Angeles area. Here's the current status of each:

• Palisades: The largest and first to break out on Tuesday. It's burning through nearly 20,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades, destroying more than 5,300 structures. It's now 6% contained
• Eaton: Spanning nearly 14,000 acres in Altadena and Pasadena, it's the only fire in the area to remain 0% contained
• Kenneth: The newest of the five fires, impacting about 960 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It's now 35% contained
• Hurst: Fire officials are making some progress, with 37% of the fire, which spans nearly 800 acres, now contained.

• Lidia: Nearly 400 acres are affected in the town of Acton. Fire officials have contained 75% of the fire

Images show just how quickly some of these fires have spread - take a look at our map explainer.

For context about what a wildfire being contained means, click here.

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Ben Derico
Reporting from Los Angeles

We’ve arrived in Altadena, where the Eaton Fire has ripped through over 13,000 acres - many of them in a quiet suburban neighbourhood.

As we drove down the darkened streets - it's midnight in LA - it was expectedly quiet. There wasn’t a person in sight.

But in the distance we could see flashing flights.

As we got closer, the lights gave way to the glow of flames steadily lapping against a lone chimney where a house once stood.

Nearby crews from SoCal Gas were using jackhammers on the road in an effort to cut off the flow of gas fuelling the flames.

“It’s been a day,” a man tells me.

Image source, Reuters

We can now bring you more from California fire chief David Acuna, who has been speaking to our colleagues on Radio 4's Today programme.

He says that although wildfires in California are commonplace, what has been a "significant shock" is the number of structures destroyed.

"It is unusual to have such a densely populated area with such a large fire roll through that", he says.

There is no "hard data", he adds, but says more than 10,000 structures are likely to have been destroyed.

He warns that winds over the coming days could lead to further destruction in the area.

There is currently no evidence the wildfires across Los Angeles have been deliberately set, a fire official has just told the BBC.

Speaking to our colleagues on Radio 4's Today programme, California fire chief David Acuna says investigations are just beginning and he doesn't have "any conclusive evidence" that the fires were purposely lit.

"Now that the life safety is primarily taken care of, and that we have sufficient resources to assist with that, now they're able to start digging into the investigation and see what they can discover."

We had earlier reported that a man was detained on suspicion of arson in Woodland Hills.

We've just received this aerial footage of the Kenneth Fire as it approaches some homes in the west of Los Angeles.

The drone footage, captured by a local news broadcaster, shows flames from the most recent fire burning in nearby hills, with smoke billowing over entire neighbourhoods: