Good evening. I'm John Yang. There's been some progress in containing the fires ravaging the Los Angeles area.

The Hearst Fire is nearly 90% contained, while firefighters battling the much larger Palisades and Eaton fires are racing to contain those blazes during a lull in the winds which are set to strengthen again later tonight.

This morning, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristen Crowley spoke to reporters.

Strong Santa Ana winds are also expected to last through Wednesday with the strongest winds occurring on Tuesday.

Every available L-AFD firefighter is on hand and will remain in place through this

wind event. Additionally, firefighters continue to pour into Southern California region to bolster

our firefighting capabilities. Sixteen people are now reported to have died in the fires with

another 16 missing.

Officials say those numbers will undoubtedly go higher as search and rescue teams go door to door.

Aerial footage of the Palisades fire today, still only 11% contained, shows widespread devastation. Chard remains are all that are left of thousands of structures.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna says that's one reason. Residents aren't being allowed back into their neighborhoods to check on their homes.

In driving around some of these areas, they literally look like war zones.

There are down power poles, electric wires. There are still some smoldering fires.

We want to get you back into your homes, but we can't allow that until it is safe for you to do so.

Safety is also a factor in deciding when schools may reopen. The 500,000 student, Los Angeles Unified School District, is the second

largest in the nation. All of its campuses have been closed since Thursday. Alberto Cavallo is the

superintendent of the district. Mr. Cavallo, do you have any idea or any sense yet when you may be

able to reopen? Good afternoon, John. We are looking at all of the factors. Key to us is the containment of the fires, wind, speed, and direction.

And the most important element is the quality of air index across the 720 square miles of our

jurisdiction.

Conditions have improved, but we know over the past three, four days, they have been dynamic and unstable. So we're buying a little bit more time, getting more information in. Meanwhile, we have inspected, assessed all 1,000 campuses. We are engaging in indoor and outdoor cleaning, removal of dust, and replacement of air conditioning

filters based on need.

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