LOS ANGELES − Fire crews on Sunday were racing to gain an upper hand against infernos that have ignited across the Los Angeles area amid ominous new wind warnings as flames threatened additional Southern California communities.

Aircraft unloaded water and fire retardant on hills where the Palisades Fire − the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles − ballooned another 1,000 acres to a total of 23,654, destroying more homes. The expansion of the fire, which was 11% contained, to the north and east spurred officials to issue more mandatory evacuations to the west of the 405 freeway as the blaze put parts of Encino and Brentwood in peril.

Cal Fire official Todd Hopkins said the Palisades Fire had spread into the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood and threatened to jump into the upscale Brentwood community and the San Fernando Valley.

The Palisades Fire is one of six blazes that have erupted since Tuesday, leaving at least 16 people dead. Four of the six fires remained active on Sunday.

Santa Ana winds that have fueled the blazes for the past week were expected to strengthen Sunday morning in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and again late Monday through Tuesday morning. Sustained winds could reach 30 mph, with gusts up to 70 mph possible , forecasters said.

“Critical fire-weather conditions will unfortunately ramp up again … for southern California and last through at least early next week as periodic enhancements of off-shore winds continue,” the National Weather Service said. “This may lead to the spread of ongoing fires as well as the development of new ones.”

The unrelenting toll: From unhoused folks to beachfront Malibu homeowners, wildfires hit all of LA society

Developments:

∎ About12,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed from the wildfires, which have consumed about 38,000 acres of land total, according to CalFire.

∎ Evacuation orders throughout the Los Angeles area now cover 153,000 residents. Another 166,000 residents have been warned that they may have to evacuate, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, said.

∎ Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an investigation into water supply issues that may have impeded firefighters’ efforts.

At least 16 people have died between the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner said Saturday.

The Palisades Fire had at least five deaths, according to medical examiner records, and 11 people have died in the Eaton Fire.

Of the 16 total deaths in both fires, the only victim identified by officials was Victor Shaw, 66, who died Wednesday protecting his home in Altadena. Another victim was man in his 80s, but authorities did not release his name, pending notification of next of kin.

To the northeast, the Eaton Fire stood at 14,117 acres and was 15% contained after ripping through parts of Altadena and Pasadena. More than 7,000 structures were damaged or destroyed,  Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

In Altadena, California official Don Fregulia said managing the Eaton Fire and its impact will be a “huge, Herculean task” that he said will take “many weeks of work.”

Progress was reported Saturday in bringing electrical power back to some Los Angeles neighborhoods.

Southern California Edison CEO Steven Powell said there are now about 48,000 customers without power, “down from over half a million just a couple days ago.”

Yes fire officials warned public safety power shutoffs were again likely to prevent new fires being ignited.

“They help save lives,” Marrone said. “Yes, they’re a challenge to deal with, but it’s certainly better than having another fire start.”

Richard and Cathryn Conn evacuated from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood earlier this week, only to find out that much of their neighborhood had been decimated. But they still aren’t sure about their four-bedroom house where they’d lived for over a quarter-century.

“You can visualize every room,’’ Richard Conn, 75, said, “and then you know there’s a 50% chance it doesn’t exist anymore.”

“If you have ever wondered what it was like living in Dresden after the World War II firebombing, you should come to the Palisades,” he said.

They also don’t know what’s going to happen next as dangerous weather conditions have made it difficult to contain the fires, and more brush fires seem to keep popping up all over the county.

“I feel like people are panicking,” said Gary Baseman, 64. Read more.

As California fire officials are still getting to the bottom of what sparked the wildfires raging across Los Angeles, and politicians point fingers at one another, climate change is helping drive an increase in large wildfires in the U.S.

“Climate change is leading to larger and more severe wildfires in the western United States,” the latest National Climate Assessment previously reported. These fires have “significant public health, socioeconomic, and ecological implications for the nation.”

But is climate change the main factor in California? It’s not quite that simple. Reporters from the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, dive into this topic. Read more here

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, Eduardo Cuevas; Reuters

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Chinese chipmakers and technology companies are heading to Malaysia in droves, its economy minister Rafizi Ramli said, as Beijing prepares to face more tariffs when Donald Trump returns as US president this month.

The moves by Chinese companies, which are expected to result in billions of dollars of investment in Malaysia in the coming years, would rival the US companies that have dominated the country’s market, he said.

“Chinese [companies] are very keen to go outside and expand beyond their domestic market,” Rafizi told the Financial Times in an interview. “Those companies are now looking at relocating or expanding into Malaysia.”

Trump has threatened to impose 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese imports when he re-enters the White House on January 20, rattling investors and putting companies on alert to restructure their supply chains.

Malaysia has been a big beneficiary over the past decade of such “China-plus-one” strategies, where multinational companies complement their Chinese operations with investments in regional countries to diversify risk and lower costs.

It has also positioned itself as a crucial player in global supply chains for high-tech industries such as artificial intelligence, with long-standing semiconductor manufacturing operations in Penang in the north and a burgeoning hub for data centres in the southern state of Johor.

US companies have dominated these sectors in Malaysia, but Rafizi said he expected a wave of Chinese investment on the back of initiatives his government was putting in place to develop the industries further.

Joe Biden’s administration has restricted sales of advanced chips by US companies to China, posing a potential threat to their investments in Malaysia, where many of the products are manufactured, and opening the door for Chinese competitors.

Rafizi said he made a 10-day trip in June to China, where he met 100 AI, tech and biomedical companies to assess their appetite for investing in Malaysia. He added that these efforts had resulted in two investment delegations from China in the past few months.

“Chinese investments usually come with their own ecosystem,” he said. “We will be seeing more and more, especially if we can secure the first two or three anchor investors from China.”

He added that many companies were also seeking to increase exposure to the fast-growing south-east Asian market as China’s economic momentum slows and trade with the US faces additional barriers.

This week, Malaysia signed an agreement with Singapore to create a vast special economic zone between the two countries. Malaysia hopes the initiative will add $26bn a year to its economy by 2030, bringing in 20,000 skilled jobs and 50 new projects.

Between 2019 and 2023, Malaysia attracted $21bn of investment into its semiconductor industry and $10bn into data centres — the storage facilities that enable fast-growing technologies such as AI, cloud computing and cryptocurrency mining. In the past year alone, US tech companies Amazon, Nvidia, Google and Microsoft committed nearly $16bn, mostly for data centres in Johor.

TikTok owner ByteDance is the largest Chinese group to invest in Johor, with a $2bn commitment last year.

Rafizi said that while historically, Malaysia had been happy to accept any foreign investment, it was becoming more selective as it sought to contribute more value to the products and services it produced.

He added that while increasing US-China tensions would harm global trade, it could prompt Chinese companies to give Malaysia a bigger role in chip design, rather than just manufacturing, which would generate more income as the country climbed the value chain.

“The unintended consequence of some tariff measures targeted at Chinese companies basically helps countries like Malaysia to weed out the more genuine and long-term investments from China compared to the ones that just look to use Malaysia as a manufacturing outpost,” he said.