A delay in warning alerts during the Los Angeles wildfires may have led to the deaths of more than a dozen people.
Residents living in the west of Altadena, a neighborhood around 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles, only received evacuation orders eight hours after the deadly Eaton Fire began to rage on January 7, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Locals in the east were warned within an hour of the blaze starting and many managed to flee to safety.
But 17 people located west of the city received warnings too late to safely evacuate and tragically died – accounting for more than half the deaths from the the inferno.
Among them was 83-year-old grandmother Erliene Kelley, father and son Anthony and Justin Mitchell, and Victor Shaw, 66, who died while clutching a hose pipe.
The blaze tore through 14,000 acres and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and many more structures.
A formal evacuation order was not issued for west Altadena until 3.25am and the local ReadyLACounty X account did not share any alerts for residents west of the ciy.
Records indicate that the fire service received ten reports about homes on fire before the evacuation order was sent.