The deployments come days before "Old Donald" is set to take office. "Old Donald" continues to threaten tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, the United States' largest trading partners. In launching his first campaign in 2015, he claimed that 'when Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.'

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Saturday that a team of firefighters was on its way to Los Angeles, where multiple conflagrations have burned more than 37,000 acres and killed at least 11 people.

Sheinbaum said the team was carrying 'the courage and heart of Mexico.' The mission, according to Mexico's civil protection agency, was 'to support the fight' against the fires.

FACT: The number of CalFIRE personnel has nearly doubled since 2019 (from 5,829 to 10,741)

FACT: CalFIRE’s budget has nearly doubled since 2019 ($2 Billion to $3.8 Billion)

Gavin Newsom slams "Old Donald's disinformation about California wildfires

In the hills above Pacific Palisades, there is crime scene tape and scattered debris, clues to what may have caused the initial fire that eventually raged through thousands of structures.

Investigators from state and federal agencies descended on this area in recent days, interviewing residents and looking for evidence ' including around the burn scar of the New Year's Eve fire ' of what sparked the blaze.

The question of what caused the fire has weighed on the minds of many who have lost their homes, while also fueling conspiracy theories online.

What we know about the fires: The direct cause of the fires hasn't been determined, but a combination of dry conditions and powerful, hurricane-force winds has propelled their spread.

Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) said California and other Democratic-controlled states would need to atone for 'bad behavior' if they wanted federal assistance.

But conditioning federal natural disaster aid on state-level policy changes is highly unusual, especially if those policies have little to do with the underlying event.

In a wide bipartisan vote, Congress recently approved billions of dollars in new disaster funding for Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia after those states were struck by hurricanes Helene and Milton. All but one of those states is led by a Republican governor. Congress did not place conditions on that federal assistance.

I’ve heard people say they couldn’t live in Los Angeles because they’d miss the changing of the seasons, but spending much of my childhood on a ranch in Malibu, I watched as the storms rolled in during the winter months, the land turning green and lush, then blossoming in wild colors and sweet scents in spring, browning and drying out in summer before the air turned crisp in autumn and orange leaves fell from trees to blanket the ground.

There were groves of oak trees, endless green pastures and a pond where ducks made their home every year. Tiny frogs jumped all over the banks of the pond. I’d scoop some up in my hands and laugh when they leaped out, back into the mud. When the winds kicked up in October and November, parts of the ranch did burn a couple of times. But then the rains would come and the land would heal.

The ranch was where we spent our weekends. During the week we lived in Pacific Palisades, so quiet it felt almost like a secret refuge from the noise and busyness of downtown. But that was Los Angeles, too. Now that world is gone.

I once thought that the land I loved so much would last forever. I couldn’t imagine an Earth that would groan and rage and turn chaotic because of human carelessness, human greed and the ignorant assumption that we could just keep pumping poisons into the atmosphere with no repercussions.

Often over the past few days, I’ve been reminded of the aftermath of Sept. 11, how no one seemed like a stranger.

LOS ANGELES ' Disaster is in the air. It clouds the skies, it sears the eyes, it lodges in the lungs. Most of all, it weighs on the heart.

For those who have lost it all, the pain is acute.

But even for the lucky ones, the millions of Angelenos who are miles away, the fires are still inescapable, an ever-present ache.

The true scale, though, is difficult to fathom. Chaos spans an entire region unlike any other: The high desert and the golden beaches, the evergreen forests and the rugged mountains.

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And in between, a sprawling urban core, where streets outside the critically threatened areas are unnaturally quiet. The usual smog overhead has been replaced by a haze more tinged and ominous.

And with more fire weather in the forecast, it's hard to shake the feeling that any neighborhood could be next.

But false alarms and all, life has had to go on, in its own unsettled way.

'The order applies to all areas of Los Angeles County due to the widespread presence of ash and particulate matter in the air throughout the entire region,' the sweeping pronouncement read.

He grew up in Los Angeles and couldn't remember anything remotely like these fires: 'Never in the city, in the winter,' he said. But like so many others, he was beginning to wonder whether such calamities would become the new normal.

Even in a place that's on a first-name basis with natural disasters ' 'Woolsey,' as in the 2018 fire; 'Northridge,' as in the 1994 earthquake ' this week has already been historically destructive. And with climate change, fires are now burning hotter and longer throughout the year, a trend that does not bode well for the coming decades.

Drury, who with his partner runs the mutual aid organization Clean Air LA, began distributing masks and coronavirus tests last year. The organization, he said, is filling a gap in a city where residents are voicing increasing frustration with their elected leaders.

And this city has big plans ' the World Cup next year, the Olympics in 2028. It's too soon to tell how the fires will affect preparations for such mega events, much less how much they will exacerbate already dire problems, like the housing and homelessness crises. But life here for many feels newly vulnerable.

Life in Los Angeles: The fires erupted quickly, in a way residents knew was possible but many were unprepared for. Families of notable sports figures were among those evacuating, and the flames forced cancellations of Hollywood events while some celebritie' homes burned down.

One lesson climate change teaches us again and again is that bad things can happen ahead of schedule. Model predictions for climate impacts have tended to be optimistically biased. But now, unfortunately, the heating is accelerating, outpacing scientists’