Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. PST Los Angeles County public health officials issue closures of several miles of beach near the Palisades Fire, citing “Fire debris runoff and pollutants in the water and on the sand [that] may contain toxic or carcinogenic chemicals.”

South Dakota firefighters are now back home after assisting with the recent wildfires in California. 18 Firefighters from the area spent 10 days fighting the fires down in California. Three of those were from the Black Hawk Department.

The 2 wildfires killed 29 people, destroyed upwards of 16,000 structures and burned more than 37,000 acres, officials say.

According to data from NASA Landsats, warm and dry weather in Los Angeles in the last two-thirds of 2024 primed the vegetation to catch fire, and for that fire to spread quickly. The largest fires started on January 7 and devastated swathes of L.