Fire fighters battling raging wildfires in California are making progress but find themselves at a critical juncture, according to an expert on the ground who said the effort to contain the infernos will depend a great deal on how things go in the coming days.

More than a dozen people are dead and tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed by the fires, which California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday will likely go down as the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.

Joseph Ten Eyck, who serves as the Wildfire/Urban-Interface Fire Programs Coordinator for the International Association of Fire Fighters, spoke to the Herald shortly after leaving the emergency operations center for the Palisades Fire on Sunday. According to Ten Eyck, the situation on the ground represents a “perfect storm” that led to devastating circumstances.

Drought-dried vegetation, when coupled with hurricane strength wind, means any spark — whether natural or human caused — can become a fire that sends embers floating for miles ahead of the blaze, the former California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection division chief said. And when fires like this run into heavily populated areas like the parts of Los Angeles burning now, Ten Eyck said, they find yet more fuel.

“You had dangerous rates of spread in those conditions – it made perimeter control efforts impossible,” he said. “The focus had to be on rescuing people and structure defense until conditions subsided.”

Reports of problems with water supply, he said, can be boiled down to the size of the disaster. Hydrants ran low on pressure, not because of a lack of available water, he said, but because of widespread leaks. With so many homes burned, he said, and their plumbing exposed, it’s like 12,000 people left their garden hoses running at once.

“And they are not going to quit running until they are shut off at the road,” he explained.

Still, Ten Eyck said, first responders are making headway toward stabilizing conditions. From where he was surveilling the fire on Sunday, he said, he could see the smoke line had retreated.

“They are making pretty good progress on this, and they know they need to as much as possible, because the Santa Ana winds will be returning on Monday,” he said.

Newsom said Sunday on NBC News that his administration is focused on preserving life and property while they’re “addressing the perimeter issue,” but acknowledged that Mother Nature will play a hand in deciding how the state must respond.

“The challenge is the winds. We’ve got these winds coming back this evening, Sunday night. We’ve got peak winds on Monday. We’re going to see 50-plus mile-an-hour gusts, subject to change. So now we’re pre-positioning assets. And we’re pre-positioning not just here in the theater, those existing five-plus fires, but now broadening that to a number of other counties and moving farther south with some of those resources in anticipation we could see some flare-ups in new places, new starts,” he said.

President-elect Donald Trump took to his Truth Social early Sunday morning to place blame for the fires with the “the incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”

“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?” the incoming U.S. president wrote.

The President elect then shared a picture of the Santa Monica mountains set ablaze, with the iconic “Hollywood” sign replaced by lettering that reads “Trump was right.”

According to Newsom, the fires have claimed the lives of 13 people, though he seemed to indicate the death toll could rise in the coming days.

“Currently we’re getting confirmation from the coroners, so we always have to be careful on the death toll, but it’s in the 13 range, and I’ve got search and rescue teams out. We’ve got cadaver dogs out. And there’s likely to be a lot more,” he said.

Playing politics with the moment, the governor said, is not helpful.

“We’re all in this together. We’re all better off when we’re all better off, and we’re all better off when we’re working together to take care of people and to make sure people are supported. We’re empathetic. And we’re here not just in the immediacy of the crisis, but we’re here after the crisis, as opposed to creating a crisis in the middle of this by trying to divide people and play political, take cheap political shots,” he said.

The National Weather Service has reissued red flag warnings for severe fire conditions through Wednesday, with sustained winds of 50 mph predicted, and gusts in the mountains reaching 70 mph.

As of Sunday morning, Cal Fire estimated that the Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth and Hurst fires burned across 62 square miles, and about 150,000 people in Los Angeles County remain under evacuation orders, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.

Herald wire service contributed.

Ella Venne, left, searches through the remnants of her family’s home destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., on Saturday. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
A car destroyed by the Palisades Fire sits charred by the road in Malibu, California, on Sunday. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)