“With those winds being very calm this morning, I believe we can actually make some progress, turn a corner, and start to build some containment on these fires,” Brent Pascua, a Cal Fire battalion chief, told the Today Show on Thursday.

So far the disaster response has been marred by disinformation and controversy. After some fire hydrants ran dry, president-elect Donald Trump baselessly accused California governor Gavin Newsom of mismanaging the state’s water supplies to save an endangered fish.

City employees have now been able to reach three water tanks on hills near the Palisades Fire to turn up the pressure. That allows the tanks to be refilled more quickly so they can keep supplying the hydrants, Stewart says. Each tank can hold 1 million gallons. “We have full flowing hydrants,” she says.

More firefighters have begun to arrive from Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, and New Mexico. Several dozen task forces are on their way, according to Stewart, each with five fire engines plus a command vehicle.

Aircraft began flying again on Wednesday. Twelve helicopters are filling humongous water buckets hanging from cables and sucking seawater up through snorkels. Six planes are also working the fires, including a pair of “super scoop” aircraft that have been skimming across the surface of the Pacific to pick up water. The helicopters and scoop planes dump water on spot fires, letting firefighters close in and extinguish them.

Meanwhile, other airplanes are dropping fire retardant out ahead of the inferno, coating potential fuel with a layer of non-flammable chemicals and slowing its advance. A C-130 cargo plane that Cal Fire acquired from the Coast Guard and retrofitted this summer can dump 4,000 gallons of retardant. That buys time for firefighters to dig and bulldoze firebreaks of bare soil.

With the ocean constraining the Palisades Fire to the south, responders will try to prevent it from breaking out to the east or west. “The real spread is going to be on the flank,” Pimlott says.

A red flag warning for increased fire risk will remain through Friday, with humidity at only 8–12% percent. California has been suffering an abnormally dry winter, with 40 percent of the state under drought conditions.

“Fuels remain critically dry,” James Magana of Cal Fire said