Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna and Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said law enforcement is maintaining evacuations and curfews while conducting grid searches and coordinating with coroner and federal partners before repopulation of evacuated areas.

"We have over 92,000 people who are under evacuation orders, and approximately 89,000 people who are under evacuation warnings," Sheriff Robert Luna said, and he added that repopulation "will not occur until all areas are safe."

Luna said search-and-rescue teams had searched 1,874 properties through two days of operations in the county and that, in the county-area of responsibility, authorities had confirmed 21 deaths — 16 in the Eaton fire area and five in the Palisades area — and reported 23 missing people (17 in the Eaton area, six in Malibu). "That is not easy work, very sad to report," he said, and warned the count could increase.

In the city of Los Angeles, Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said LAPD had 266 officers deployed to the Palisades fire and that the department was handling 26 missing-person reports as of 6 a.m.; 17 had been located safely and the city had three fatalities since Tuesday.

Both law enforcement leaders said curfews remain in effect for mandatory evacuation zones: 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., subject to change. Luna said the curfew helps protect public safety in areas where hazards and potential crime scenes exist.

LAPD has paused its escort service that had been allowing residents short entries to retrieve pets or medication because long lines at checkpoints created safety problems and interfered with search operations, Choi said. "We have halted this [escort] service for the safety of everyone involved. Currently, we don't have any timeline of when we're gonna open up that service, if at all," he said. Choi added that officers can patrol and, if made aware of pets inside a residence, "we will do everything we can in our authority to go in there and get that pet." Pasadena Humane Society was noted as providing pet feeding in affected areas.

Officials urged patience as search-and-recovery and coroner protocols proceed, and asked residents to report missing people promptly. For updated evacuation orders, warnings and road closures, Sheriff Luna directed the public to emergency.lacounty.gov and recovery.lacounty.gov for damage maps and assessment updates.

Looking ahead, law enforcement said repopulation decisions will be coordinated with fire, coroner and other public-safety partners and will not be announced until areas are deemed safe.