AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Firefighters in Los Angeles continue to battle the devastating fires that have charred more than 37,000 acres and left at least 24 people dead. Fire crews are on high alert today, as the weather service has issued a rare warning for strong, dry winds and severely dry conditions through tomorrow. LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said today that, despite progress attacking fires in some areas, people need to be vigilant.
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ROBERT LUNA: I don't want people to start thinking everything's OK now. Everything's not OK yet. We'll get there. We'll get there together. But, again, the wind's blowing, and it's going to continue to blow.
CHANG: The fires have destroyed the homes of thousands of people, but the blazes have also hurt many in the city's large immigrant workforce - people whose livelihoods depend on those homes that are now damaged or gone. Saul Gonzalez of member station KQED has this story.
SAUL GONZALEZ, BYLINE: On the edge of LA's Pacific Palisades neighborhood, where hundreds of properties have been destroyed or damaged in the fires, people gather daily at police checkpoints that bar entry. Most who come to the checkpoints are residents of the wealthy LA enclave desperate to see the condition of their homes. But others are people who work in those homes, like Claribel Linares.
So what are you doing here, Claribel?
CLARIBEL LINARES: I just work around here. I just manage a big house on the hill.
GONZALEZ: Oh.
LINARES: So I just came here to see if they'll let me in so I can check on the house because the owner are not here. So they are in Hawaii right now.
GONZALEZ: Linares is part of a large community of household workers in Pacific Palisades, and she now fears for all of their futures.
LINARES: A lot of people are working here and - people that - right now, I think they are going to be out of job because of this disaster - people who cleans pool, gardeners, people who cleans, nannies, dog walkers - a lot of people.
GONZALEZ: According to a 2020 UCLA study, there are some 350,000 domestic workers in California, with more than a third of them in the greater LA area. Most are immigrant women of color, and many don't have legal status in the U.S.
MAEGAN ORTIZ: They are extremely vulnerable.
GONZALEZ: Maegan Ortiz is the director of IDEPSCA, a Los Angeles group that advocates for domestic workers. She says the destruction of so many LA homes in the fires is financially devastating to this workforce.
ORTIZ: These are workers who don't get paid on a weekly/biweekly basis. These are workers who literally get paid day by day. And losing one day, two days, three days - how many days are we since the fire? They're really desperate and concerned about being able to feed their families.
GONZALEZ: The mostly male immigrant workforce who work as day laborers in the LA area are also feeling the job effects of the fires.
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GONZALEZ: That includes the men who gather every morning looking for employment outside of the Home Depot that's closest to the Eaton fire, which also destroyed several hundred homes.
JOSE: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: Jose, an immigrant from Mexico, doesn't want his last name used because he's without legal status. He says all the fires have affected day laborers in the area, and a lot of people are now without work. Victor, another day laborer outside the Home Depot, works with crews putting up home fencing and retaining walls.
VICTOR: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALEZ: He says all those jobs have now vanished, and he can't send money back to his family in Mexico because there's no work. Looking ahead, some in the Los Angeles area already talk about a possible job boom since immigrants will be needed to clean up debris from torched properties and start rebuilding. But labor advocate Maegan Ortiz worries such workers could be exploited and may not be provided with gear to protect them from potential toxins in the burned-out homes.
ORTIZ: We're also talking about workers who are scared to complain about bad workplace conditions, are willing to face health and safety hazards, like breathing in ash while not being given the proper PPE, because they need to eat.
GONZALEZ: Ortiz hopes that, as LA eventually looks toward fire recovery, city, state and federal officials will help support immigrant domestic workers and day laborers affected by the fires.
For NPR News, I'm Saul Gonzalez in Los Angeles.
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