Southern California faces another round of dangerous fire weather set to begin Monday night, even as crews struggle to contain wind-driven blazes that have paralyzed Los Angeles for nearly a week and killed at least 24 people.

Gusts as high as 50 miles per hour are already moving across the higher terrain and interior valleys of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, where very dry conditions are expected to create “extremely critical fire-weather,” the U.S. Storm Prediction Center said. The winds are set to pick up after sunset, with the strongest gusts expected overnight and into Tuesday.

Extreme fire conditions are forecast across 2,926 square miles, whipping flames with gusts that could reach 75 mph — similar to the wind speeds that caused the fires to explode last week. More than 8 million people in the area face critical fire weather in the coming days.

High winds may limit opportunities for firefighters to make progress against the Palisades and Eaton fires from the ground and the air. The blazes have scorched nearly 40,000 acres and leveled entire neighborhoods, from Pacific Palisades on the coast to Altadena at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed an additional $2.5 billion of state spending on emergency response efforts and recovery, which would need approval from the Democratic-led state Legislature. Newsom’s office said $1 billion in funding would be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At a White House briefing, President Joe Biden said Congress would need to provide tens of billions of dollars to help rebuild.

As of Monday evening, the Eaton fire was 33% contained and the Palisades blaze was 14% contained. More than 92,000 residents remain under evacuation orders.

“We are not in the clear as of yet, and we must not let our guard down,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said Monday at a press conference.

Even as the region prepared for the next wave of winds, officials continued hunting for the causes of the fires.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said investigators are looking at whether power lines owned by Edison International’s Southern California Edison utility sparked the Eaton fire, although they are also examining other potential causes. The utility has already been accused in a lawsuit of starting the blaze. But Chief Executive Officer Pedro Pizarro said on Bloomberg television Monday that the company’s internal data showed no problems on its power lines in the area at the time the fire erupted.

“We have not seen any of the signatures that we typically see when a line causes a fire,” he said on "The Close."

Meanwhile, news reports over the weekend raised the possibility that the Palisades fire could have been caused by smoldering embers from a smaller blaze that began on the same hillside New Year’s Day.

Edison is prepared to shut off electricity if needed to prevent more fires from erupting during the next bout of heavy winds. About 480,000 homes and businesses are at risk of outages, in addition to the 61,300 already without power, according to the company’s web site.

Evacuated Angelenos whose homes are still standing face threats from burglars looking to take advantage of empty neighborhoods. Nine individuals have been charged with looting in the Palisades and Eaton fires, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said at a press conference Monday. Another person was charged with arson for setting a fire at a public park in the city of Azusa that was extinguished.

A man dressed as a firefighter, wearing a fire jacket and helmet, was caught attempting a burglary in the Palisades area, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said at the press conference. “This is despicable,” she said. “We cannot tolerate it.”

The Palisades and Eaton fires, which began Jan. 7, are among California’s most destructive blazes on record and the worst natural disaster to hit Los Angeles since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which killed 57 people. The blazes are expected to rank among the costliest in modern U.S. history. Wells Fargo & Co. estimates insured losses could reach $30 billion, considerably higher than a $20 billion estimate last week from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The debris and scarred landscape also set the stage for a future disaster, since any rain that falls in the area threatens to trigger dangerous mudslides. Even as firefighters are battling the blazes, Newsom has called for a plan to clear the area so that rebuilding can begin.

Angelenos are starting to grapple with the long-term consequences of the disaster as well. One big fear: that a previously existing affordability crisis will intensify.

The effects will vary across communities. In Pacific Palisades, where many homes have been passed down through generations, the median sale price reached $3.8 million in the third quarter. It’s a different story in middle-class Altadena.

Emerson Sharpe and his family have lived in Altadena for almost half a century. The 75-year-old retiree didn’t leave until he saw embers licking the frame of his house last week.

He lost everything and doesn’t know if he’ll be able to rebuild.

“I love the neighborhood, and I love every time I went up the street looking at the view of the mountains,” he said.

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(With assistance from Brian K. Sullivan, Mark Chediak, Alicia Clanton, Skylar Woodhouse and Eliyahu Kamisher.)

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