The death toll from wildfires in Los Angeles has risen to 10, officials reported

The confirmed death toll from the Los Angeles fire doubled Thursday night – from five to ten.

The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office announced that it is investigating 10 people related to the fire as of 9 p.m. Thursday. No information is available on the identity of the deceased or the place of their death.

The medical examiner warned that it could take weeks in some cases to identify the victims because of the challenges of accessing bodies in a dangerous state of fire and identifying charred bodies.

“Please also remember, traditional methods of identification such as fingerprints and visual identifiers may not be available and will add more time to naming these bodies,” said the medical examiner.

Earlier, officials confirmed five deaths: four in the 13,690-acre Eaton fire in Altadena and one in the 19,978-acre Palisades fire. The Palisades fire victim was reported in the 15300 block of Friends Street, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said.

“We are deeply saddened to learn that we have lost a member of the Malibu community during the Palisades fire,” Malibu Mayor Doug Stewart said in a statement. “Although that person has not been revealed yet, these sad news are weighing heavily on us. On behalf of the City of Malibu, I want to express my deepest condolences to this person’s loved ones. Our community is grieving with you in this time of unimaginable loss.”

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said it will take time to get an accurate and complete death toll.

“We are still working in a fluid and active area, which means there are still fires burning in places and there are gas leaks,” he said. “So when people ask us for the numbers of people who have died, we want to give them to you, but we have to wait until it is safe so that our staff can go in there and do this properly.”