The Death toll from the devastating California wildfires has risen to eleven, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner said Friday.

According to Fox News, the number of persons confirmed dead is expected to rise as the incident moved into a fifth consecutive day on Saturday.

It was gathered that over 12,300 homes and buildings have gone up in flames since the incident started early in the week

Fresh evacuations were ordered Friday night in some of the affected parts, including Mandeville Canyon.

A company that monitors electrical activity, Whisker Labs, says faults along the Los Angeles power grid skyrocketed in the same areas where three of the major wildfires are currently raging.

The chief executive of the company, Bob Marshall told Fox News Digital that the company recorded sharp increases in faults in the hours prior to the Eaton, Palisades and Hurst Fires.

“Faults are caused by tree limbs touching wires or wires blowing in the wind and touching.

“That creates a spark in a fault, and we detect all of those things,” Marshall explained, adding that he can’t definitively say whether one of those faults caused a fire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dispatched a top-tier delegation to Qatar in an effort to finalise a hostage-ceasefire deal with the Hamas terror group, his office announced on Saturday night.

The delegation includes Mossad chief David Barnea, Shin Bet director Ron Bar, retired IDF Major General and hostage negotiator Nitzan Alon, and Netanyahu’s political advisor Ophir Falk.

The decision followed a high-level situation assessment meeting chaired by Netanyahu, with Defense Minister Israel Katz, senior Israeli security officials, and representatives from both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration also in attendance.

Earlier in the day, Netanyahu met with Trump’s incoming US Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Jerusalem.

Hamas sources indicated on Saturday that a ceasefire agreement was “completed” and pending Netanyahu’s final approval.

Israeli officials, however, remain cautiously optimistic, with Channel 13 news quoting two sources involved in the negotiations as describing the discussions as showing “general cautious progress.”

The Qatar-hosted talks have been an essential point in efforts to secure the release of hostages and establish a temporary ceasefire amid ongoing tensions.

As they filed into the front pews at Washington National Cathedral, wearing dark suits and mostly solemn faces, five current and former presidents came together for Jimmy Carter’s funeral. During a service that stretched more than an hour, the feuding, grievances and enmity that had marked their rival campaigns and divergent politics gave way to a reverential moment for one of their own.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the first two of the group to take their seats Thursday, shook hands and chatted at length. Trump, the former president who will retake the Oval Office in 11 days, leaned in and listened intently to his predecessor, notwithstanding the political chasm between them. At times, the two flashed smiles.

Trump later returned to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida Thursday night to meet with Republican governors and refused to say what he and Obama discussed, but joked, “It did look very friendly, I must say.”

“I didn’t realize how friendly it looked. I said, ‘Boy they look like two people who like each other and we probably do,” he said. “We have little different philosophies, right, but we probably do.”

The president-elect added, “I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.”

Obama, who attended Carter’s funeral without his wife, Michelle, shared a second-row pew with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with their spouses. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived last and sat in the pew just in front of them.

Members of the exclusive presidents’ club were on their best behavior. Bonded by the presidency, they rarely criticize one another or the White House’s current occupant — though Trump has flouted those rules frequently. He has both praised and criticized Carter in recent days, and he complained that flags will still be at half-staff to honor the deceased president during his inauguration.

In one seemingly chilly moment, Trump looked up when Vice President Kamala Harris — whom he defeated in November’s hard-fought election — entered the cathedral, but he didn’t move to greet her as she and husband Doug Emhoff took seats directly in front of him and Melania Trump. Nor did Harris acknowledge him.

After the service, Emhoff made a point to turn around and shake hands with Trump.

Obama, with Trump on his left, also turned to his right to chat with Bush. Clinton, with wife Hillary, was the last of the ex-presidents to take a seat and got in some chatter with Bush as well.

The White House said the former presidents also met privately before taking their seats. There was no word on what was said then, though Trump said later of its participants, “We all got along very well.”

Funerals are among the few events that bring members of the presidents’ club together. In a way, former President Gerald Ford was there, too: Ford’s son Steven read a eulogy for Carter that Ford had written before he died in 2006.

Busy with personal pursuits, charitable endeavors and sometimes lucrative speaking gigs, the former leaders don’t mingle often. They all know the protocol of state funerals well — each has been involved in planning his own.

During the 2018 funeral for George H.W. Bush, then-President Trump sat with his predecessors and their spouses, including the Carters, and the interactions were stiff and sometimes awkward.

This time, Trump also didn’t appear to interact with Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the 2016 election.

Trump was seated in the pew in front of his former vice president, Mike Pence — one of the few times they have coincided at events since Pence refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election after Trump lost to Biden. The two shook hands but didn’t speak much beyond that. Pence’s wife, Karen, appeared to avoid engaging with the president-elect.

Trump, who largely avoided contact with the former presidents during his first term — and pointedly did not seek their advice — has been critical of Republican former presidents, particularly the Bush family, which made him an uneasy member of the former presidents’ club. Carter himself didn’t particularly relish being a member of the club, at times criticizing its staid traditions.

Many past presidents have built relationships with their predecessors, including Bill Clinton, who reached out to Richard Nixon for advice on Russian policy, and Harry S. Truman, who sought counsel from Herbert Hoover.

One of the first calls Obama made after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 was to George W. Bush to spread the word that the mission had been accomplished, said Kate Andersen Brower, author of “Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump.”

“It’s the loneliest job in the world, so usually they reach out and rely on each other,” said Andersen Brower. “But Trump didn’t have that the first term, so this will just be another four years where he doesn’t depend on anyone who came before him.”

She noted that Carter spent years as a proud Washington outsider and skipped the unveiling of his own portrait to avoid being in the same room with the man who beat him in 1980, President Ronald Reagan.

“Carter and Trump, even though they have the least in common about everything else, are similar,” Andersen Brower said, “in just how they approach telling what they actually think.”