The fires around the US’ second-largest city burned for three weeks, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.

The blazes destroyed thousands of structures, devastating the affluent Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles, as well as Malibu and Altadena in the wider county.

The Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office said a team went to Altadena on Wednesday to “investigate possible human remains found there” and “determined the remains were human,” according to a statement.

“The death toll related to the wildfires is now 30 – 18 in the Eaton Fire and 12 in the Palisades,” it said.

The Palisades and Eaton fires were the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles, burning more than 150 square kilometres and over 10,000 homes, causing damage estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Both blazes started on Jan 7 and their exact cause is under investigation.

But, human-driven climate change set the stage for the infernos by reducing rainfall, parching vegetation, and extending the dangerous overlap between flammable drought conditions and powerful winds, according to an analysis published in January.

Almost three months after the fires, authorities in California are still cleaning up the debris, some of it toxic, from the thousands of buildings destroyed in the region.