Details are emerging Friday surrounding the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires as multiple blazes have scorched more than 30,000 acres in southern California.

Out-of-control wildfires are ripping across parts of Los Angeles, leading to at least five deaths, burning down hundreds of buildings, and prompting more than 130,000 people to flee their homes in America's second-largest city.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute is home to one of the nation’s leading research centers devoted to fires — how they start, how they burn, and how to snuff them out.