Thousands flee as wildfires burn out of control in and around Los Angeles and homes are destroyed

Los Angeles: Wildfires tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force on Wednesday after setting off a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke.

The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening local time near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living centre had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents — one as old as 102 — waited there in their pyjamas as the night sky glowed red from flames and embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialised by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit Surfin’ USA. In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

Sheriece Wallace was unaware there was a fire burning around her in that area until her sister called at the moment a helicopter made a water drop over her house.

“I was like, ‘it’s raining,’” Wallace said. “She’s like, ‘No, it’s not raining. Your neighbourhood is on fire. You need to get out.’”

“As soon as I opened my door, it was like right there,” she said. “The first thing I did was looked at the trees to see where the wind was blowing. Because it hit me. It blew me back.” She was able to leave.

Residents of a senior center are evacuated as the Eaton Fire approaches.Credit: AP

The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through, and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path. Video along the Pacific Coast Highway showed widespread destruction of homes and businesses along the famed roadway.

Pacific Palisades resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighbourhood was blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burnt on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming. ”

A third wildfire started around 10.30pm and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that is the northernmost neighbourhood in Los Angeles. The causes of all three fires were under investigation.

Flames were being pushed by Santa Ana winds topping 97km/h in some places. The winds were expected to increase overnight, producing isolated gusts that could top 160km/h in mountains and foothills – including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

The situation prompted the Los Angeles Fire Department to take the rare step of putting out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help. It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight.

The erratic weather caused President Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.Credit: Twitter: FthePump1

Officials didn’t give an estimate of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat. Governor Gavin Newsom visited the scene and said many homes had burnt.

By evening the flames had spread into neighbouring Malibu and several people there were being treated for burn injuries, and a firefighter had a serious head injury and was taken to a hospital, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Erik Scott.

Things were expected to worsen overnight.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds were expected between 10pm on Tuesday and 5am on Wednesday (local time). He declared a state of emergency.

In an update provided at 10.30pm Tuesday (local time) update, the LA Fire Department reported another blaze in Sylmar in the city’s north-west.

As of Tuesday evening, nearly 167,000 people were without power in Los Angeles County, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us, due to the strong winds.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 2.5 millimetres of rain since early May.

The Pacific Palisades fire started around 10.30am and quickly consumed about 11.6 square kilometres, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across Los Angeles.

The neighbourhood, which borders Malibu about 32 kilometres west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

A residence is burnt by the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles.Credit: nna\ebennett

Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St Matthew’s Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife’s car as she tried to evacuate.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down towards the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

“I couldn’t believe our lovely little home in the hills held on this long,” he shared hours later. “It feels like losing a loved one.”

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burnt by late Tuesday (local time), but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty president Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. The fire also burnt Palisades Charter High School.

Film studios cancelled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

AP

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