200-acre brush fire erupts in affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, prompting mandatory evacuations
ALERTCalifornia | UC San Diego
- A brush fire erupted in Pacific Palisades amid a powerful windstorm Tuesday.
- The Palisades Fire quickly grew to 200 acres, prompting mandatory evacuations in the area.
- Santa Ana winds, with gusts up to 100 mph, are creating extreme fire conditions.
A major brush fire erupted in the Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighborhood of Los Angeles, in the first hours of a powerful windstorm on Tuesday.
The Palisades Fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time and quickly ballooned to 200 acres.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the area all the way down to the Pacific Ocean.
Westwood Recreation Center was open to evacuees as of Tuesday afternoon.
Further evacuation warnings prompted residents to prepare for evacuation in the Topanga Canyon area and an additional swath of the hills down to La Costa Beach.
Palisades Drive, the major road out of the neighborhood, was packed with slow-moving lines of cars as people evacuated beneath a smoky haze and bright-orange flames licking the hillside in the distance, shown live on ABC7 shortly after noon.
The state agency CalFire reported that the fire was on both sides of Palisades Drive.
ABC7 reported that some people were evacuating on foot and spoke with one family who abandoned their car on the road.
An LA Fire Department captain told the news station that they had not yet confirmed any property damage.
Highway 1 has closed between Santa Monica and Malibu.
Officials have not yet determined how the fire started, but it erupted during a high-risk major windstorm that created extreme fire conditions in the area.
Warm, dry Santa Ana winds from the deserts of Nevada and Utah are expected to bring gusts up to 100 mph to Southern California through Wednesday morning.
The National Weather Service called the windstorm "life-threatening and destructive" and warned that these could be the strongest north winds in 14 years. The NWS urged residents to be ready to evacuate, as such winds can rapidly spread any fire that breaks out.
"This is pretty much the worst possible scenario for a firefight," David Ortiz of the LAFD told local news station KTLA.