Thousands flee as wildfires burn out of control and destroy homes across the Los Angeles area
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Multiple massive wildfires tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force early Wednesday as residents made a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke.
At least three separate blazes were burning in the metropolitan area, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena, home of the famed Rose Parade. With thousands of firefighters already attacking the flames, the Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help, and weather conditions were too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said two people were killed and many others hurt in the fires, which have destroyed more than 1,000 structures.
Images of the devastation that emerged overnight showed luxurious homes that had collapsed in a whirlwind of flaming embers. The tops of palm trees whipped against a glowing red sky.
Tens of thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate as the fires marched toward highly populated and affluent neighborhoods home to California’s rich and famous. Hollywood stars, including Mark Hamill, Mandy Moore and James Woods, were among those forced to flee.
Flames that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. Residents — one as old as 102 — waited in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and construction vans arrived to take them to safety.
Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity homes and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin’ USA.” In the race 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 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 neighborhood 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.
A 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 neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell all around while fires burned 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 Tuesday evening and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that’s the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles. A fourth fire was reported early Wednesday in Coachella, in Riverside County. The causes were under investigation.
Flames were being pushed by Santa Ana winds topping 60 mph (97 kph) in some places Tuesday, increasing to 80 mph (129 kph) by early Wednesday, according to reports received by the National Weather Service. They could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills, including in areas that have not seen substantial rain in months.
California’s wildfire season typically begins in June or July and runs through October, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association, but January wildfires are not unprecedented. There was one in 2022 and 10 in 2021, according to CalFire.
The season is beginning earlier and ending later due to rising temperatures and decreased rainfall tied to climate change, according to recent data. Rains that usually end fire season are often delayed, meaning fires can burn through the winter months, the association said.
“This will likely be the most destructive windstorm seen (since a) 2011 windstorm that did extensive damage to Pasadena and nearby foothills of the San Gabriel Valley,” the weather service said in a red-flag warning early Wednesday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X early Wednesday that California had deployed more than 1,400 firefighting personnel to combat the blazes. “Emergency officials, firefighters and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives,” Newsom said.
Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin said much of the city was under evacuation orders as his department waits for winds to die down so he can get aircraft up to starting dousing the flames. Until that happens, it’s going to be difficult to get the blaze there under control, Augustin told KABC television, the ABC affiliate.
Fire departments across California were sending firefighters because crews in the Los Angeles area were stretched to the limit, he said.
President Joe Biden canceled plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires.
Officials did not 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. Newsom visited the scene and said many homes had burned. He declared a state of emergency.
The fire burned down Temescal Canyon, a popular hiking area surrounded by dense neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes. Flames jumped famous Sunset Boulevard and burned parts of the Palisades Charter High School, which has been featured in many Hollywood productions, including the 1976 horror movie “Carrie,” the 2003 remake of “Freaky Friday” and the TV series “Teen Wolf.”
Several people in Malibu were treated for burns, and a firefighter had a serious head injury, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott.
By early Wednesday, the Eaton Fire, which started the day before, had quickly burned 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers), according to fire officials. The Hurst Fire jumped to 500 acres (202 hectares) and the Palisades Fire, which started Tuesday morning and sent up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across Los Angeles, had burned 4.5 square miles (11.6 square kilometers), according to Angeles National Forest. The Tyler Fire in Coachella was relatively small, burning 15 acres (6 hectares). All fires were at 0% containment.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 180,000 people were without power mostly in Los Angeles County, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us. Southern California Edison shut off power to some customers because of safety concerns related to high winds and fire risks. More than 500,000 could face shutoffs depending on weather conditions, the utility said.
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 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.
Longtime Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Embers flew into his wife’s car as she tried to evacuate, he said.
“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.
Adams said he had never witnessed anything like it in the 56 years he’s lived there.
“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,” he said.
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Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Janie Har in San Francisco, Hallie Golden in Seattle, video journalist Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles, Ethan Swope in Pasadena, Brian Melley in London, Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, and Tammy Webber in Detroit contributed to this report.