Thousands of people running like wildfire in the LA hills
Firefighters battled a fast-moving wildfire in the Los Angeles hills dotted with celebrity homes as strong winds whipped through Southern California on Tuesday, forcing thousands of residents to flee.
A fire quickly engulfed part of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in west Los Angeles, sending residents fleeing to the blocked Pacific Coast Road. About 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures are at risk of fire, Los Angeles Fire Chief Christine Crowley said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom says many structures have already been destroyed.
One resident described seeing people crying and screaming as they fled with their children and pets.
Forecasters warned that the worst was yet to come, with the windstorm forecast to last for days, packing isolated winds of up to 160km/h in the mountains and foothills, including areas that have not seen significant rain for months. About half a million utility customers were at risk of power outages to reduce the risk of equipment catching fire.
Portions of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid evacuation efforts. But other roads are closed. Some residents jumped out of their cars to escape the danger and waited to be picked up.
Firefighters battled a fast-moving wildfire in the Los Angeles Hills, dotted with celebrity homes, as a windstorm swept through Southern California on Tuesday. Traffic out of the area was snarled as residents tried to escape, and forecasters warned the worst was yet to come with the windstorm forecast to last for days.
Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely closed. As fires burned on both sides of the road, ash poured around.
“We looked over and the fire was going from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of their cars with their dogs, babies and bags, crying and screaming. It was just closed, like a traffic jam for an hour.”
An Associated Press journalist saw the roof and chimney of one house on fire and the walls of another house on fire. Bordering Malibu, about 20 miles west of downtown LA, the neighborhood includes hilly streets of densely packed homes nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and winding roads that lead to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.
Residents flee on foot
Longtime Palisades resident Will Adams said he was in town when the fires started and immediately took his two children to St. He said he went to pick up from Matthews Parish School.
His wife, who was at home, was walking along the main evacuation route for residents in the upper part of the neighborhood when her car caught fire.
“He unloaded his car and left it running,” Adams said. He and many other residents made their way to the ocean until it was safe.
Adams said he’s never seen a fire so low in the neighborhood in the 56 years he’s lived there.
Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and palm trees on a hill near his home. A towering orange flame billowed across landscaped yards between houses.
“I’m standing in my car getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in a short video on X.
Actor and local resident Steve Guttenberg urged people leaving their cars to leave their keys behind to make way for fire engines.
“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends over there and they can’t evacuate. I’m going as far as I can to move the cars.”
Unsettled weather has caused US President Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel inland to California’s Riverside County, where he was to announce two new national monuments in the state. Instead, Biden will speak in Los Angeles.
Winds drive the flames higher
The National Weather Service said the wind expected to peak Wednesday morning could be the strongest Santa Ana gust in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in more than a decade.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said the winds will act as an “atmospheric dryer” for vegetation and create a longer fire hazard.
“We really haven’t seen as dry a season as this one after a wet season like we’ve had in the past,” Swain said Monday.
Recent dry winds, including the infamous Santa Anas, have produced warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, which has seen little rain so far this season.
Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.25 inches of rain since early May. Much of the region is in moderate drought conditions, according to the US Drought Monitor. Meanwhile, there have been many wet storms in the north.
Areas where winds could create extreme fire conditions include the charred remains of last month’s wind-driven Franklin Fire, which damaged or destroyed 48 structures, mostly homes, in and around Malibu.
English