By Jorge Garcia and Mike Blake
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Powerful winds were fuelling devastating wildfires near Los Angeles on Wednesday, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate their homes and scorching buildings and hillsides across an upscale coastal area.
The fierce winds were hindering efforts to fight a blaze in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which lies between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu and is home to many film, television and music stars, and at least two other fires in the region.
The skies above Los Angeles glowed red and were blanketed by thick smoke as the sun rose on Wednesday.
As the flames spread and residents began evacuating after the fires broke out on Tuesday, roads were so jammed that some people abandoned their vehicles. Emergency responders were going door to door to press evacuation orders.
“It is hurricane-force winds,” Los Angeles County Fire Department Captain Sheila Kelliher said on CBS on Wednesday. “It’s extreme.”
Hundreds of structures in Pacific Palisades are likely lost, and the damage is certain to worsen as the fires continue burning out of control, according to Los Angeles Councilwoman Traci Park, whose district includes the neighborhood.
“It’s going to be an absolutely devastating day for all of Los Angeles,” Park said. “Everybody needs to be packed and prepared to move on an instant’s notice. … This is a life-saving operation.”
No deaths have been reported, but some people were injured in the Palisades fire, which has consumed some 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares), local news reported.
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Wednesday urged residents to follow evacuation and parking orders, using shelters set up by authorities if needed.
“Stay vigilant and stay safe,” she wrote in a post on X, saying the windstorm was expected to worsen throughout the morning.
Pacific Palisades resident Cindy Festa said that as she evacuated, fires were “this close to the cars,” demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.
“People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees – everything is going,” Festa said from her car.
Pacific Palisades is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country. A typical home was valued at $3.7 million as of the end of 2023, according to Zillow, more than all but four other zip codes in the United States.
AT LEAST THREE BLAZES
A second blaze, dubbed the Eaton Fire, broke out some 30 miles (50 km) inland in Altadena, near Pasadena, and increased in size to more than 2,200 acres (890 hectares) in a span of 13 hours, according to Cal Fire.
The Eaton fire has engulfed homes, a synagogue and a McDonald’s restaurant.
Almost 100 residents from a nursing home in Pasadena were evacuated, CBS News said. Video showed elderly residents, many in wheelchairs and on gurneys, crowded onto a smoky and windswept parking lot as fire trucks and ambulances attended.
Fire officials said a third blaze named the Hurst fire had started in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations of some nearby residents.
All three fires were 0% contained as of 7:30 a.m. (1530 GMT), according to Cal Fire.
Around 188,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles county were without power on Wednesday, data from PowerOutage.us showed.
Multiple burn victims were treated after walking toward Duke’s restaurant in Malibu in the evening, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a fire official.
WATER SCOOPED FROM THE SEA
Firefighting aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the flames as they engulfed homes. Bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.
The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because nearby bushes had been trimmed as a preventive measure, the museum said.
Before the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Tuesday through Thursday.
With low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,” the service said.
Newsom said the state had positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region. California had secured federal grants to suppress all three fires, he said on Wednesday.
President Joe Biden said in a statement overnight that he had been briefed on the wildfires and had offered federal help.
(Reporting by Jorge Garcia, Mike Blake and Daniel Cole in Los Angeles and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California and Shubham Kalia, Gursimran Kaur and Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Angus MacSwan and Mark Porter)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.