The roads are congested as residents try to flee.
Experts have warned that the worst may be yet to come, with the windstorm expected to last for several days and produce isolated gusts of up to 100 mph in the mountains and foothills, including in areas that have not received significant rain for months. Nearly half a million utility customers were at risk of having their power cut off to reduce the risk of equipment starting fires.
In the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in west Los Angeles, a fire quickly consumed more than a square mile (2.6 km²) of land, sending an impressive plume of smoke visible throughout the city. Residents of Venice Beach, some 10 kilometers away, reported seeing the flames. This is one of several fires that have broken out in the area.
Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to facilitate evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to take cover and waited to be picked up.
Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.
“We looked across the road and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other,” Ms Trainor said. “People were getting out of cars with their dogs and their babies and their bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was blocked, completely blocked for an hour.”
The Associated Press saw the roof and chimney of one house burning and the walls of another residence on fire. The neighborhood bordering Malibu, about 20 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, features hillside streets packed tightly together along winding roads nestled in the mountains of Santa Monica, and extends to the beaches along the Pacific Ocean.
Actor James Woods posted images of bushes and palm trees burning on a hillside near his home. The immense orange flames spread into the gardens between the houses.
“I’m in my driveway getting ready to evacuate,” James Woods said in the short video posted on X.
Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.
“It’s not a parking lot,” Steve Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate…I walk up there as far as I can to move the cars.”
-The unpredictable weather forced President Joe Biden to cancel his trip to Riverside County, California, where he was to announce the creation of two new national monuments in the state. Mr. Biden will deliver his speech in Los Angeles.
The National Weather Service reported that the wind expected to peak early Wednesday could be the strongest Santa Anawind storm in more than a decade in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
The Los Angeles Unified School District said it was temporarily moving students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area because of the fire.
Amazon and MGM Studios canceled the premiere of Jennifer Lopez’s new film, Unstoppabledue to fires and strong winds.
According to Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the winds will act as an “atmospheric dryer” for vegetation, leading to a long period of fire risk.
“We have never seen a season as dry as this one follow a season as wet as the previous one,” Swain said Monday.
Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to higher than average temperatures in Southern California, where there has been very little rain so far.
Southern California hasn’t received more than 0.25 centimeters of rain since the beginning of May. According to the US Drought Monitor, much of the region has fallen into a moderate drought. At the same time, in the north, numerous storms hit the region.
Areas where gusts could create extreme fire conditions include the charred footprint of last month’s wind-driven Franklin Fire, which damaged or destroyed 48 structures, mostly homes, in Malibu and its surrounding areas. surroundings.
