Many residents evacuated in panic, with just a few belongings and their pets. Many have found themselves stuck in traffic, like Kelsey Trainor. “There was nowhere to go and people were abandoning their cars,” she said. “Everyone was honking, there were flames all around us, left, right. (…) It was terrifying.”
The terrible hot winds of Santa Ana
“We were stuck for 20 minutes” in traffic, while “the children were being evacuated from the school,” Andrew Hires, another resident, told AFP. Firefighters had to clear the roadway with a bulldozer to access the neighborhood. The fire caused a huge cloud of smoke, visible from the entire megacity.
The fire broke out at the worst time for Los Angeles, swept by violent gusts. Warm Santa Ana winds, typical of the California winter, are expected to blow up to 100 mph in the region Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the U.S. Weather Service (NWS). Enough to spread the flames very quickly and pose a “mortal danger”.
“We are absolutely not out of the woods,” insisted Gavin Newsom, recalling that the gusts will “reach their peak” tonight, between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. The Democratic governor asked Californians to “respect evacuation orders”, which are not always followed in the United States. More than 250 firefighters are currently mobilized, added Kristin Crowley, a Los Angeles fire official.
“The combination of strong winds and the steep topography of the neighborhood makes the task extremely difficult,” she insisted. Air assets will probably not be able to intervene during the night.
-Probably the strongest wind episode since 2011
“This is expected to be the strongest wind event in this region since 2011,” warned Daniel Swain, an extreme events specialist at UCLA University. But the risk of fire is, according to him, “much higher” than at the time. Because after two very rainy years which reinvigorated the vegetation, southern California is experiencing “the driest start to winter on record”. In other words, anything that has grown back abundantly now acts as fuel for the fire.
Scientists regularly point out that climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. “November, December, January… There is no more fire season. It takes place all year round,” recalled Governor Newsom. The storm disrupted the visit of President Joe Biden, who came to California on Tuesday to announce the creation of two “national monuments”, vast protected areas in the south of the state.
Present in Los Angeles, the 82-year-old Democrat immediately approved federal aid for the second largest city in the United States. “This is something (…) that we should not take for granted at this moment in American history,” greeted Gavin Newsom.
Donald Trump, who is due to succeed Joe Biden in a few days at the White House, threatened in September to cut federal aid usually received by California to fight against forest fires.
