Flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday night near a nature preserve northeast of Los Angeles spread so quickly that staff at a senior center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and in hospital beds down the street to a parking lot.
Another fire that started a few hours earlier ravaged the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, an area dotted with celebrity homes. In the frenzied rush, roads became impassable as dozens of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot.
The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through. So a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars.
According to Kelsey Trainor, who lives in Pacific Palisades, the only road in and out of her neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell as fires burned on both sides of the road.
“We looked across the road and the fire had spread from one side to the other,” Trainor said. People were getting out of cars with their dogs, their babies and their bags. They were crying and screaming.”
A third fire started around 10:30 p.m. local time Tuesday evening and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a community in the San Fernando Valley that is the northernmost neighborhood of Los Angeles. The causes of the three fires are under investigation.
The flames are being pushed by Santa Ana winds of nearly 100 km/h in some places. The gusts were expected to become even more violent during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, so that they could exceed 160 km/h locally.
The situation prompted the Los Angeles Fire Department to take the rare step of putting out a call for help to off-duty firefighters. The wind was too strong for the air tankers to fly, further hampering the fight against the flames.
California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on X early Wednesday that California had deployed more than 1,400 firefighters to fight the blazes. “Emergency managers, firefighters and first responders are all on scene all night doing everything they can to protect lives,” Newsom said.
Erratic weather caused President Joe Biden to cancel plans to visit Riverside County, where he was expected to announce the creation of two new national monuments. He stayed in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfire situation.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved a grant to help reimburse California for firefighting costs.
30,000 residents were evacuated as the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, California, quickly grew to more than 3,000 acres on January 7. (FMM – F24)
Officials did not give an estimate of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were ordered to evacuate. More than 13,000 structures are also threatened. Governor Newsom visited the scene and confirmed that many homes had burned.
By evening, flames spread to the neighboring town of Malibu and several people there were treated for burns. A firefighter who suffered a serious head injury was taken to the hospital, according to Capt. Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The situation is likely to get worse
Shortly after midnight Wednesday, the Eaton fire, which started around 6:30 p.m. the day before, quickly burned four square kilometers, according to firefighters. The Hurst Fire grew to 202 hectares and the Palisades Fire destroyed 11.6 square kilometers, according to Angeles National Forest. The fires were 0% contained Wednesday morning.
“We are not out of the woods at all,” Newsom warned, saying the strongest winds were expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday. He declared a state of emergency.
As of Tuesday evening, nearly 167,000 people were without power in Los Angeles County, according to the tracking site PowerOutage.us, due to high winds.
Dry winds, particularly from Santa Ana, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there has been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t received more than 25 millimeters of rain since early May.
Movie studios canceled two movie premieres due to fires and wind. The Los Angeles Unified School District has temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.
