Firefighters continue to battle a violent forest fire this Wednesday in an upscale neighborhood overlooking Los Angeles, on the west coast of the United States.
They are forcing thousands to flee as hurricane-force winds pose a “mortal danger,” authorities say.
Certain images, spectacular and frightening, reflect the scale.
The fire broke out late Tuesday morning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, populated with multi-million dollar villas where Hollywood celebrities live, in the mountains northwest of the city. Panicked residents had to abandon their vehicles on one of the only roads entering and exiting the area, fleeing on foot from the fire which has already ravaged nearly 1,200 hectares.
To access the neighborhood, firefighters had to use bulldozers to clear dozens of vehicles from the roadway – including expensive BMW, Tesla and Mercedes models – leaving crushed carcasses with blaring alarms on the side of the road. The fire caused a huge cloud of smoke, visible from the entire megacity.
More than 1,400 firefighters are battling the flames and hundreds are on the way, California Governor Gavin Newsom said. As we can see in the video at the top of this article, firefighters are no longer trying to save houses, seeking to slow the advance of the fire. American media also reported a firefighter among the injured.
More than 10,000 homes threatened, origin of fire still unknown
“We are not yet out of danger,” explains Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone. “The weather forecast is for winds that are going to peak and get worse.” Around 30,000 people are under evacuation orders and gusts of up to 95 km/h are expected to continue until Thursday, according to authorities.
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United States: an impressive fire threatens Los Angeles, thousands of people evacuated
For some, that means walking through the blaze. This American defied the ban, staying to try to save her parents’ house with just a garden hose: “They’re 90 years old and this is what we’re going through, they don’t have fire insurance.”she says in the video above. More than 10,000 homes are threatened. The firefighters will even have to fight on several fronts: Tuesday evening, a new fire broke out near Pasadena, north of Los Angeles, and quickly ravaged more than 400 hectares, according to the CalFire agency.
The origin of the fires is still unknown, but after two very rainy years that reinvigorated 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.
