Raging fires fanned by strong winds ripped through the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, burning homes and prompting the city to issue evacuation orders for 30,000 people.
Nearly 1,200 acres were burning in the hills surrounding the Palisades, an affluent coastal community with some of the most expensive real estate in the US, the Los Angeles Fire Department said Tuesday. There was no report on how the fire started.
Smoke blackened the sky over the area as winds gusted up to 60 miles per hour. The gusts were expected to accelerate by Wednesday and could reach up to 100 mph, the strongest in a decade for Southern California.
Fire officials said about 13,000 structures are at risk in the Palisades, home to Hollywood stars such as Tom Hanks and James Woods. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said “many structures (are) already destroyed.”
After the fires broke out on Tuesday morning, the roads that wind through its canyons quickly jammed with traffic as residents tried to evacuate. Many cars were abandoned by their drivers, who fled on foot towards the shore, witnesses said.
The fire department has sent trucks to tow the cars to improve their access to the flames.
“We’ve evacuated three times (from previous fires), but this is the scariest we’ve seen,” said Susan Vash, who was evacuated Tuesday afternoon and is staying with family in Santa Monica, a coastal city to the south.
She has lived in the Mandeville Canyon area of Palisades since 1998. “Every time this happens we say we have to move, but we never do.”
The fire threatened the Getty cottage, and several trees and plants on the hilltop were burned. But the collection remained safe, the museum president said.
Helicopters and “super scupper” planes dropped water on the fires, although high winds proved a problem for aircraft. Utility companies shut off power to more than 8,000 homes to prevent live electrical wires from increasing the risk of fire.
Evacuees said the fires were spreading quickly by mid-morning, forcing parents to rush to schools and pick up their children. Witnesses said they could not be sure if the houses they had fled from were still standing.
It could be days before firefighters can bring the blaze under control and even longer before residents are allowed to return, fire officials said.
The National Weather Service warned of “life-threatening windstorms” that have accelerated the fire’s spread in an arid landscape that has seen little rain in months.
Fire officials warned that winds will only worsen overnight. “Know that we are not out of danger,” said Anthony Marrone, chief of the LA County Fire Department.
