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Los
Angeles wildfires force thousands to flee as blazes spread out of control
Over 30,000
ordered to evacuate as flames rip through coastal Pacific Palisades and other
inland fires spread fast
Southern
California wildfire – live
Oliver
Holmes, Dani Anguiano and Gabrielle Canon in Los Angeles
Wed 8 Jan
2025 18.40 GMT
Fast moving
wildfires tore through several neighborhoods of Los Angeles, killing at least
two people and incinerating more than 1,000 buildings in the western
megalopolis.
The disaster
began Tuesday afternoon, when a powerful windstorm fanned the flames of a fire
in the scenic Pacific Palisades neighborhood, quickly forcing thousands to
flee.
The
emergency intensified overnight as firefighters struggled to contain the flames
in the intense winds during what one official described as among the “most
devastating and terrifying nights” in city history.
By morning,
authorities had dispatched firefighters from across California to aid in
tackling at least four blazes besieging the region.
Officials
have said they are “prioritizing life over everything else” in their response.
More than
70,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes and more than 13,000
buildings from the affluent neighborhoods on the city’s west side overlooking
the Pacific Ocean to the hillside suburbs in the east are under threat.
Officials say the flames have left a number of people with significant
injuries.
Efforts to
contain the fires are being hindered by a “life-threatening” windstorm
affecting a large swath of southern California.
The LA
county fire chief, Anthony Marrone, said on Wednesday morning there were not
enough fire personnel to handle the fires. “There are not enough firefighters
in LA county to address four separate fires of this magnitude,” Marrone said.
The county was prepared for “one or two brushfires, but not four, especially
given these sustained winds and low humidities”, he said.
In some
parts of LA, the evacuation effort had been frenzied, as residents rushed to
the few roads leading out of communities. The flames moved so quickly in some
areas that residents were forced to abandon their cars and flee on foot, later
leading to jammed roads that first responders had to clear in order to get
through. In the Pacific Palisades, Sheriece Wallace said she unaware there was
a fire burning around her until her sister called at the moment a helicopter
made a water drop overhead.
“I was like,
‘It’s raining,’” Wallace said. “She’s like, ‘No, it’s not raining. Your
neighborhood is on fire. You need to get out.’”
“As soon as
I opened my door, it was like right there,” she said. “The first thing I did
was looked at the trees to see where the wind was blowing. Because it hit me.
It blew me back.” She was able to leave.
The extent
of the damage in the Pacific Palisades was unclear by Wendesday morning, and
the fire remained wholly uncontained.
More than
1,000 structures have been destroyed because of the Palisades fire and about
37,000 residents are under evacuation orders. While no fatalities have been
reported for this fire, there have been a “high number of significant injuries
to residents who did not evacuate”, Marrone said.
Other inland
wildfires in the Los Angeles vicinity were also spreading fast, including a
major fire in Altadena, near Pasadena, which officials have called the Eaton
fire. That blaze was almost as large as the Palisades fire, with more than
2,200 acres of burned land.
Marrone said
the Eaton fire continued to grow and there had been two reported fatalities and
a number of “significant” injuries. More than 100 structures have been
destroyed, he said.
Two smaller
fires were also reported by fire services, including the Hurst fire, in Sylmar,
in the San Fernando Valley, north-west of Los Angeles, and one that began on
Wednesday named the Woodley fire, near the Van Nuys neighbourhood.
All four
fires were 0% contained, according to officials from California’s department of
forestry and fire protection. A fifth fire to the east of the city, named the
Tyler fire, began overnight but was largely contained.
The governor
of California, Gavin Newsom, has declared a state of emergency. Before daybreak
on Wednesday morning, he released a statement saying the state had deployed
more than 1,400 firefighting personnel “to combat these unprecedented fires in
LA”.
Meanwhile,
residents in the sprawling suburbs and rural enclaves are bracing for another
day of brutal wind. Gusts across the southern California region peaked at
100mph, with swaths of the area seeing between 50-80mph winds over the last two
days.
Trees
thrashed and debris was strewn across yards in Chatsworth, California, a
neighborhood at the foot of the Santa Susana mountains, throughout a sleepless
night on Tuesday. Residents anxiously kept watch on the glowing horizons and
billowing smoke pluming over the mountains above wondering if new ignitions
would start in the night.
Wind-whipped
fires are difficult to stop and can move incredibly fast, especially through
these parched landscapes.
“It was very
surreal,” said resident Patty Robinson after trees thumped against her roof and
the gusts howled. “To hear this wind and know the effect it is having and the
damage that it can bring makes my hackles rise,” she added. “My little lizard
brain is freaking out.”
The National
Weather Service (NWS) had previously issued its highest alert for extreme fire
conditions for much of Los Angeles county until Thursday. Low humidity and dry
vegetation due to a lack of rain meant the conditions were “about as bad as it
gets in terms of fire weather”, the NWS said.
In a
Wednesday update, the service warned the most extreme conditions were expected
on Wednesday morning.
Gusts could
reach speeds of 100mph (160km/h), the NWS said. The powerful winds have
grounded Air Force One in Los Angeles, forcing a change in the travel plans of
the president, Joe Biden.
Human-caused
climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving
more frequent and more deadly disasters from heatwaves to floods to wildfires.
The region
has been experiencing warmer than average temperatures in January, in part due
to recent blasts of dry air, including the notorious Santa Ana winds. Southern
California has not recorded more than 0.1in (2.5mm) of rain since early May.
Jeff
Monford, a power utility spokesperson, said it was not always possible to give
advanced notice to customers of power shutoffs, telling the Los Angeles Times:
“This is a phenomenon of the increasing effects of climate change on weather.
We have more weather extremes that can change more quickly than we might be
accustomed to.”
More than
260,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles county were without power on
Wednesday, data from PowerOutage.us showed.
Videos
shared by people online showed flames licking homes through the canyons,
thrashing trees blowing in the wind and plumes of black smoke billowing into
the sky.
As the fire
rapidly spread, severe gridlock on narrow streets led many to leave their cars,
some of which were subsequently engulfed in flames. With ditched vehicles
blocking first responders, authorities were forced to use bulldozers to them.
In Altadena,
the flames from the Eaton fire spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living
centre had to push residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street
to a parking lot, the Associated Press reported.
The
residents waited there in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until
ambulances and buses arrived to take them to safety. One was a as old as 102,
the agency reported.
Evacuees
described harrowing escapes, including one woman who recounted to ABC7 how she
abandoned her vehicle and fled with her cat in her arms. She said: “I’m getting
hit with palm leaves on fire … It’s terrifying. It feels like a horror movie.
I’m screaming and crying walking down the street.”
The blazes
also reached the grounds of the Getty Villa, an art museum by the Malibu coast.
Some vegetation on the property burned, but museum officials said no structures
had been affected and that the galleries and staff were protected by a range of
prevention measures.
The
Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting
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