A fast-moving wildfire has broken out in the foothills northeast of Los Angeles, hours after another blaze tore through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighbourhood along the coast, destroying homes and prompting evacuation orders for tens of thousands.
The Eaton fire in Altadena started near a nature preserve just before 6:30 pm local time, spreading so rapidly that staff at a senior care centre had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot where they waited for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.
To the west, the Pacific Palisades fire that started Tuesday morning burned out of control into the night.
The Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help fight the flames that were being pushed by winds topping 97 kph in some places and creating chaotic scenes as residents fled.
It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, hampering the fight.
The Pacific Palisades fire swept through a Los Angeles hillside dotted with celebrity residences.
In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways were clogged and scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.
The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path, according to the LA Fire Department.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was in the state's south to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon and said he saw many structures already destroyed.
Officials said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 homes were under threat.
And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began around 10:30 am, shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade.
The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 160 km/h in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.
“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods," Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds are expected between 10 pm Tuesday and 5 am Wednesday. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.
The Pacific Palisades neighbourhood includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.
An AP photographer saw multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads. Roads were clogged in both directions as evacuees fled down toward the Pacific Coast Highway while others begged for rides back up to their homes to rescue pets. Two of the homes on fire were inside exclusive gated communities.
Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.
“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”
The erratic weather caused Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.
Biden said in a statement that he and his team are communicating with state and local officials and he has offered “any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire.”
Film studios cancelled two movie premieres due to the fire and the Screen Actors Guild cancelled a live reading of nominations of its awards
