30,000 people ordered to flee wildfires in Los Angeles area; 13,000 structures threatened

LOS ANGELES —

Firefighters raced to quell a fast-moving wildfire in Los Angeles hills dotted with celebrity homes as a fierce windstorm battered Southern California on Tuesday. The fire was visible for miles as many residents abandoned their cars and fled on foot to safety as roads were blocked.

About 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures are threatened, said Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley. Firefighters.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said he saw “many structures already destroyed.” Officials have not given the exact number of structures damaged or destroyed by the fire.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known and no injuries were reported, officials said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Newsom warned Southern California residents not to assume they are out of danger, saying the strongest winds are expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Forecasters predicted the storm would last for several days, producing isolated gusts of up to 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour) in the mountains and foothills, including areas that haven’t seen significant rain in months . The National Weather Service said it could be the strongest Santa Ana wind storm in more than a decade in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

About half a million utility customers were at risk of having their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment starting fires.

In the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of west Los Angeles, a fire quickly consumed about 5 square kilometers (2 square miles) of land, causing a spectacular plume of smoke visible across the city. Residents of Venice Beach, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away, reported seeing the flames. This is one of several fires that have ravaged the region.

Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to facilitate evacuation efforts. Other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to escape danger and waited to be picked up.

Resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was completely blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across the road and the fire spread from one side of the road to the other,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of cars with their dogs and their babies and their bags, they were crying and screaming. The road was just blocked, completely blocked for an hour.”

An Associated Press reporter saw the roof and chimney of a house on fire and another residence with walls burning. The neighborhood that borders Malibu, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) west of downtown Los Angeles, features hillside streets populated with houses packed tightly together along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and extends to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

Longtime Palisades resident Will Adams said he has never seen a fire this small in the neighborhood in the 56 years he has lived there.

“It’s crazy, it’s everywhere, in every nook and cranny of the Palisades,” he said. “One house is safe, the other is on fire.”

Adams saw the sky turn brown and then black as houses began to burn. He could hear loud pops and bangs “like little explosions,” which he said were transformers exploding on the utility poles.

Actor James Woods posted images of flames burning through bushes and palm trees on a hillside near his home. The towering orange flames floated in the landscaped gardens between the houses.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.

“It’s not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving the cars.”

The winds will act as an “atmospheric dryer” for vegetation, leading to a long period of fire risk, said Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

“We really haven’t seen a season as dry as this one follow a season as wet as the last one,” Swain said Monday.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer than average temperatures in Southern California, where there has been very little rain so far this season.