Palisades wildfires threaten Los Angeles school, homes

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The fast-burning wildfire that broke out Tuesday morning in the mountains above Pacific Palisades amid extremely high winds threatened homes and the local public school, which was evacuated.

The fire started in brush near the Paseo Miramar neighborhood above Palisades Drive and spread quickly.

A witness told Breitbart News that she saw homes and cars burning and that embers had flowed across the canyon into the Marquez Knolls neighborhood.

The flames moved quickly. A local resident reported that people on Palisades Drive simply abandoned their cars and ran toward the ocean.

No injuries or deaths have yet been reported, nor a cause of the fire.

Residents were forced to quickly pack their bags and leave the area. Some were furious at the Los Angeles Unified School District for forcing parents to fill out forms before picking up their children, wasting valuable time.

Traffic quickly backed up along Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive as residents and emergency vehicles jostled for space. But residents remained calm, with many calling to each other from their cars, offering help if needed.

An extreme weather warning has been issued for the region, with strong north-northeast winds expected from Tuesday morning to Wednesday evening.

Although the last two winters have been wet, leaving the brush theoretically less dry than before, there is much more brush than before. Additionally, there has been no significant rain yet this winter.

A major fire in Malibu last month threatened Pepperdine University but caused no deaths.

Joel B. Pollak is a senior editor at Breitbart News and host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump should do in his first 100 daysavailable for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidencynow available on Audible. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.