- Fires have ignited in the Los Angeles area amid dangerous, dry, offshore winds that can quickly spread flames.
- One in the Pacific Palisades has grown to 1,261 acres and forced around 30,000 residents to evacuate.
- Electricity providers have started initiating planned power shutoffs to limit further fires.
A fire was burning out of control Tuesday in Pacific Palisades, destroying homes and forcing residents to abandon their vehicles and flee amid a potentially “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm.
Most of Pacific Palisades was under an evacuation order by the afternoon, as residents fought traffic jams and heavy smoke trying to escape the nearby flames. The blaze broke out around 10:30 a.m. near Piedra Morada Drive and was pushed by intense wind gusts that officials had warned could fuel any spark into a fast-moving and erratic wildfire. It was more than 1,200 acres by 3:30 p.m.
“It’s bad. It’s like an inferno,” said Lori Libonati, who lives in Pacific Palisades and saw the fire start to burn Tuesday morning before evacuating.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Massive smoke plumes filled the sky around the Palisades fire as families evacuated not far from hillsides glowing with orange. The blaze quickly jumped across Palisades Drive according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — leaving many trying to evacuate in a precarious and chaotic situation. Some jumped out of their stalled cars to run toward the beach, other were forced to return home and shelter-in-place if they couldn’t get out, residents told The Times.
Ellen Delosh-Bacher tried to rush home from downtown Los Angeles when she heard about the fire to get her 95-year-old mother, her caregiver and their two dogs, but she quickly hit a standstill at Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive.
Then, the fire exploded right along the road and police officers started yelling for people to abandon their cars: “Run for your lives!” Delosh-Bacher recalled. She left her keys still in the ignition and ran the half-mile down to the beach. Firefighters could be heard telling dispatchers over radio traffic that as many as 100 abandoned vehicles were blocking the road.
“This is like an apocalypse,” Delosh-Bacher said. “I live on a ridge. I’m going to be pretty screwed if the fire goes up [there].”
Her mother was stuck at her house, but she said she heard firefighters started telling her neighbors to shelter in place instead of evacuate.
“I don’t know, I’m so scared,” she said.
Capt. Erik Scott, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson, said that some homes had burned in the fire, but a precise estimate was not immediately available.
The region remains under severe red flag warnings as dry, unpredictable and strong offshore winds pick up across the region. The National Weather Service said strong north winds are expected around the fire through at least Wednesday, with speeds peaking Tuesday night from 35 to 60 mph.
In some parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, gusts up to 100 mph are possible as the dangerous windstorm drags on. Wind speeds had already hit 60 to 70 mph in some areas of the eastern Santa Monica mountains, not far from the fire, according to the National Weather Service.
“It looks grim,” Magnolia Shin said around noon Tuesday, about an hour after she left her house on Piedra Morada Drive. Shin said that she could feel the heat from the flames before she left, which were within 50 yards of her home. She didn’t have time to try to save anything from her home before evacuating.
“I couldn’t even get my rabbit,” she said. “I just left. I just took my purse and drove away.”
The upscale Palisades community is a secluded neighborhood retreat for the rich and powerful, including many celebrities. But that seclusion also carries risks when emergencies occur.
George Hutchinson stood on his apartment’s rooftop on Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon watching the fire after rushing home from his hair salon.
He lives in the evacuation zone and his car is packed and ready, but because the traffic was bumper-to-bumper, he decided to wait it out.
“It looks horrible,” he said. “You can keep seeing houses burn. It jumps and it’s crazy. Traffic is gridlock — there are three ways in and out of this town and it’s all packed. Lots of chaos.”
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