Hollywood stars among thousands fleeing Los Angeles-area wildfires

Weather conditions were expected to deteriorate further throughout Jan 8 as a wind storm and arid conditions fanned a blaze in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood and at least two others in the Los Angeles area, forecasters said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Jan 7.

Many buildings were destroyed and nearly 1,200ha burned in Pacific Palisades, which lies between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu, officials said. The area is home to many film and music stars.

Roads were jammed with people fleeing the inferno, some abandoning their cars as flames licked the edges and plumes of smoke and flames rose in the night sky over Los Angeles and its suburbs.

Actor Steve Guttenberg told KTLA television that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars on the road.

“It’s really important for everybody to band together and don’t worry about your personal property. Just get out,” Guttenberg said. “Get your loved ones and get out.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Jan 8 morning urged residents to follow evacuation and parking orders, using shelters set up by authorities if needed.

“Stay vigilant and stay safe,” she wrote in a post on X, saying the wind storm was expected to worsen through the morning.

The National Weather Service said in an advisory: “This is a particularly dangerous situation for portions of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties!”

Pacific Palisades resident Cindy Festa said that as she evacuated, fires were “this close to the cars”, demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.

“People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees – everything is going,” Ms Festa said from her car.

Several people were injured in the Palisades Fire, some with burns to faces and hands, a fire official told KTLA. One female firefighter had suffered a head injury. No deaths have been reported, however.

Hollywood actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate his Pacific Palisades house but he added: “I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing.”

At least three blazes

A second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire, broke out some 50km inland in Altadena, near Pasadena, and increased in size to 400ha from 80ha in a few hours, according to Cal Fire.

Almost 100 residents from a nursing home in Pasadena were evacuated, CBS News said. Video showed elderly residents, many in wheelchairs and on gurneys, crowded onto a smoky and windswept parking lot as fire trucks and ambulances attended.

Fire officials said a third blaze named the Hurst Fire had started in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley north-west of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations of some nearby residents. The Hurst fire has grown to 202ha from 40ha earlier, according to Cal Fire.

More than 210,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles County were without power late on Jan 7, data from PowerOutage.us showed.

Witnesses reported several homes on fire with flames nearly scorching their cars when people fled the hills of Topanga Canyon as the fire spread from there down to the Pacific Ocean.

Local media reported the fire had also spread north, torching homes near Malibu. Parts of Malibu and Santa Monica are under evacuation orders.

Many burn victims were treated after walking towards Duke’s restaurant in Malibu in the evening, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a fire official.

Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley had earlier told a press conference that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.

Firefighting aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the flames as they engulfed homes. Bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so that emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.

The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because nearby bushes had been trimmed as a preventive measure, the museum said.

Before the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Jan 7 through Jan 9.

With low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather”, the service said.

Governor Newsom said the state had positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region. California had secured federal grants to suppress all three fires, he said on Jan 8 morning.

The state of emergency will allow for state, local and tribal agencies to be reimbursed for their task in dealing with the wildfire and its aftermath.

Biden trip abandoned

The powerful winds forced a change in President Joe Biden’s travel plans, grounding Air Force One in Los Angeles. He had planned to make a short flight inland to the Coachella Valley for a ceremony to create two new national monuments in California.

Biden said in a statement overnight that he had been briefed on the wildfires and offered federal help. A federal grant had already been approved to help reimburse the state of California for its fire response, Biden said.

Reuters