Residents of Los Angeles have fled wildfires engulfing the suburbs of the west coast megalopolis, as firefighters struggled to contain the flames overnight amid fears they would worsen on Wednesday morning.
California officials ordered more than 30,000 people to evacuate their homes as hillside infernos ripped through the coastal Pacific Palisades neighbourhood. People escaped by car and on foot.
Two inland fires in the LA vicinity were also spreading fast: one in Altadena, near Pasadena, and one in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley, north-west of LA. Further east, a new fire, named the Tyler fire, began overnight. All four fires were 0% contained, according to officials from California’s department of forestry and fire protection.
The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has declared a state of emergency. Before daybreak on Wednesday morning, he released a statement saying the state had deployed more than 1,400 firefighting personnel “to combat these unprecedented fires in LA”.
The city’s mayor, Karen Bass, said overnight that the wind speed could increase on Wednesday morning, which would further fan the fire. “Angelenos should be advised that the windstorm is expected to worsen through the morning and to heed local warnings, stay vigilant and stay safe,” she said.
The National Weather Service (NWS) had previously issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles county until Thursday. Low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain meant the conditions were “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather”, the NWS said.
In a Wednesday update, the service warned of “the most extreme conditions expected this morning”.
Gusts could reach speeds of 100mph (160km/h), the NWS said. The powerful winds have grounded Air Force One in LA, forcing a change in the travel plans of the president, Joe Biden.
Human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters from heatwaves to floods to wildfires.
The region has been experiencing warmer than average temperatures in January, in part due to recent blasts of dry air, including the notorious Santa Ana winds. Southern California has not recorded more than 0.1in (2.5mm) of rain since early May.
Jeff Monford, a power utility spokesperson, said it was not always possible to give advanced notice to customers of power shutoffs, telling the Los Angeles Times: “This is a phenomenon of the increasing effects of climate change on weather. We have more weather extremes that can change more quickly than we might be accustomed to.”
More than 220,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles county were without power late on Tuesday, data from PowerOutage.us showed.
No fatalities have been announced, but local media reported patients with burns. Videos shared by people online showed flames licking homes through the canyons, thrashing trees blowing in the wind and plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.
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As the fire rapidly spread, severe gridlock on narrow streets led many to leave their cars, some of which were subsequently engulfed in flames. With ditched vehicles blocking first responders, authorities were forced to use bulldozers to them.
In Altadena, the flames from the Eaton fire spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living centre had to push residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot, the Associated Press reported.
The residents waited there in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances and buses arrived to take them to safety. One was a as old as 102, the agency reported.
Evacuees described harrowing escapes, including one woman who recounted to ABC7 how she abandoned her vehicle and fled with her cat in her arms. She said: “I’m getting hit with palm leaves on fire … It’s terrifying. It feels like a horror movie. I’m screaming and crying walking down the street.”
The blazes also reached the grounds of the Getty Villa, an art museum by the Malibu coast. Some vegetation on the property burned, but museum officials said no structures had been affected and that the galleries and staff were protected by a range of prevention measures.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting
