LOS ANGELES: A rapidly growing wildfire raged across an upscale section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, destroying homes and creating traffic jams as 30,000 people evacuated beneath huge plumes of smoke that covered much of the metropolitan area.
\nAt least 2,921 acres (1,182 hectares) of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal settlements of Santa Monica and Malibu had burned, officials said, after they had already warned of extreme fire danger from powerful winds that arrived following extended dry weather.
\nThe fire spread as officials warned the worst wind conditions were expected to come overnight, leading to concerns that more neighborhoods could be forced to flee. The city of Santa Monica later ordered evacuations in the northern fringe of town.
\nWitnesses reported a number 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.
\n\u201cWe feel very blessed at this point that there\u2019s no injuries that are reported,\u201d Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told a press conference, adding that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.
\nFirefighters in aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the nearby flames. Flames engulfed homes and bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.
\nAs the sun set over Los Angeles, towering orange flames illuminated the hills leading to Topanga Canyon.
\nThe 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 of preventive efforts to trim brush surrounding the buildings, the museum said.
\nWith only one major road leading from the canyon to the coast, and only one coastal highway leading to safety, traffic crawled to a halt, leading people to flee on foot.
\nCindy Festa, a Pacific Palisades resident, said that as she evacuated out of the canyon, fires were \u201cthis close to the cars,\u201d demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.
\n\u201cPeople left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees \u2014 everything is going,\u201d Festa said from her car.
\nBefore the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Tuesday through Thursday, predicting wind gusts of 50 to 80 mph (80 to 130 kph).
\nWith low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were \u201cabout as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,\u201d the Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service said on X.
\nGovernor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency, said the state positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region, he added.
\n\u201cHopefully, we\u2019re wrong, but we\u2019re anticipating other fires happening concurrently,\u201d Newsom told the press conference.
\nA second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire later broke out some 30 miles (50 km) inland in the foothills above Pasadena, consuming 200 acres (80 hectares), Cal Fire said.
\nThe powerful winds changed President Joe Biden\u2019s 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 but the event was rescheduled for a later date at the White House.
\n\u201cI have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire,\u201d Biden said in statement. A federal grant had already been approved to help reimburse the state of California for its fire response, Biden said.
\nPacific Palisades is home to several Hollywood stars. Actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate but added, \u201cI do not know at this moment if our home is still standing.\u201d
\nActor Steve Guttenberg told KTLA television that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars in the road.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really important for everybody to band together and don\u2019t worry about your personal property. Just get out,\u201d Guttenberg said. \u201cGet your loved ones and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES: A rapidly growing wildfire raged across an upscale section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, destroying homes and creating traffic jams as 30,000 people evacuated beneath huge plumes of smoke that covered much of the metropolitan area. At least 2,921 acres (1,182 hectares) of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal settlements of Santa […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-454174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n