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Tens of thousands of residents in Southern California were ordered to evacuate as wildfires raged out of control across the Los Angeles region on Wednesday morning, and authorities confirmed the first known fatalities from the blaze.
As the sun rose over Los Angeles, strong winds had fuelled flames at four separate locations sending plumes of smoke across the sky, creating an apocalyptic hue. Wind gusts ranged from 50 to 80mph throughout the region, said the National Weather Service, making it nearly impossible to contain the fire.
The air quality in much of LA was deemed ‘very unhealthy’ and even parts of the city far from the fires smelled strongly of smoke. At a news conference on Wednesday morning, authorities acknowledged they were still trying to catch up with the rapidly unfolding events.
Little was known about how the fires began, how many structures had been destroyed and how many deaths or injuries have occurred, and they said they had been unable to contain most of the blazes that had spread across the region.
The first fire that began on Tuesday morning at about 10.30am in the Pacific Palisades quickly spread north to Malibu and threatened buildings in Santa Monica to the south, as embers carried by heavy gusts engulfed entire streets.
By Wednesday morning, three other fires beyond the original one in the Palisades were plaguing the region. Areas to the north and east of Los Angeles had gone up in flames, including in the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita, Altadena and Pasadena.
Residents of Pacific Palisades, a canyon neighbourhood along the Pacific Ocean coast, reached out to friends and family throughout the night to try to determine whose homes were still standing. Many of those who live in the Palisades evacuated to nearby Santa Monica, only to be told they needed to move further south as night fell and the nearby fire continued to rage.
“This is a tragic time for our history here in Los Angeles,” said Jim McDonnell, the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. “It’s critical that we be patient, come together and stay focused on saving lives.”
Evacuation orders spread overnight to include parts of Santa Monica and Malibu, two neighbourhoods to the south and north of the Palisades.
Late on Tuesday, another fire erupted near Pasadena, an area just south of the Angeles National Forest. Known as the Eaton fire, it has grown to at least 2,227 acres and has spurred 48,000 evacuation orders, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Authorities said two people had been killed in the Eaton fire, the first known deaths resulting from the blazes.
Meanwhile, in the San Fernando Valley, a third fire had spread to more than 500 acres and also prompted widespread evacuations. The combined blazes have strained the region’s firefighting resources, with the Los Angeles Fire Department asking all off-duty firefighters to report their availability to help combat the flames.
At the Altadena fire, reports indicated there were neighbourhoods with no firefighters present with the department stretched extremely thin. The three fires threatened some of the most expensive properties in the country, along with many publicly owned structures such as schools.
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