Fire-ravaged residents in ritzy suburbs across southern California have been warned to brace for another 12 hours of hell as wildfires turn cataclysmic.
Million-dollar mansions in the celebrity enclave of Pacific Palisades were razed last night, with landmark institutions and beloved restaurants leveled as three out-of-control blazes and winds nearing 100mph spread at a rapid rate across Los Angeles.
The night sky blazed red and was blanketed in heavy smoke – while a windstorm the worst Los Angeles has seen in more than a decade whipped up debris and sent fire embers traveling more than a mile ahead of the monstrous inferno itself.
Firefighters battling the Palisades blaze, which is burning through about five football fields a minute, warned they were running out of water and supplies, as evacuation warnings spread to Malibu and Calabasas.
Tankers full of water had been dousing the inferno from the skies all afternoon, but all aircraft were later grounded amid deteriorating wind conditions and visibility.
Residents were warned the worst is still yet to come as the raging wildfire burns through some 3,000 acres of Los Angeles land at an extraordinary rate. Firefighters have warned that ‘tornado-like’ winds are making their work harder.
At least 30,000 residents are now under mandatory evacuation orders with more still warned they should be prepared to leave after a fire that broke out in the foothills near Eaton Canyon grew to 1,000 acres in just six hours since it began.
A third brush fire has broken out in Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley which recent estimates claim is around 100 acres in size and growing.
There have been few reports of injuries, but the Los Angeles Times reported multiple burn victims were treated in Malibu after being caught in the blaze last night.
As of early Wednesday, nearly 167,000 people were without power in Los Angeles county, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us. It comes as:
Pacific Palisades, where houses have already been reduced to rubble, is a celebrity enclave home to Chris Pratt, Reese Witherspoon and Miles Teller among other Hollywood A-listers. Even more celebrities call Calabasas and Pasadena home, including the Kardashians.
Hellish photos from the inferno’s epicenter show once-decadent million-dollar homes completely obliterated by the wildfire. A spiral staircase and opulent art gallery wall were seen burned to cinders. Firefighters, which have said there is no hope of containing the fires overnight, are now focusing their efforts on helping residents get to safety.
The raging fire is predicted to continue to burn uncontained for at least the next 12 hours, according to Malibu City Council member Bruce Silverstein.
Silverstein gave the grim update in an urgent message to locals and celebrities alike: ‘The Palisades Fire is a monster.
‘It is burning out of control, and the Santa Ana winds are spreading the fire and embers very fast,’ he wrote, according to the NY Times.
‘We are having new fires pop up as we speak,’ David Acuna, a battalion chief and Public Information Officer at Cal Fire told CNN.
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,’ Festa said from her car.
A fire official told local television station KTLA that several people were injured in the Palisades Fire, some with burns to faces and hands. One female firefighter had suffered a a head injury.
With aircraft grounded for the night amid deteriorating 60mph wind conditions and visibility, and a lack of water to contain the blazes, authorities are concerned the hellish devastation plaguing LA still has not peaked.
