The fire destroyed many houses, people fleeing in panic created traffic jams on the surrounding roads. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced that authorities have declared a state of emergency.
Flames and smoke spread particularly devastatingly quickly in the Los Angeles suburb of Pacific Sides, a hilltop neighborhood on the Pacific coast that is home to many celebrities and captured Beach Boys in a sixties hit Surfin’ USA. There, the wind spread the flames so fast that the cars of people fleeing at the same time completely blocked the traffic. People abandoned them and fled the dangerous area on foot, some dragging suitcases with them. These “corks” of abandoned cars on the roads did not allow firemen and rescuers to access the fire places, so a bulldozer was used to push these cars off the roads.
Video footage shot by witnesses shows residential and commercial buildings along the Pacific Coast Highway destroyed by flames. K. Basa said that a mandatory evacuation of residents was announced in Pasifik Peliseides, the area of which was being increased, and in posts on social media sites, residents were called to comply with evacuation orders. Kelsey Trainor, a resident of Pasifik Pelesides, said the only way out of her neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell from the air all around, flames raged on both sides of the road. “While we were looking around, flames were jumping from one side of the road to the other. People were rushing out of their cars with their dogs, children and bags, many were crying and screaming,” the eyewitness was quoted as saying by AFP.
Another fire broke out Tuesday night near a nature preserve in the foothills northeast of Los Angeles and reached a nursing home so quickly that staff were forced to push its residents in wheelchairs and beds to a nearby parking lot, where they waited for rescuers surrounded by flames. A third fire broke out at 11:30 p.m. in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley, the northernmost suburb of Los Angeles. Investigators are still trying to determine what caused all three fires to start.