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A state of emergency has been declared in Los Angeles after huge wildfires killed at least two people and swept through hillsides dotted with celebrity homes.
Fierce wildfires raged in the Los Angeles area, fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds, sending residents fleeing from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke. Thousands of firefighters were battling at least three separate blazes on Wednesday, from the Pacific Coast inland to Pasadena.
The fires forced the evacuation of 30,000 people, some of whom abandoned their cars and fled on foot to safety.
Officials have said more than 1,000 structures have burned and two people have been killed while air quality in the Los Angeles area is at a hazardous level.
The air quality index for most of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Wednesday morning was well over 300, which is considered hazardous to the general public, according to AirNow.gov.
News photographer Nick Stern, who has lived in Los Angeles since 2007, told the Standard that fires have quickly jumped over huge freeways and that smoke has covered the city.
“We live in the middle of the city which is probably 10 miles away from the nearest fire. But even so I got up this morning and went to the bathroom at 5am and you can smell the smoke in the air in the house.
“The whole of the centre of the city is covered by this orange, black cloud of smoke which has drifted from the fires.
“Schools are closed, a lot of businesses are closed. You have got to think about the air quality as well. It’s pretty gross at the moment.
The photographer, who is originally from the UK, explained he travelled close to one of the wildfires on Tuesday night were “there was no firefighting activity because they just don’t have the resources”.
He added: “The biggest issue is the wind. I was in a street and took some photos of a house where it looks like water running down the hill down the road in front - in fact, it’s bright red embers that are rolling down the hill. They are being carried by the wind.
“It’s pretty crazy, the wind is also carrying the embers hundreds of feet so the fire is crossing huge, great freeways and eight-lane roads. The fire is leaping from one side of the road to the other through the embers.”
Fire hydrants in Palisades have turned to a trickle, the Associated Press reported.
"We pushed the system to the extreme," said Janisse Quiñones, CEO of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. "Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure."
The utility was pushing water from its source into the system, but demand was so high that it wasn't enough to fill three, one-million-gallon tanks that help maintain pressure for the hydrants in the hills of Palisades.
One tank ran out at 4.45pm on Tuesday, one at 8.30pm and the third at 3am on Wednesday. Officials are urging residents across the region to conserve water so there's enough for firefighters to use.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by US President Joe Biden, made a detour to the area to see "first hand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers".
He said he found "not a few - many structures already destroyed".
Among those forced to evacuate were almost 100 residents from a nursing home in Pasadena.
Video showed elderly residents, many in wheelchairs and on gurneys, crowded onto a smoke-filled car park as fire trucks and ambulances attended.
Nearly 3,000 acres of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal towns of Santa Monica and Malibu had burned by the Palisades Fire, officials said.
A second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire broke out some 30 miles inland near Pasadena and doubled in size to 400 acres in a few hours, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
The Pacific Palisades neighbourhood is a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit "Surfin' USA."
Flames jumped the famous Sunset Boulevard and burned parts of the Palisades Charter High School, which has been featured in many Hollywood productions including the 1976 horror movie "Carrie," the 2003 remake of "Freaky Friday" and the TV series "Teen Wolf."
Fire officials also said a third blaze named the Hurst Fire had started in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations of some nearby residents.
Witnesses reported a number of 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.
Firefighters 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.
The fire burned some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe, the museum said.
Meanwhile, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was forced to close. Only essential workers will be allowed in, according to an emergency notice from NASA.
The fire is "very close to the lab," but there's been no fire damage yet, the centre's director, Laurie Leshin, wrote in a post on the social platform X.
However, there has been some wind damage, wrote Leshin.
She added that hundreds of NASA employees at the lab have had to evacuate from their homes.
The research lab near Pasadena, California, is known for building and sending robotic spacecraft to Mars and the outer solar system.
Before 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.
The wildfires changed President Joe Biden's 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.
"I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire," Mr Biden said in a statement.
Pacific Palisades is home to several Hollywood stars. Actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate but added, "I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing."
Actor Steve Guttenberg told a local television station that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars in the road.
"It's really important for everybody to band together and don't worry about your personal property. Just get out," Guttenberg said. "Get your loved ones and get out."
