Out-of-control wildfires forced thousands of people in Los Angeles County to flee their homes and businesses Wednesday in a real-life Hollywood disaster that left firefighters and residents manning garden hoses powerless to stop the massive flames from devouring everything in their path.
The legendary Sunset Boulevard was littered with abandoned vehicles after panicked motorists trapped by the gridlock left them where they were on Tuesday and ran for their lives through choking smoke as fire turned the night sky orange.
People flee the advancing Palisades Fire by car and on foot in the Pacific Palisades, California, on January 7, 2025.
At dawn, battalions of bulldozers were brought in to clear a path for the legions of other Los Angeles residents who joined the exodus of some 80,000 people from the infernos that devastated much of the Pasadena, Sylmar and Pacific areas. Palisades consumed, each fire fueled by the mighty Santa Ana. wind and feed in bone dry conditions.
The only thing missing from the gruesome script early Wednesday were reports of deaths.
“It’s an absolute miracle that we have no reported fatalities at this time,” Los Angeles Councilwoman Traci Park, whose district includes the hardest-hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood, told TODAY. “Until the sun comes up and we can get the assets safely back in the air, we won’t really know how much of the Palisades is still standing today.”
But just a few hours later, the sun was obscured by a black sky as LA County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone delivered the news that five people have now died in what is being called the Eaton Fire, which ravaged the Angeles National Forest and Altadena. area of Los Angeles County and Pasadena.
A house burns during the Eaton fire in the Altadena neighborhood of Los Angeles on January 8, 2025.
Marrone did not provide details about the deaths, but he warned that the winds fueling the fires “endanger all residents of Los Angeles County.”
So far, tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents have been ordered to evacuate and officials urged residents to heed warnings to leave.
“As the fires pop up, no one knows where the next one will be,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden was briefed by California Governor Gavin Newsom and local fire officials at a fire station in Santa Monica. Biden has also offered federal assistance in fighting the fires, the White House said.
“The governor has asked for a declaration on everything the federal government can do, and I’m prepared to sign it today, folks,” Biden said.
Los Angeles County Fire has already requested mutual aid from Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Firefighters from as far away as Nevada, Oregon and Washington state also rushed to Los Angeles to help local firefighters battle the blazes on the front lines.
The fires are “stretching the capacity of our emergency responders to their limits,” said Kristin M. Crowley, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
In some parts of the city the battle already seemed lost.
Much of Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood of about 23,000 residents about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of downtown Los Angeles that was home to movie stars and Holocaust survivors, was reduced to ashes, with more than a thousand homes swept away and most residents disappeared.
“The whole city just burned to the ground,” Vanessa Pellegrini, co-owner of Vittorio Ristorante & Pizzeria, told MSNBC. “There’s nothing we can do.”
No deaths were reported, but officials say dozens of residents who did not evacuate, along with firefighters battling the blazes, were injured.
The portion of Pacific Coast Highway that runs through Pacific Palisades is completely closed. So did many of the other major thoroughfares in the west end of Los Angeles that are closest to the Pacific Ocean.
Flames from the Palisades Fire descend along a road in Pacific Palisades, California, on January 7, 2025.
Firefighters also struggled to contain the Eaton Fire, which broke out around 6:30 pm on Tuesday, and battled what is being called the Hurst Fire, which ignited around 10:30 pm on Tuesday in Sylmar, north of San Fernando.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said two arrests were made Wednesday morning for looting and issued a stern warning to anyone hoping to profit from the ongoing catastrophe.
“If you’re thinking about going into any of these areas to steal from our residents, I’m going to tell you something: You’re going to be caught, you’re going to be arrested and you’re going to be prosecuted,” Luna said. ‘Don’t do that. Stay away from these areas.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was in Ghana when the fires spread on Tuesday, was expected to return to the city on Wednesday.
Newsom, who was scheduled to travel to Washington DC for the memorial service for former President Jimmy Carter, canceled his trip due to the wildfires, a spokesperson confirmed.
Los Angeles is the film capital of the world, but due to the ongoing fires, the Screen Actors Guild was forced to cancel a live event scheduled for Wednesday morning to announce the annual awards nominations, and instead did so online.
Black smoke was visible in the skies over Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Silver Lake, and in nearby communities such as Burbank, which are miles away from the infernos.
As a result, many of the city’s best-known attractions, including the famous Hollywood sign, were closed to the public on Wednesday, officials said.
That included many schools in Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, because of dangerous air conditions.
An index above 300 represents a state of emergency, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality index. But some parts of Los Angeles are seeing indexes above 500, while some locations in Pasadena are seeing indexes of 600 to 1,200.
Jacob Soboroff reported from Los Angeles. Corky Siemaszko reported from New York City.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
