Los Angeles firefighters were already stretched thin on Tuesday night, as a ferocious, fast-moving fire engulfed mansions and businesses in the Pacific Palisades, one of southern California’s most luxurious coastal neighborhoods.
Then, just after 6pm local time, a second fire broke out, this one on the opposite side of the city, near Pasadena, home to universities such as CalTech and Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Furious gusts of wind, some moving as fast as 60 to 70mph (96 to 112km/h), drove both fires to spread quickly across the bone-dry landscape. The wind was fast enough that it threatened to rip an open car door off its hinges, and so full of dirt and debris that it was painful to the eyes.
At around 10.30pm local time, a third major fire broke out, this one in the San Fernando valley, north-west of the city.
By 3am on Wednesday morning, fire hydrants in the Pacific Palisades had temporarily run dry, overwhelmed by the demand, according to the city’s department of water and power. The winds were so intense that emergency aircraft fighting the fires had to be grounded overnight.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” James McDonnell, the LA police department chief, said Wednesday morning, calling the situation “unprecedented”.
By dawn on Wednesday, the air across Los Angeles smelled charred and neighborhoods closer to the fires were heavy with smoke and ash. A fourth fire had started in the San Fernando valley not long after 6 am local time, creating a ring of wildfires circling half of the city. By midday, an estimated quarter of a million people in Los Angeles were without power.
“There are not enough firefighters in LA county to address four separate fires of this magnitude,” Anthony Marrone, the LA county fire chief, said on Wednesday morning. The county was prepared for “one or two brushfires, but not four, especially given these sustained winds and low humidities”, he said.
Firefighters were being called in from across the state and from neighborhood states. Oregon said it was sending 240 firefighters. Joe Biden, who visited Santa Monica for a briefing on the crisis, pledged additional firefighting resources from the Department of Defense.
As of early afternoon Wednesday, just a little over a day since the Palisades fire broke out, it was clear that the destruction wrought by the still-spreading fires would also be unprecedented.
With at least 1,000 structures destroyed, the Palisades Fire was already the most destructive fire on record in Los Angeles, far surpassing the toll of previous fires. The next-most destructive Los Angeles fire on record destroyed 604 structures in Sylmar in 2008.
And near Pasadena, the Eaton Canyon fire “continues to dangerously burn both east and west”, the Angeles national forest warned on social media, threatening communities on both sides of its original outbreak.
The San Gabriel mountains usually serve as the backdrop to Los Angeles vistas, a balance to its beach scenes. Now they provided a backdrop of smoke. Both of the city’s landscapes, its mountains and its coastline, were on fire.
More than 700 firefighters were battling the Eaton Canyon flames on Wednesday morning. Just after midnight, the Eaton fire had engulfed 1,000 acres. Twelve hours later, it had spread to more than 10,000 acres, threatening tens of thousands of homes. At least five people had already been reported dead and officials said there had also been “a number of significant injuries”.
Before the fires were even contained, Accuweather released a preliminary estimate of direct damages and economic loss caused by the fires, which it put at between $52 and $57bn.
A city in limbo
Angelenos are used to wildfires, which are particularly common in Malibu and along the steep Pacific coastline to the north of the city. Up and down California, residents adjust to wildfire season, which typically runs through the fall. For most of the day on Tuesday, despite the dramatic photographs of the fires spreading in the Pacific Palisades circulated on social media, the city continued as normal.
But a second major fire on Tuesday night proved to be a tipping point. Terrifying winds downed trees and branches and distorted freeway traffic. Thousands and then hundreds of thousands of people faced sudden power outages. Fires spread to multiple points around the region, forcing residents of neighborhoods where evacuations are not common to judge whether or not it was safe to stay in their homes.
An estimated 70,000 people across the Los Angeles area were under evacuation orders as of midday Wednesday. In Altadena, elderly residents had to be evacuated in ambulances.
As tens of thousands of people had been given evacuation orders in the Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, some had ended up abandoning their cars and fleeing on foot, leaving bulldozers to clear their vehicles off the road so that firefighters could move in.
Jon Oei, who evacuated with his parents from their Pacific Palisades home around 6pm local time on Tuesday night, drove out along Palisades Road, where in some sections the land on sides of the road were on fire.
While firefighting crews were clearly being strategic, Oei said, it also seemed obvious that they were stretched thin: “There’s a lot of stuff burning, and you don’t see fire engines or teams anywhere,” he said.
Fire crews battled through the night and into Wednesday morning. The intense winds lessened in crucial areas, allowing aircraft to resume dropping fire retardant and water on the Palisades.
Despite the clouds of smoke blocking the sun, and an early orange glow in the sky that had come from fire, not dawn, much of the city continued as usual, with some residents wearing masks as the air quality plunged to “unhealthy” levels due to the particles of ash and other material in the air.
Ninety percent of public schools remained open.
Much of the city also remained in limbo. In the background of the crisis on the ground, there were new political fires burning. California governor Gavin Newsom made clear that he was grateful that Biden, a Democrat, was still president for a few more weeks, and that the state could get emergency funding with “no politics, no hand-wringing, kissing of the feet”.
Donald Trump publicly blamed the severity of the wildfires on mismanagement by Newsom, and suggested Newsom’s support for an endangered species of fish was to blame for the devastation.
Hollywood studios cancelled filming on Wednesday for multiple television shows, including Hacks, Ted Lasso, Grey’s Anatomy and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. This weekend’s Critics Choice Awards were postponed.
More ordinary businesses and activities shut down, ready for the worst. The American Cinematheque, a film non-profit, announced it was postponing all Wednesday screenings “out of an abundance of caution”:
On Tuesday night, when the palm trees lining the city’s streets were tossing violently in the wind, and downed trees and debris lined the streets, theaters had remained open.
Just after 10pm local time on Tuesday night, at an American Cinematheque screening in Los Feliz, the film lost its sound and then blacked out completely, as the local theater briefly lost power. But after about 10 minutes, and a flurry of staff activity, the screening resumed, and, despite the multiple fires burning, the audience of 24 Hour Party People were able to finish their film.
The Associated Press, Anna Betts, Leonie Chao-Fong and Tim Hill contributed reporting
