THE INDEPENDENT | Published January 9, 2025
Dramatic photos show devastation caused by Southern California wildfires in just hours
Fires are tearing through Southern California forcing thousands to flee as panicked residents escape the fury being fueled by high winds.
The Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires started up in Los Angeles County on Tuesday, engulfing nearly 27,000 acres in the blaze as of Wednesday afternoon. Meanwhile, two others — the Tyler and Woodley fires — erupted nearby on Wednesday. Another erupted Wednesday night in the Hollywood Hills.
Officials are now warning that the situation is likely to get worse. Five people were killed and 150,000 were forced to evacuate.
Dramatic photos from Tuesday and Wednesday help tell the story of how a small fire exploded in hours, leading to disaster in the nation’s second-largest city.
A Los Angeles County firefighting helicopter drops water to battle the Palisades wildfire in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood known for its beaches and celebrity residents. In a matter of hours, the blaze grew to more than 2,900 acres and prompted roughly 150,000 people to evacuate. Celebrities, including Hailey Bieber, Paris Hilton, and Chris Pratt offered prayers for the traumatized city. (EPA)
The Palisades Fire burns a residence in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. There are five wildfires now burning in the Los Angeles area. They are rapidly growing with the help of a windstorm. Gusts of more than 70 miles per hour have been essentially fanning the flames. So much so that the Eaton fire now spans over 10,600 acres, almost surpassing the size of the Palisades fire, which started hours earlier on Tuesday, at 10:30 a.m. The Hurst fire, the smallest of the three, cropped up around the same time as the Palisades fire, and currently spans 700 acres.
Elderly patients are rushed into emergency vehicles to be evacuated as the Eaton fire rages. Locals expressed concern about how the city’s notorious traffic was preventing people from being able to leave. Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar wrote on Instagram: “City of LA you want everyone to evacuate yet you have complete gridlock and not one traffic cop on the roads helping @cityoflosangeles @karenbassla.” Some residents trapped in traffic have even fled the area by foot, according to reports.
Residents of a senior center are evacuated as the Eaton Fire approaches Tuesday in Altadena. The flames, paired with the glow of emergency vehicles, have created a Mars red sky over the region, where an estimated 100,000 people are under evacuation orders. In Altadena alone, roughly 42,000 residents were forced to evacuate, according to the Washington Post.
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SOURCE: www.independent.co.uk
RELATED: How a tiny spark in a garden turned into LA’s worst fire in HOURS – and it’s still out of control
DAILY MAIL ONLINE | Published January 9, 2025
A perfect storm of overgrown vegetation, dry conditions and uncharacteristic winds are responsible for whipping up the most devastating wildfire Los Angeles has ever seen with more than 20 square miles razed to the ground in less than 48 hours.
The stunning time-lapse, stitched together from various live webcams, showed how a small plume of grey smoke began rising in a ‘back garden’ on the city’s outskirts on Tuesday morning.
At first the smoke seemed innocuous but within minutes the plume had developed into a thick cloud as the flames began tearing through bone-dry shrubbery. Before long, the City of Angels was ablaze.
Now, less than 48 hours on from the initial spark, the wildfire is on track to be the most destructive blaze ever ‘unlike anything we have seen in our lifetime,’ LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said.
She believes the fire started accidentally in a back garden around 10am Tuesday morning before ‘spreading at a speed beyond anything we’ve seen’.
The prospect of such an infernal firestorm was raised by podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan last summer, who recounted a chilling conversation he’d had with an LA firefighter.
Speaking to guest and fellow comedian Sam Morril in the July 2024 episode, Rogan recounted: ‘He said: ”One day, it’s just gonna be the right wind and fire’s gonna start in the right place and it’s gonna burn through LA all the way to the ocean and there’s not a f***ing thing we can do about it”.
‘If the wind hits the wrong way, it’s just going to burn through LA,’ he said.
The firefighter’s prediction, as told by Rogan, appears to have been proven true, with environmental conditions and unfavourable winds whipping the wildfire into an uncontrollable state.
Experts say that heavy rains from El Niño last year fueled vegetation growth in the Los Angeles area, which had since dried out and become highly flammable.
Once the flames ignited, SoCal was battered by ‘devil winds’, formally known as Santa Ana winds – warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from the region’s interior toward the coast, unlike the usual winds which come in from the Pacific and blow cooler, more moist air inland.
Anna Faris’s home in Pacific Palisades was completely destroyed in a wildfire that swept through the area
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows burning and destroyed houses from the Eaton Fire near Marathon Road, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena
A man walks in front of the burning Altadena Community Church, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in in Pasadena, Calif
Homes damaged by the Palisades Fire are seen along the beach, Wednesday, January 8, 2025, in Malibu
A firefighting helicopter drops water as the Sunset Fire burns in the Hollywood Hills with evacuations ordered on January 8, 2025
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SOURCE: www.dailymail.co.uk
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