Residents in one of California’s ritziest neighborhoods are facing a dire situation as a fast-moving wildfire sweeps through Los Angeles.
The intense blaze is raging through Pacific Palisades, a luxurious area known for being home to celebrities like Chris Pratt, Reese Witherspoon, and Miles Teller.
Authorities have issued evacuation orders for the upscale coastal community, delivering a stark message: ‘Immediate threat to life. This is a lawful order to LEAVE NOW. The area is lawfully closed to public access.’
But the evacuation orders have sparked chaos on the roads, with a traffic gridlock only worsened by panicked residents choosing to abandon their cars and flee on foot.
Now, the city has enlisted bulldozers to rid the streets of the abandoned cars and clear a path for first responders to access the hills, where the fire is raging.
Teslas, BMWs and Mercedes were all filmed being dozed out of the way on Tuesday afternoon.
‘Do not stand in the way of this fire,’ Firefighter David Ortiz said. ‘This is pretty much the worst possible scenario for a firefight.’
Emmy Award winning actor James Woods, 77, was among high-profile residents forced to flee on Tuesday.
He shared a video of the blaze near his home as he prepared to evacuate.
‘Standing in my driveway ready to evacuate. We’ve got a lot of planes going over dropping water,’ he said.
‘S**t.’
In the video, it appeared as though a house further up on the hills had already been engulfed in flames.
‘We were blessed to have LA fire and police depts doing their jobs so well,’ he later said.
‘We are safe and out. There are several elementary schools in our neighborhood and there was an enormous community effort to evacuate the children safely. Can not speak more highly of the LA fire and LAPD.’
Jonathan Vigliotti posted a video of a car burning uncontrollably in a driveway on X on Tuesday afternoon.
‘Come on, guys!’ he called, his voice filled with fear. ‘We got to go!’
‘We were in a neighborhood as it went up in flames. Mass panic in the streets, and the worst of the wind will hit the Palisades Fire tonight,’ he wrote on X.
The 1200-acre bush fire was first reported around 10:30am on Tuesday and authorities have described the flames as a blowtorch.
Initially, it was said to be 200 acres, but jumped to 300 and then up to 770 within 30 minutes.
Now, it is encompassing 1,200 acres and destroying about ‘three football fields’ of land every sixty seconds.
Resident Nina and her daughter told DailyMail.com they were lucky to drive out with the clothes on their backs and their two small dogs Aspen and Buster.
She described the scene as ‘chaotic’ and ‘frightening’ with people running, sirens blasting and planes full of ocean water buzzing overhead.
‘People are parking their cars on the side of the road, getting out and running for their lives!’ Nina told DailyMail.com. ‘People are literally running down the sidewalks pulling kids by their hands and carrying Louis Vuitton luggage.
‘One guy was running with two Gucci suitcases and a house plant. It is like something out of a disaster movie.’
Southern California Edison (SCE) shut off power to Cuthbert, Galahad, and parts of Malibu on Tuesday due to ‘dangerous fire weather,’ an alert said.
The company expected the power to be out for at least eight hours and it could be longer if crews need daylight to visibly inspect power lines and equipment. The inspection is required before SCE will restore power.
Some 26,000 Californians are without power, according to poweroutage.us.
Police Academy star Steve Guttenberg said the fire is near his home and that people are abandoning their cars and making it hard for firetruck to make it up the road.
Guttenberg is urging his fellow neighbors to leave their keys in their car if they’re leaving their vehicle behind ‘so guys like me can move your car.’
‘We really need people to move their cars,’ he told KTLA. ‘So if you leave your car on Palisades Drive, leave the key in there.’
The actor said he had friends who can’t get out of their homes due to vehicles left behind.
Panicked residents abandoned their cars in gridlocked traffic on Palisades Drive and opted to walk to safety, making it impossible for first responders to get to the inferno.
Extraordinary footage shows those cars being pushed out of the way by a bulldozer just hours later.
More than 100 firefighters and strike teams are working to battle the massive blaze, Ortiz said.
The fire is rapidly move West and wind gust are up to 50 miles per hour in Ventura and LA Counties, according to The New York Times.
The windstorm poses another problem as it could be ‘life-threatening’ and being the most damaging since 2011, The Times reported.
Parts of the Pacific Coast Highway are also shut down due to the fire, according to The Times.
