Arizona fire crews arrive in Los Angeles as wildfires rage on

LOS ANGELES (AP/Arizona’s Family) — Tens of thousands of people have been notified by authorities to evacuate their homes because of the multiple fires burning in the Los Angeles region.

The most recent mandatory evacuation orders came Wednesday evening related to the Sunset Fire, a new fire in the Hollywood Hills. That order was in place for Laurel Canyon Boulevard on the west to Mulholland Drive, with others in nearby areas warned to be ready to leave.

Mandatory evacuation orders also remained in place near the Palisades Fire west of Los Angeles. People have also been told to leave their homes in the San Fernando Valley near the Hurst fire. Others were told to leave their residences in parts of Santa Monica and Altadena because of the Eaton Fire.

President Joe Biden Joe Biden canceled his trip to Rome, Italy, and formally signed off on a federal disaster declaration for Los Angeles County.

The death toll rose to five as at least six wildfires are burning in Los Angeles County.

More than 150,000 people are under evacuation orders as of 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Officials confirmed the Palisades Fire is the most destructive in the city’s history, burning more than 1,000 buildings.

Nearly 139,000 Southern California Edison customers were without power in Los Angeles County, according to PowerOutage.us, down from the 1.5 million who were without power earlier on Wednesday.

About 17 million people living across Southern California are covered by smoke and dust advisories, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

The smoke advisory was expected to last until late Thursday. A dust advisory was also in effect until late Wednesday as gusty winds could kick up ash and dust from prior fires and further worsen air conditions, the district said.

In addition to the deaths, many others were hurt in the fires, and at least 28,000 buildings are being threatened, according to Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone.

With thousands of firefighters already attacking the flames, the Los Angeles Fire Department put out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help, and weather conditions were too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight.

Officials with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management confirmed to Arizona’s Family that the state had dispatched firefighting teams to Los Angeles to support local firefighting operations.

The team comprises nine fire engines, two water tenders, and two task force leaders, who are currently on standby to either assist with the L.A. wildfires or help combat other fires in the area, as other regional resources are focused on the Palisades fire.

Two Rural Metro Fire crew members are on the way to California as well, but it’s unknown what fire they will be assigned to.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said that crews from the Phoenix Fire Department were also called to assist with the devastating fires.

“I expect our teams will be on the ground in LA in the next few days. I’m grateful our community can send help during this terrible tragedy,” Gallego posted on X.

Images of the devastation that emerged overnight showed luxurious homes that had collapsed in a whirlwind of flaming embers. The tops of palm trees whipped against a glowing red sky.

“This morning, we woke up to a dark cloud over all of Los Angeles. But it is darkest for those who are most intimately impacted by these fires. It has been an immensely painful 24 hours,” Los Angeles County supervisor Lindsey Horvath said.

Wildfires that are burning in and around Los Angeles have burned several celebrities’ homes and forced stars, including Mark Hamill, Mandy Moore and James Woods, to evacuate.

Moore, Cary Elwes and Paris Hilton are among the stars who said Wednesday they had lost homes in the fires.

“Honestly, I’m in shock and feeling numb for all so many have lost, including my family,” Moore said on Instagram, posting a video of devastated streets in the Altadena neighborhood near Pasadena. “Our community is broken but we will be here to rebuild together. Sending love to all affected and on the front lines trying to get this under control,” the actor-singer wrote.

Hilton said a Malibu home where her young son took his first steps was among those lost to the flames.

“The devastation is unimaginable. To know so many are waking up today without the place they called home is truly heartbreaking,” she wrote.

The home of Vice President Kamala Harris was included in an evacuation zone, although no one was there, according to a spokesperson.

The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot.

The residents — one as old as 102 — waited there in their bedclothes as the night sky glowed red from flames and embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin’ USA.”

In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path. Video along the Pacific Coast Highway showed widespread destruction of homes and businesses along the famed roadway.

Pacific Palisades resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming.”

A third wildfire started around 10:30 p.m. and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that is the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles. The causes of all three fires were under investigation.

Flames were being pushed by Santa Ana winds topping 60 mph (97 kph) in some places Tuesday, increasing to 70 miles an hour (112 kph) by early Wednesday, according to reports received by the National Weather Service in Los Angeles.

They could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X early Wednesday that California had deployed more than 1,400 firefighting personnel to combat the blazes. “Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives,” Newsom said.

The erratic weather caused President Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. FEMA approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

In the Pacific Palisades wildfire, officials said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the scene and said many homes had burned.

The fire burned down Temescal Canyon, a popular hiking area surrounded by dense neighborhoods of multimillion-dollar homes.

Flames jumped 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.”

By evening the flames had spread into neighboring Malibu and several people there were being treated for burn injuries and a firefighter had a serious head injury and was taken to a hospital, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott.

By early Wednesday, the Eaton Fire, which started the day before, had quickly burned 3.5 square miles (9 square kilometers), according to fire officials.

The Hurst Fire jumped to 500 acres and the Palisades Fire, which started Tuesday morning and sent up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across Los Angeles, had burned 4.5 square miles (11.6 square kilometers), according to Angeles National Forest. The Tyler Fire in Coachella was relatively small, burning 15 acres (6 hectares). All fires were at 0% containment.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds were expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday. He declared a state of emergency.

As of Wednesday morning, more than 180,000 people were without power mostly in Los Angeles County, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us. Southern California Edison shut off power to some customers because of safety concerns related to high winds and fire risks. More than 500,000 could face shutoffs depending on weather conditions, the utility said.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.

The neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

Longtime Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Embers flew into his wife’s car as she tried to evacuate, he said.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” he said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, who lives in the Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks.

“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate. … I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late Tuesday, but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty President Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.

Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

Associated Press writers Christopher Weber and video journalist Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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