State of emergency declared amid Los Angeles wildfires

A state of emergency has been declared after a wildfire whipped up by extreme winds swept through a Los Angeles hillside dotted with celebrity homes.

The fire forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, some of whom abandoned their cars and fled on foot to safety with roads blocked.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “first hand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers”.

He said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed”.

Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.

The blaze began shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be “life threatening” and the strongest to hit Southern California in more than a decade.

The exact cause of the fire was unknown and no injuries had been reported, officials said.

Further evacuation orders were issued about 25 miles north east in Altadena after another fire spread to more than 200 acres by Tuesday evening, the Angeles National Forest posted on the social platform X.

The Eaton fire in Altadena started near a nature preserve. The flames spread so rapidly that staff at a senior care centre had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.

The winds were expected to increase overnight and continue for days, producing isolated gusts that could top 100mph in mountains and foothills — including in areas that have not seen substantial rain in months.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Mr Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds are expected between 10pm on Tuesday and 5am on Wednesday local time. He declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

On Tuesday evening, 28,300 households were without power due to the strong winds, according to the mayor’s office.

About 15,000 utility customers in Southern California had their power shut off to reduce the risk of equipment sparking blaze. A half a million customers total were at risk of losing power pre-emptively.

The fire swiftly consumed nearly two square miles of land in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood in western Los Angeles, sending up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across the city. People in Venice Beach, six miles away, reported seeing the flames. It was one of several blazes across the area.

Sections of Interstate 10 and the scenic Pacific Coast Highway were closed to all non-essential traffic to aid in evacuation efforts. But other roads were blocked. Some residents jumped out of their vehicles to get out of danger and waited to be picked up.

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,” he 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,” he told KTLA. “I have friends up there and they can’t evacuate… I’m walking up there as far as I can moving cars.”

The erratic weather caused Mr 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. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Mr Biden said in a statement that he and his team are communicating with state and local officials and he has offered “any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire”.

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late on 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 cancelled 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.

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