Multiple massive wildfires engulfed the Los Angeles area early Wednesday, causing widespread destruction and prompting thousands to flee their homes. Fierce winds and towering smoke clouds hampered firefighting efforts as at least three blazes spread rapidly, impacting areas from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena. The fires threatened affluent neighborhoods, Hollywood homes, and historic landmarks, displacing tens of thousands of residents.
LOS ANGELES — Multiple massive wildfires tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force early Wednesday as residents made a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke.
Flames that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the 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. Residents — one as old as 102 — waited in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and construction vans arrived to take them to safety.
“As soon as I opened my door, it was like right there,” she said. “The first thing I did was looked at the trees to see where the wind was blowing. Because it hit me. It blew me back.” She was able to leave. A third wildfire started Tuesday evening and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that's the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles. A fourth fire was reported early Wednesday in Coachella, in Riverside County. The causes were under investigation.
“This will likely be the most destructive windstorm seen 2011 windstorm that did extensive damage to Pasadena and nearby foothills of the San Gabriel Valley,” the weather service said in a red-flag warning early Wednesday. President Joe Biden canceled plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires.
WILDFIRE CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES EVACUATION NATURAL DISASTER
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