Cal­i­for­nia fire­fight­ers bat­tled wind-whipped wild­fires that tore across the Los An­ge­les area, de­stroy­ing homes, clog­ging road­ways as tens of thou­sands fled and strain­ing re­sources as the fires burned un­con­tained ear­ly Wednes­day.

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 cen­tre 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 neigh­bour­hood, 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 neigh­bour­hood 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 neigh­bour­hood 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.

The sit­u­a­tion prompt­ed the Los An­ge­les Fire De­part­ment to take the rare step of putting out a plea for off-du­ty fire­fight­ers to help. It was too windy for fire­fight­ing air­craft to fly, fur­ther ham­per­ing the fight. A high wind warn­ing was in ef­fect for the re­gion through 6 p.m., the weath­er ser­vice said.

“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.

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

Of­fi­cials didn’t give an es­ti­mate of struc­tures dam­aged or de­stroyed in the Pa­cif­ic Pal­isades wild­fire, but they said about 30,000 res­i­dents were un­der evac­u­a­tion or­ders and more than 13,000 struc­tures were un­der threat. New­som vis­it­ed the scene and said many homes had burned. He de­clared a state of emer­gency.

The fire burned down Temescal Canyon, a pop­u­lar hik­ing area sur­round­ed by dense neigh­bour­hoods 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 neigh­bour­ing 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 around 6:30 p.m. the day be­fore, had quick­ly burned 1.6 square miles (4 square kilo­me­tres), ac­cord­ing to fire of­fi­cials. The Hurst fire jumped to 500 acres (202 hectares) and the Pal­isades fire, which start­ed around around 10:30 a.m. Tues­day and sent up a dra­mat­ic plume of smoke vis­i­ble across Los An­ge­les, had de­stroyed 4.5 square miles (11.6 square kilo­me­ters) ac­cord­ing to An­ge­les Na­tion­al For­est. The fires were at 0% con­tain­ment as of ear­ly Wednes­day.

As of Wednes­day morn­ing, more than 200,000 peo­ple were with­out pow­er in Los An­ge­les Coun­ty, ac­cord­ing to the track­ing web­site Power­Outage.us, due to the strong winds.

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 cen­time­tres) of rain since ear­ly May.

The neigh­bour­hood, which bor­ders Mal­ibu about 20 miles (32 kilo­me­tres) 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.

Long-time 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. Mean­while, he said em­bers flew in­to his wife’s car as she tried to evac­u­ate.

“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,” Adams 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.

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 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.

Wat­son re­port­ed from San Diego. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Janie Har in San Fran­cis­co, Hal­lie Gold­en in Seat­tle, video jour­nal­ist Eu­gene Gar­cia in Los An­ge­les, Ethan Swope in Pasade­na, Bri­an Mel­ley in Lon­don, Kathy Mc­Cor­ma­ck in Con­cord, New Hamp­shire, and Sarah Brum­field in Cock­eysville, Mary­land, con­tributed to this re­port. South­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers have ar­rest­ed five in­di­vid­u­als dur­ing an op­er­a­tion on Jan­u­ary 6 where they seized a firearm, a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion and cannabis.

LOS AN­GE­LES (AP) —