Fires near Los Angeles | “You have to leave now!” »

(Pacific Palisades, California) Within seconds, everything went black. Then flames shot out just outside the car window.

Fire trucks roared Tuesday as this writer and other cars braked and turned around, driving through the wall of black smoke onto the wrong side of the road. Residents riding through the city on two wheels skidded to a stop, trying to cover their eyes as gusts billowed black smoke straight at them.

Turning down a side street, we were greeted by an eerie silence, broken only by the sounds of an explosion. On the left, a house caught fire, huge orange flames dancing behind a white fence. One or two residents who had remained behind watched the scene, paralyzed. Stopping at a stop sign, a few cars tried to turn, in the smoke-shrouded orange glow.

Flames danced below, right next to the high school. Deciding it was too dangerous, one of the drivers turned around. Another house had just caught fire. In the house next door, a Christmas tree stood in an abandoned living room. All the lights were still on.

Area residents know that fires can start like the Palisades Fire did, but are still surprised by them. The winds arrived early Tuesday, in what the U.S. Weather Service (NWS) called a “destructive and life-threatening” wind storm.

Once the fire broke out, it quickly exploded. Everything, it seemed, caught fire in a matter of minutes, outpacing the swarm of police and firefighters who rushed to the scene.

“It’s going to burn everything down,” a sergeant said with a sigh after hearing on his radio that the fire was heading toward Palisades High School.

A “bottleneck”

On Sunset Boulevard, the remains of a chaotic and grueling evacuation littered the ground: at least 50 cars crushed together, their mirrors and doors smashed after a huge red bulldozer from the Los Angeles Fire Department drove by to let pass their trucks. The fire spread so quickly that officers ordered drivers to get out and run, abandoning their vehicles because “the fire was literally on top of them,” Officer Tim Estevez said.

“We told them: ‘You have to leave now!’ Officer Estevez shouted over the noise of the engines. “When I say above them, I mean…” He paused, showing with his hands how close the flames were to the cars. They couldn’t get people down the hill quickly enough, and the sudden mass evacuation created a “bottleneck” in neighborhoods where there were few options for escape.

It was an emergency, for their safety we had to get them out of the cars.

Tim Estevez, police officer

It was then 3 p.m. Mr. Estevez and a group of police officers stood at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive, where residents of the hillside neighborhoods had been trapped earlier. They had to shelter in place for hours because of the speed with which the fire was moving around them. They were eventually able to leave, driving around another set of destroyed vehicles that made evacuation nearly impossible.

“There was no communication,” one officer told the group of police, describing the madness of squeezing hundreds of cars onto the narrow, winding streets. Rapid mass evacuations in densely populated neighborhoods where there is only one route of access and egress can prove deadly in the event of a disaster. This is what happened in Lahaina during the Maui fires. On social media, residents reported that they were stuck in their cars and unable to move.

The problem, said Sergeant Rich Adams, was that “the fire was burning so hot” that firefighters told police they couldn’t send people to one side. But on the other side, “the fire burned just as hard.”

“So you have two sides with people in the middle, and what are you going to do with them? », Launched Sergeant Adams. In such a situation, he continued, “you have to know the region, the small roads and the side roads where people can go.” He chose one and sent cars in that direction.

“Someone has to take the initiative and no one has done it,” he added.

Difficult to predict

As he moved the new line of evacuees onto Pacific Coast Highway, Bryan Espin, a Palisades police officer who has worked in West Los Angeles for 18 years, acknowledged that the evacuation was “out of control.” Officers were trying to get as many people out as possible, but people at the top of the road were also trying to leave, quickly filling the two-lane road, then trying to head in the direction where the fire was also spreading.

It’s a very difficult situation to predict and see, although they tried, Officer Espin said. “Everything is dictated by the event itself. And since it’s the only road that goes up, it’s always dangerous. »

Another key factor in why this fire became so horrific so quickly: this area hadn’t burned in a long time. During New Year’s Eve, a small fire broke out “at the top of the Palisades Highlands, probably from fireworks or something,” Espin said.

“Maybe this is the starting point of the fire? Who knows? With such a wind-driven fire, there is very little that can be done to slow it down. »

Despair

Officers Espin and Estevez both said it was the worst fire experience they have seen in their more than 20-year careers.

By nightfall, the fire reached the ocean, its flames climbing up the palm trees like Christmas lights. The smoke thickened and grew in intensity as dozens of fire trucks poured into the Will Rogers Beach parking lot, right next to the Getty Villa, while the grounds surrounding the iconic museum went up in flames.

On police radios, message after message announced addresses needing to be defended against the flames, as emergency services tried to plan how to gain ground against the flames overnight. “Our priority is the safety of people and the defense of structures,” said a voice over the radios.

It was then that a man on a bicycle appeared between the rows of trucks and police cars with red flashing lights. He was hysterical. He had left his dogs at home. “I need my dogs, they are my family,” he lamented. He had to find them.

When he learned the fire was close to his street, he tried to get home from his job in town, but the roads were closed. So he rented a bike and tried to sprint home. He was panting in front of a firefighter who was taking notes, repeating his address over and over. His house was near the Vons store, near the high school, where the fire just started.

“Can you catch them?” “, he sobbed. “Can you go?” »

“We’ll try,” the policeman replied.