Los Angeles residents abandoned their cars screaming to escape a rapidly spreading forest fire as it approached a popular celebrity enclave, eyewitnesses said, describing scenes straight out of a Hollywood disaster movie.
A wind gust caused an apparently typical fire to erupt into a raging inferno within hours Tuesday, accelerating the blaze toward the Pacific Palisades area.
Thirty thousand people were ordered to evacuate when the fire surrounded the neighborhood in the west of the city, quickly exploding from 10 acres to several thousand in size.
Bordering Malibu, Pacific Palisades is a haven of hillside boulevards and winding roads set against the Santa Monica Mountains and extending to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.
But the Pacific Coast Highway, the main road in or out, quickly became congested, prompting many motorists to abandon their vehicles near Sunset Boulevard as the flames approached.
Resident Marsha Horowitz said firefighters asked people to get out of their cars as the blaze approached, which was fanned by winds that sometimes reached 100 mph (160 km/h) in the mountains and hills.
She added: “The fire directly targeted the cars.”
The Pacific Palisades resident told ABC News she rushed home from her job in Hollywood as soon as she heard about the evictions.
After leaving her car, she returned home to pick up her cat. While she was escaping to safety, burning pieces of a palm tree fell on her.
The woman, who did not give her name, said: “I was hit by burning palm leaves and was hit by a car.”
“It's terrifying. It's like a horror movie. I'm screaming and crying as I walk down the street.”
Getty ImagesSome evacuees described seeing their homes burning as they fled.
Hollywood actor James Woods was among the celebrities forced to flee their properties.
Actor Steve Guttenberg, also a Pacific Palisades resident, urged people who left their cars to leave their keys inside so the vehicles could be moved to make room for fire trucks.
“This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends there who can't evacuate.”
Later, bulldozers removed the abandoned vehicles to open the way for emergency vehicles.
Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper, Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Adam Sandler and Michael Keaton also have homes in the Pacific Palisades area, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
People fled flames in the Los Angeles suburb of Topanga Canyon, where Ewan McGregor has a home.
A resident named Melanie told KTLA she tried to get out, but the flames engulfed the road and she was forced to return home.
She was trying to drive Palisades Drive down to Pacific Coast Highway and said she had to make a “very quick U-turn because the flames were coming down the hill and into the road.”
“I would drive my car straight into the fire,” she said. “We're stuck here. I don't see any flames but I know they're close.”
Residents of Venice Beach, about six miles (10 kilometers) away, reported seeing the flames as well.
Kelsey Trainor said ash fell everywhere as flames jumped from one side of the road to the other.
“People were getting out of cars with their dogs and their kids and their bags, and they were crying and screaming,” she told the Associated Press.
“The road was blocked, like it was completely blocked for an hour.”
Eileen DeLoach-Bacher told the Los Angeles Times how she ran from downtown Los Angeles to her home, where her 95-year-old mother and their two dogs live.
She also deadlocked at Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive.
Ms. Deloach-Bacher described the fire that exploded behind a nearby Starbucks, and police rushing down the road shouting to stranded motorists: “Run for your lives!”
She left her car, keys still on, and ran the half-mile to the beach.
“This is like the end of the world,” she said.
