Fire reaches playing fields of Palisades High; fate of structures was uncertain as darkness fell
The Palisades fire spread Tuesday to the grounds of Palisades Charter High School and Palisades Charter Elementary School.
At least one television report said the high school had burned to the ground, but the office of that area’s school board member said this account had not been verified.
Video from Fox 11 News showed the elementary school engulfed in flames.
Areas where damage was confirmed at the high school included the baseball and football fields and the tennis courts. Classroom bungalows are adjacent to those areas and may have burned as well, but their fate was not clear as darkness fell Tuesday night.
Firefighters were on the scene quickly trying to save structures — the main buildings as well as the bungalows.
Other schools in the Palisades area were evacuated Tuesday, and several campuses will be closed Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in the San Gabriel Valley, school officials in Pasadena Unified on Tuesday night announced that campuses would be closed Wednesday across the entire school system due to the rapidly growing fire in Eaton Canyon. As Tuesday night continued school districts across the San Gabriel Valley shut down for Wednesday as well.
In Pacific Palisades, it was challenging to assess the condition of the high school campus because of thick smoke.
“The baseball field is on fire,” Allison Holdorff Polhill, senior advisor to school board member Nick Melvoin, confirmed in the late afternoon. “Neighbors have sent me photos of the baseball field on fire. And the tennis courts. Classroom bungalows may be on fire, but that is not confirmed. The fire department deployed in an attempt to save the structures.”
She also reported that structures across the street from the campus were in flames.
Pacific Palisades fire explodes to nearly 3,000 acres as thousands of residents flee, homes are lost
A fast-moving fire in Pacific Palisades grew to more than 2,900 acres Tuesday amid dangerous winds that officials had described as potentially life-threatening and destructive. Thousands were forced to evacuate.
Tuesday night, a district staffer expressed worries in a text: “Seeing videos that show flames spreading but don’t have anything confirmed and hard to know what area of campus it’s showing.”
Palisades High School is an independent charter school that operates on a campus owned by L.A. Unified. It is not in session this week, although there were staff members and student athletes at the school Tuesday morning. All were quickly evacuated as reports of the nearby fire emerged.
Schools operated by L.A. Unified Schools began their second semester Monday.
More than 1,000 homes, businesses and other buildings have burned and at least two people are dead in wildfires burning across L.A. County, making this one of the most destructive firestorms to hit the region in memory.
Students and staff at four L.A. Unified schools had relocated to other campuses by noon Tuesday.
Students at Palisades Charter Elementary and Marquez Charter Elementary, both in Pacific Palisades on the Westside, were transported to Brentwood Elementary Science Magnet.
Students at Paul Revere Charter Middle School, also in Pacific Palisades, were taken to University High School Charter in West L.A.
At the time of the relocation, “parents were given the option to pick up their students — since some families may have been in evacuation areas or just want to be with their students — or buses would transport students,” said district spokesperson Britt Vaughan.
All the elementary school students were picked up by parents. A parent told The Times that the Revere Middle School students were evacuated to a field, where they waited for a couple of hours until they were picked up by bus.
Parents then picked up their students at the high school, said parent Lisa S. Miller: “Lines were long and [there was] a little bit of difficulty with releasing children to other parents not on emergency contacts. But the school handled it very well, I thought, in managing to evacuate a large school in a dense area with other[s] fleeing at the same time.”
Students at Topanga Elementary Charter, in Topanga in the Santa Monica Mountains, started the day off at Woodland Hills Academy in Woodland Hills in anticipation of dangerous conditions. The two schools are about nine miles apart.
Canyon Elementary School, Palisades Charter Elementary School, Marquez Charter Elementary School and Paul Revere Charter Middle School will be closed Wednesday.
Here’s more information on closures as well as shelters and evacuation orders for the Palisades fire.
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