Palisades residents face traffic gridlock, panic as fire blazes through community: ‘It looks grim’
As a brush fire tore through Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, evacuees quickly jammed the area’s whirligig of canyon and hillside roads, as black smoke descended in 50-mph gusts, forcing some to abandon their cars and flee on foot.
County bulldozers were pushing roughly 30 ditched vehicles out of the way on Palisades Drive and Sunset Boulevard to clear a path for fire crews and further evacuations.
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.
“If anybody has a car, leave the keys in the car so we can move your car so that these firetrucks can get up Palisades Drive,” actor and Palisades resident Steve Guttenberg told KTLA, adding that he has friends stuck up the hill unable to get out because of abandoned vehicles blocking the roads.
Ellen Delosh-Bacher abandoned her car on Sunset Boulevard after the fire exploded behind a Starbucks along the road.
“Cops began running down the road telling anyone stuck in traffic, ‘Run for your lives,’” said Delosh-Bacher.
She left the keys in the ignition and bolted half a mile down to the beach, standing amid the orange-lit smoke as she called her mother.
“This is like an apocalypse,” she said.
The honorary mayor of the celebrity-studded Los Angeles neighborhood, actor Eugene Levy, found himself stuck as he tried to flee.
“The smoke looked pretty black and intense over Temescal Canyon,” Levy told The Times by phone. “I couldn’t see any flames but the smoke was very dark.”
Sue Kohl, president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, was caught in a long line of cars with her three dogs on Sunset.
“The problem with Pacific Palisades, which is something we’ve been dealing with for a long time, is that the ways out are extremely limited,” Kohl said.
The fire began around 10:30 a.m. near Piedra Morada Drive and quickly grew, threatening many homes to the west.
Residents fleeing down Sunset Boulevard gathered along Pacific Coast Highway, many calling family members still trapped in traffic; others cried as they finally reunited.
Around 2 p.m., a spot fire broke out near the highway toward the bottom of Palisades Drive, and firefighters ordered evacuating residents still up the hill to instead shelter in place. As the spot fire spread, palm trees at a large apartment complex began igniting, and audible explosions rocked the area.
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.
Darrin Hurwitz was working at his home on Las Lomas Avenue when he saw what started as a small brush fire turn into a raging inferno in the matter of about half an hour. He said he saw at least 20 homes burn as he fled.
He made it to his parents’ home in Calabasas, where he watched the fire unfold on television, wondering if his home was even still standing.
“There hasn’t been a day I’ve lived there where I haven’t thought, one, this is the most beautiful place in the world, and two, it may all go up in flames at some point,” Hurwitz said.
The fire, which started roughly a mile from Hurwitz’s property, burned so close that his neighbor saw flames on their security cameras.
“We’re going to keep our fingers crossed,” he said. “This is the price, unfortunately, we pay to live in paradise.”
George Hutchinson, who owns a hair salon in Pacific Palisades, was standing on the rooftop of his apartment on Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon Road on Tuesday afternoon watching the fire.
“Right now I can’t see anything because the smoke is all dark,” he said. “The fire is jumping around because it’s so windy. It’s pretty ominous.”
Hutchinson’s residence was in the evacuation zone and his car was packed and ready to go, but because the traffic was bumper-to-bumper he decided to wait it out a bit.
“It looks horrible,” he said. “You can keep seeing houses burn. Lots of chaos.”
“I figured it was safer at the beach, but now I’m not so sure,” said Daryl Goldsmith. “The wind is virulent and I just hope things don’t burn down. The poor Fire Department couldn’t get up there.”
Goldsmith was at her Palisades home with friends when she spotted the fire. It quickly exploded, she said.
As she rushed to evacuate, her husband stayed behind to help a disabled neighbor escape. Firefighters began directing traffic, but Goldsmith decided to ditch her car in the grass and walked down to the shore.
As she waited at Sunset Beach, her husband was still stuck up the hill.
While evacuees were at first using all lanes of Palisades Drive to escape, the Fire Department halted cars on the road to fight the new spot fire near the bottom, said Erin Sheehy, whose husband was stuck in the traffic. Some residents got out of their cars and began walking miles down to the coast.
Firefighters are battling the fast-moving, destructive Palisades fire that broke out Tuesday in the Pacific Palisades.
Evacuees were now waiting for word about their homes.
“It looks grim,” Magnolia Shin said around noon Tuesday, about an hour after she left her house on Piedra Morada Drive. Shin said she could feel the heat from the flames, which were within 50 yards of her home, before she left. She didn’t have time to try to save anything from her home before evacuating.
“I couldn’t even get my rabbit.” she said. “I just left. I just took my purse and drove away.”
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