The Palisades fire has burned a number of homes and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
LOS ANGELES—A wildfire whipped up by extreme winds swept through a hillside dotted with celebrity residences in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood Tuesday, burning homes and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
Some evacuees abandoned their cars and fled on foot to safety with roads blocked, and a bulldozer was later used to push some of the vehicles out of the way to clear the street.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few—many structures already destroyed.”
Officials did not give an exact number of structures damaged or destroyed in the Palisades fire, but they said about 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat.
And the worst could be yet to come. The blaze began around 10:30 a.m., shortly after the start of a Santa Ana windstorm that the National Weather service warned could be