A wildfire fueled by gusting Santa Ana winds that could top 100 mph in mountains and foothills tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force Wednesday after setting off a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke.
The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents — one as old as 102 — waited there in their bedclothes as the night sky glowed red from flames and embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.
Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin’ USA.” In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.
Steve Guttenberg tried to warn them, but drivers who’ve abandoned their vehicle might find their cars a little worse for wear when they return.
The “Police Academy” actor pleaded with his fellow Angelenos to leave keys in their car if they were to abandon it in the traffic jams near the Palisades Fire. Otherwise, firefighters may be hamstrung by gridlocked roads.
“What’s happening is people take their keys with them as if they’re in a parking lot. This is not a parking lot. We really need people to move their cars,” he told KTLA Tuesday afternoon. “If you leave your car behind, leave the key in there so a guy like me can move your car so that these fire trucks can get up there.”
