Three deadly wildfires have reduced entire Los Angeles areas to ashes and destroyed historic buildings in Tinseltown. One of the fires became the most destructive fire in City of Angels history less than 36 hours after it started.
On Wednesday, the unyielding Pacific Palisades inferno carved a path to devastation across western Los Angeles County. The county is a densely populated area with some of the most coveted real estate in the country, including multi-million dollar celebrity mansions.
The fire was completely out of control, destroying more than 1,000 structures by Wednesday evening, moving dangerously close to classic L.A. touchstones like Sunset Boulevard, the Santa Monica Pier and the Hollywood Sign. , which burned nearly 16,000 acres.
The Palisades Fire and two other nearby fires, the Eaton Fire north of Pasadena and the Hearst Fire in the San Fernando Valley, forced 70,000 Angelenos to abandon their homes. This includes several high-profile individuals whose mansions burned down or were in immediate danger. It gets consumed.
Palisades High School, made famous by movies such as “Teen Wolf,'' “Carrie'' and “Freaky Friday,'' was gutted by the blaze that ripped through the Southland region.
160 mph Santa Ana winds fueled the blaze, which spread across Southern California and thwarted firefighters' efforts to contain it, killing at least five people and injuring many more.
Chet Hanks, the 34-year-old son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, mourned his childhood home on Instagram as wildfires raged through the Los Angeles area.
“The area I grew up in burned down.” [right now]” he wrote on Instagram. “Please pray for the Palisades,” he added.
His famous parents have not yet spoken out about the destruction, but perhaps they had to evacuate out of danger.
Ben Affleck was spotted fleeing his $20.5 million Pacific Palisades home on Tuesday, with TMZ reporting that the 52-year-old actor took refuge at his ex-wife Jennifer Garner's nearby home.
Actors Adam Brody and Leighton Meester's $6.5 million mansion in Los Angeles also went up in flames and was home to another celebrity. Photos obtained by Page Six showed the five-bathroom, six-bedroom home destroyed beyond repair.
Singer and “This Is Us” actress Mandy Moore also posted on Instagram that she and her family were evacuated from their home after their children's school in Altadena was destroyed.
“We are grateful that our family and pets got out last night before it was too late (and infinitely grateful to our friends who took us in and brought clothes and blankets. ),” she wrote on Wednesday.
The Palisades Fire was already more destructive than the 2008 Sayre Fire, which destroyed 604 structures in Sylmar. Before that, the Great Bel Air Fire of 1951 destroyed nearly 500 homes, including the homes of stars Burt Lancaster and Zsa Zsa Gabor, making it the most destructive fire in the city's history.
Photos and videos, both amateur and professional, helped illustrate the scale of the hellish destruction as the public watched in horror.
Harrowing video showed the Pacific Palisades neighborhood near Santa Monica almost completely destroyed, with fire turning the upscale neighborhood into a desolate wasteland straight out of an apocalypse movie.
Other images show entire city blocks with little more than building foundations, and once-bustling streets now scorched and twisted under menacing skies darkened with ash and choking smoke. Metals are scattered about.
“This is what's left of the Pacific Palisades. The shopping streets have survived. Almost everything else is gone,” said a CBS correspondent. I wrote to X With shocking footage. “Residences, apartment complexes…companies.”
Aerial photos showed an even more harrowing picture of widespread wreckage, with homes and businesses ablaze and the Hollywood Hills engulfed in smoke.
Residents gathered their children, pets and whatever belongings they could carry in their cars, got out of their Dodges, and fled the neighborhood, which had become a war zone.
Pasadena resident Eddie DeFerrari said he didn't have time to process the devastating loss after helping evacuate a senior center and checking nearby homes to make sure no one was stranded. he told the Post.
“I'm currently helping out in the fire protection area,” he explained. “Many houses are on fire. Altadena is burning hard.”
Horrifying footage has been released of two men and their dog trapped inside as raging flames come dangerously close to their LA home.
“You'll be fine. I'm sure you'll be fine, okay?” the man filming reassured the frightened dog, his voice shaking as he patted the dog's head.
“Oh no,” the man says in the video, pointing the camera at the fire outside.
The hellish sounds roaring through the strong winds engulfed almost everything in sight on all sides of the house, with no escape, in a hellish scene of smoke, ash, and other debris flying around. It looks like
At one point, another man in the house asked the photographer if he wanted to pack up and leave.
“Don't worry about that, dude. Oh my god,” he replied.
They made sure the gas was turned off and there was no longer any danger of an explosion. The photographer was asked by his friend if he should open the window, and he immediately closed it.
“Don’t open anything,” he says.
It was not immediately clear whether the man and dog escaped safely, but According to Fox 11 Los Angeles.
