LOS ANGELES — Out-of-control wildfires forced thousands of people in Los Angeles County to flee their homes and businesses Wednesday in a real-life Hollywood disaster that left firefighters and residents manning garden hoses powerless to stop the enormous flames from devouring everything in their path.
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The fabled Sunset Boulevard was littered with abandoned vehicles after panicked motorists trapped by the gridlock left them where they were Tuesday and ran for their lives through the choking smoke, while the night sky was painted orange by fire.
By dawn, battalions of bulldozers were brought in to clear a path for the legions of other Los Angeles residents joining the exodus of 80,000 people from infernos consuming large swaths of the Pasadena, Sylmar and Pacific Palisades areas, each fire fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds and feeding on bone-dry conditions.
All that had been missing from the horrific script, as of early Wednesday, were reports of deaths.
“It is an absolute miracle that we do not have any reported fatalities at this point," Los Angeles City Council member Traci Park, whose district includes the hardest-hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood, said on NBC’s “TODAY” show. “Until the sun comes up and we can get assets back in the air safely, we won’t really know how much of the Palisades is still standing today."
But just a few hours later, the sun was blotted out by black skies as L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone broke the news that two people were killed in what's being called the Eaton Fire, which was ravaging the Angeles National Forest and Altadena area of Los Angeles County and Pasadena.
Later in the afternoon, officials said that five deaths had been confirmed in the Eaton Fire.
No details have been provided about the deaths. Marrone warned that the winds fanning the fires are “placing all residents of Los Angeles County in danger.”
So far, tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents have been ordered to evacuate and officials urged residents to heed the warnings to get out.
“As the fires pop up, nobody knows where the next one will be,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said.
Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and local fire officials briefed President Joe Biden at a Santa Monica fire station. Biden also approved a major disaster declaration that will clear the way for federal funds and resources to be dispatched to California.
"The governor asked for a declaration of what provides for everything the federal government can do, and I’m prepared to sign it today, folks," Biden said.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department has already requested mutual aid from Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Firefighters from as far away as Nevada, Oregon and Washington state were also racing to Los Angeles to help the local firefighters battling the blazes on the front lines.
The fires are “stretching the capacity of our emergency services to their maximum limits,” said Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley.
In some parts of the city, the battle already appeared to be lost.
Much of Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood of 23,000 people about 20 miles west of downtown Los Angeles that has been home to movie stars and Holocaust survivors, was reduced to ashes with more than 1,000 homes wiped out and most of the residents gone.
"The whole city has just burned to the ground," Vanessa Pellegrini, co-owner of Vittorio Ristorante & Pizzeria, told MSNBC. "There's nothing we can do."
No deaths were reported, but officials said dozens of residents who had not evacuated, along with firefighters who battled the blazes, have been injured.
Some of the area's most famous residents, like "Police Academy" star Steve Guttenberg, said "people are really panicking and really scared right now."
"Most people have evacuated their homes. But the fire is really raging. These winds are terrible, the winds are so hot,” he told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing. “It was like a volcano.”
The section of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs through Pacific Palisades was completely shut down. So were many of the other major arteries in the western end of Los Angeles closest to the Pacific Ocean.
Firefighters were also struggling to contain the Eaton Fire, which erupted around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, and battling what's being called the Hurst Fire, which ignited around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in Sylmar, which is north of San Fernando.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said that two arrests were made Wednesday morning for looting and issued a stern warning to anybody hoping to capitalize on the ongoing catastrophe.
“If you are thinking about coming into the any of these areas to steal from our residents, I’m going to tell you something: you’re going to be caught, you’re going to be arrested, and you’re going to be prosecuted," Luna said. "Don’t do that. Stay out of these areas."
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who was in Ghana when the fires spread Tuesday, was expected to return to the city Wednesday.
Newsom, who was scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C., for the memorial service for former President Jimmy Carter, canceled his trip because of the wildfires, a spokesman has confirmed.
Los Angeles is the movie capital of the world but, because of the ongoing fires, the Screen Actors Guild was forced to cancel a live event scheduled for Wednesday morning to announce its annual awards nominations and, instead, did so online.
Black smoke was visible in the skies over Los Angeles neighborhoods like Silver Lake and in nearby communities like Burbank that are miles away from the infernos.
As a result, many of the city's best-known attractions, including the famous Hollywood sign, were closed Wednesday to the public, officials said.
So were many schools in Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school district, because of the hazardous air conditions.
An index over 300 represents an emergency state, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality index. But some parts of Los Angeles are seeing indexes above 500, while some Pasadena locations are seeing indexes of 600 to 1,200.
Jacob Soboroff reported from Los Angeles and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.
