Thousands Evacuated As Wildfires Devastate Los Angeles And Surrounding Areas

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OAN Staff James Meyers
8:12 AM – Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes in Southern California as the massive wildfires continue to burn across the Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas. 

Wind gusts hitting over 100 miles per hour have caused multiple fires to go from non-existent to out-of-control in a matter of minutes in some areas that have been affected. 

The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of Los Angeles spread so fast 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. 

Another fire that began hours prior ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast that has many celebrity residences. 

As people rushed to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some carrying suitcases.

Pacific Palisades resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming.”

“We had a wind report come in a few minutes ago of 100 mph not far from Pasadena as the Santa Ana wind event has been ongoing,” Fox Meteorologist Christopher Tate told the New York Post.

High wind gusts between 60 and 80 miles per hour, with the occasional gust reaching triple digits in certain areas, is expected to continue until around noon Pacific time. 

The wind will go down slightly in the afternoon, with gusts dropping to 30 to 60 miles per hour which is at least “light enough that firefighting aircraft can get airborne again and try and attack the fires from the air,” Tate said.

Local fire officials have called the intense conditions a “worst case scenario” for fighting the wildfires. 

“The biggest thing that you need for fire propagation is a source of oxygen,” Tate explained. “And with the winds being able to transport so much of the smoke and the burned matter away from the fires, there’s a whole lot of oxygen that’s available to the fires and it makes it very easy for all of them to spread.”

According to Cal Fire, the Pacific Palisades fire exploded overnight spreading over 2,921 acres with no containment. 

The Eaton fire, near Pasadena, has also rapidly spread to at least 2,227 acres and is 0% contained, the fire agency said.

A third wildfire started around 10:30 p.m. and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that is the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles, and a fourth was reported early Wednesday in Coachella, in Riverside County. The causes of the fires were under investigation.

Meanwhile, more than 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and over 200,000 people were without power in Los Angeles County by Tuesday evening. 

A total of four fires continue to burn across the state, including in the Palisades, Woodley, Eaton and Hurst. Los Angeles lies roughly in the center of the four remaining blazes.

The fires are being spread by heavy Santa Ana winds from the east, and officials warn the worst is yet to come. 

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