LOS ANGELES — A fire was burning out of control Tuesday in Pacific Palisades, destroying homes and forcing residents to abandon their vehicles and flee amid a potentially “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm.

Most of Pacific Palisades was under an evacuation order by the afternoon, as residents fought traffic jams and heavy smoke trying to escape the nearby flames. The blaze broke out around 10:30 a.m. near Piedra Morada Drive and was pushed by intense wind gusts that officials had warned could fuel any spark into a fast-moving and erratic wildfire. It was more than 700 acres by the afternoon.

“It’s bad. It’s like an inferno,” said Lori Libonati, who lives in Pacific Palisades and saw the fire start to burn Tuesday morning before evacuating.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Massive smoke plumes filled the sky around the Palisades fire as families evacuated not far from hillsides glowing with orange. The blaze quickly jumped across Palisades Drive, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — leaving many trying to evacuate in a precarious and chaotic situation. Some jumped out of their stalled cars to run toward the beach; others were forced to return home and shelter-in-place if they couldn’t get out, residents told The Times.

Ellen Delosh-Bacher tried to rush home from downtown Los Angeles when she heard about the fire to get her 95-year-old mother, her caregiver and their two dogs, but she quickly hit a standstill at Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive.

Then, the fire exploded right along the road and police officers started yelling for people to abandon their cars: “Run for your lives!” Delosh-Bacher recalled. She left her keys still in the ignition and ran the half mile down to the beach. Firefighters could be heard telling dispatchers over radio traffic that as many as 100 abandoned vehicles were blocking the road.

“This is like an apocalypse,” Delosh-Bacher said. “I live on a ridge. I’m going to be pretty screwed if the fire goes up (there).”

Her mother was stuck at her house, but she said she heard firefighters started telling her neighbors to shelter in place instead of evacuate.

“I don’t know, I’m so scared,” she said.

Capt. Erik Scott, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson, said that some homes had burned in the fire, but a precise estimate was not immediately available.

The region remains under severe red flag warnings as dry, unpredictable and strong offshore winds pick up across the region. The National Weather Service said strong north winds are expected around the fire through at least Wednesday, with speeds peaking Tuesday night from 35 to 60 mph.

In some parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, gusts up to 100 mph are possible as the dangerous windstorm drags on. Wind speeds had already hit 60 to 70 mph in some areas of the eastern Santa Monica mountains, not far from the fire, according to the National Weather Service.

“It looks grim,” Magnolia Shin said around noon Tuesday, about an hour after she left her house on Piedra Morada Drive. Shin said that she could feel the heat from the flames before she left, which were within 50 yards of her home. She didn’t have time to try to save anything from her home before evacuating.

“I couldn’t even get my rabbit,” she said. “I just left. I just took my purse and drove away.”

The upscale Palisades community is a secluded neighborhood retreat for the rich and powerful, including many celebrities. But that seclusion also carries risks when emergencies occur.

George Hutchinson stood on his apartment’s rooftop on Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon watching the fire after rushing home from his hair salon.

He lives in the evacuation zone and his car is packed and ready, but because the traffic was bumper-to-bumper, he decided to wait it out.

“It looks horrible,” he said. “You can keep seeing houses burn. It jumps and it’s crazy. Traffic is gridlock — there are three ways in and out of this town and it’s all packed. Lots of chaos.”

Current Honorary Mayor of the Pacific Palisades, Eugene Levy, evacuated early along with other residents of the neighborhood Tuesday.

“The smoke looked pretty black and intense over Temescal Canyon,” Levy told The Times as he was stuck in traffic. “I couldn’t see any flames but the smoke was very dark.”

Residents fleeing down Sunset Boulevard gathered along the Pacific Coast Highway, many calling family members still trapped in traffic; others cried as they finally reunited.

Cavalry Christian School students and teachers posted in the Sunset Beach parking lot, waiting to connect students with their families. But the smoke quickly moved toward the shore. By noon, ash was dropping from the sky along the coastline.

“I figured it was safer at the beach, but now I’m not so sure,” said Daryl Goldsmith. “The wind is virulent and I just hope things don’t burn down. … The poor fire department couldn’t get up there.”

Goldsmith was at her Palisades home with friends when she spotted the fire. It quickly exploded, she said.

As she rushed to evacuate, her husband stayed behind to help a disabled neighbor escape. Firefighters began directing traffic, but Goldsmith decided to ditch her car in the grass and decided to walk down to the shore.

As she waited at Sunset Beach, her husband was still stuck up the hill.

Amid a parched landscape, the major wind event is creating particularly dangerous fire weather — similar to the conditions that were in place when both the November Mountain fire in Ventura County and Malibu’s Franklin fire in December erupted.

Officials said this was not a typical Santa Ana wind event, though it is indeed bringing dry, offshore winds to the area. The widespread wind event is expected to cause disruptions from Santa Barbara County south through San Diego County beginning Tuesday and continuing at least to Friday.

Red flag warnings remain in place across the region, citing an “increased risk for large fires with very rapid fire spread, extreme fire behavior and long-range spotting.” Some areas fall under the most elevated warning of a particularly dangerous situation.

Forecasters are also warning the storm could bring a wind phenomenon that can cause short-lived but extremely destructive winds, particularly in the San Gabriel foothills and valleys. The “mountain wave wind” activity occurs when gusts rapidly drop down mountain slopes, then gain strength upon hitting the flat landscape, causing “brief bursts of very strong, dangerous winds,” said Rich Thompson, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

He said this could be the strongest such wind event since the 2011 storm that caused serious damage in Pasadena, Altadena and other San Gabriel Valley neighborhoods, including knocking out power for days for more than 400,000 people.

The mountain wave winds, which could reach up to 80 to 100 mph, are expected to be the strongest across the 118 and 210 highway corridors, including the San Gabriel and San Fernando foothills, the Simi Valley and the eastern Ventura County valleys.

Winds are expected to peak late Tuesday, but linger through at least Friday.

Electricity providers started initiating power shutoffs Tuesday morning to limit further fire starts. About 5,000 customers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties were without power by early Tuesday afternoon, according to Southern California Edison.

The utility has warned that another 400,000 customers, across Los Angeles, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, may see shutoffs Tuesday and Wednesday “due to heightened wildfire risk.” San Diego Gas & Electric is considering cutting off power to more than 60,000 customers but none were yet initiated Tuesday afternoon.

The powerful winds also led President Biden to scrap plans to travel from Los Angeles to the Coachella Valley to sign a proclamation creating the Chuckwalla National Monument, which will span more than 624,000 acres southeast of Joshua Tree National Park.

That proclamation, and one creating another national monument in Northern California, is now expected to be signed at the White House next week.

_____

(Times staff writers Summer Lin, Ruben Vives, Terry Castleman, Connor Sheets and Clara Harter contributed to this report.)

_____

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.