'Run for your lives': Motorists trying to flee Pacific Palisades face flames, chaos, danger

Noah Haggerty and Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times on Jan 7, 2025

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LOS ANGELES — Residents fleeing a wildfire in Pacific Palisades faced a gantlet of danger as roads became choked with traffic and fast-moving flames threatened evacuation routes.

When a spot fire erupted off Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive, some motorists abandoned their cars by the time the flames reached Pacific Coast Highway around 2 p.m.

Fire officials ordered those residents who were unable to flee their neighborhoods to shelter in place as crews battled flames along Sunset Boulevard.

Ellen Delosh-Bacher was in Downtown L.A., when she first learned of the fire and rushed to her home, where her 95-year-old mother, her caregiver and their two dogs live.

She quickly hit gridlock at Sunset Blvd and Palisades Drive.

Then, fire exploded right behind a Starbucks along the road. Police began running down the road telling anyone stuck in traffic to, “Run for your lives,” said Delosh-Bacher.

She abandoned her car, keys still in the ignition and ran the half mile down to the beach. She stood amid the grey and orange smoke trying to reach her mother.

“This is like an apocalypse,” she said. “I live on a ridge. I’m going to be pretty screwed if the fire goes up Pali Drive.”

George Hutchinson, who owns a hair salon called George and Company in Pacific Palisades, was standing on the rooftop of his apartment on Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon as he followed the fire’s movement.

Hutchinson watched the fire shift down towards the coast and Malibu.

“I can see flames up on the hillsides and then it kind of jumped and right now I can’t see anything because the smoke is all dark,” he said. “The fire is jumping around because it’s so windy. It’s pretty ominous.”

Hutchinson’s residence is in the evacuation zone for the fire and his car is packed and ready to go, but because the traffic was bumper-to-bumper Tuesday afternoon, he decided to wait it out a bit.

“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.”