Bel-Air mansions under siege
LOS ANGELES — A wildfire erupted in the exclusive Bel-Air section of Los Angeles on Wednesday as yet another part of Southern California found itself under siege from an outbreak of windwhipped blazes that have consumed multimillion-dollar houses and tract homes alike.
Hundreds of homes across the Los Angeles metropolitan area and beyond were feared destroyed since Monday, but firefighters were only slowly managing to make their way into some of the hard-hit areas for an accurate count.
As many as five fires have closed highways, schools and museums, shut down production of TV series and cast a hazardous haze over the region. About 200,000 people were under evacuation orders. No deaths and only a few injuries were reported.
From the beachside city of Ventura, where rows of homes were levelled, to the rugged foothills north of Los Angeles, where more than two dozen horses died at a boarding stable, to Bel-Air, where the rich and famous have sweeping views of Los Angeles below, fierce Santa Ana winds sweeping in from the desert fanned the flames and fears.
“God willing, this will slow down so the firefighters can do their job,” said Maurice Kaboud, who ignored an evacuation order and stood in his backyard with a garden hose at the ready.
Air tankers that were grounded most of Tuesday because of high winds flew on Wednesday, dropping flame retardant. Firefighters rushed to attack the fires before winds picked up again.
They were expected to gust as high as 130 kilometres an hour overnight into today. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which uses a colour-coded wind index, issued a purple forecast, the most severe, for the first time ever.
“They’re going to be extreme [today],” department director Ken Pimlott said. “We need to have everybody’s heads up — heads on a swivel — and pay very close attention.”
Before dawn Wednesday, flames exploded on the steep slopes of Sepulveda Pass, closing a section of heavily travelled Interstate 405 and destroying four homes in Bel-Air, where houses range from $2 million US to tens of millions of dollars.
Firefighters hosed down a burning Tudor-style house as helicopters dropped water on hillsides to protect homes from the 60-hectare blaze.
Bel-Air was the site of a catastrophic fire in 1961 that burned nearly 500 homes. Burt Lancaster and Zsa Zsa Gabor were among the celebrities who lost houses.
Across the wide I-405 freeway from the fire, the Getty Center art complex was closed to protect its collection from smoke damage.
Many schools across Los Angeles were closed because of poor air quality and today’s classes have been cancelled at 265 schools.
UCLA, at the edge of the Bel-Air evacuation zone, cancelled afternoon classes and its evening basketball game. Students on campus wore dust and surgical masks.
By late afternoon, firefighters said they had controlled the fire’s advance.
Productions of HBO’s Westworld and the CBS show S.W.A.T. were suspended because of the danger to cast and crew from two nearby fires.
In Ventura County northwest of L.A., the biggest and most destructive of the wildfires grew beyond 260 square kilometres and had nearly reached the Pacific on Tuesday night after starting 45 kilometres inland a day earlier.
Fire incident commander Todd Derum said he suspects hundreds of homes have been lost.