'Run for your lives!' LA residents abandon cars to flee wildfire on foot
Screaming Los Angeles residents left their cars behind to flee a fast-moving wildfire as it closed in on a picturesque celebrity enclave, eyewitnesses said, describing scenes straight out of a Hollywood disaster movie.
A windstorm whipped a seemingly typical brush fire into a raging inferno within a matter of hours on Tuesday, sending the blaze racing towards the Pacific Palisades area.
Thirty thousand people were ordered to evacuate as the conflagration surrounded the neighbourhood in the west of the city, exploding rapidly from 10 acres to several thousand in size.
Bordering Malibu, Pacific Palisades is a haven of hillside streets and winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and extending down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.
But the Pacific Coast Highway, the main route in - or out - quickly became gridlocked, leading many motorists to ditch their vehicles near Sunset Boulevard as the flames drew near.
One resident, Marsha Horowitz, said firefighters told people to get out of their cars as the blaze, fanned by gusts sometimes topping 100mph (160km/h) in the mountains and foothills, approached.