LOS ANGELES, California — The fast-burning wildfire that broke out in the mountains above Pacific Palisades amid extreme high winds on Tuesday morning threatened homes and the local public school, which was evacuated.
The fire broke out in the brush near the Paseo Miramar neighborhood, above, Palisades Drive and spread quickly.
One witness told Breitbart News that she saw homes and cars burning, and that embers had leapt across the canyon to the neighborhood of Marquez Knolls.
The flames moved quickly. One local resident reported that people on Palisades Drive simply abandoned their cars and ran in the direction of the ocean.
There were no reports yet of injuries or deaths, nor about a cause of the fire.
Residents were forced to pack quickly and to leave the area. Some were irate at the Los Angeles Unified School District, which required parents to fill out forms before picking up their children, taking up precious time.
Traffic quickly backed up along Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive, as residents and emergency vehicles jockeyed for space. But residents remained calm, with many calling to each other from their cars, offering help if needed.
An extreme weather alert had been issued for the area, with strong north-northeast winds expected to blow from Tuesday morning through Wednesday evening.
Though the past two winters have been rainy, leaving the brush theoretically less dry than before, there is far more brush than there was before. Moreover, there has not yet been any significant rain this winter.
A large fire in Malibu last month threatened Pepperdine University but caused no deaths.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.