Los Angeles evacuated as wildfires rage

More than 100,000 residents in the San Fernando Valley remained under evacuation Wednesday as a brush fire that started in the foothills above Sylmar continued to grow.

The Creek fire started Tuesday about 6:30 a.m. and quickly raced out of control as powerful Santa Ana winds pushed it toward houses below.

The fire has destroyed at least 30 homes and scorched 11,377 acres, authorities said.
As crews continue to fight the blaze, some residents are beginning to assess the damage to their foothill properties.

Among the charred landscape off Little Tujunga Canyon Road in Sylmar stood what remained of Rancho Padilla, where nearly 30 horses died in the fire.

“All I could think about was the horses, the horses, the horses. And they were like, ‘Get out, get out, get out,’ ” said Patricia Padilla, whose family owns a ranch there. “The structures can get rebuilt, but the lives of the horses can’t. ... That’s my biggest heartbreak.”

The ranch, which boards horses, had more than 60 housed there, said Virginia Padilla, Patricia’s older sister. That morning, they put the count of dead horses at 29.

One of Virginia’s horses is in the hospital and another, along with her sister’s horse, Scar, are doing fine. Still, they felt for their boarders and the horses they’d lost.

“Honestly, it feels like we lost a big part of our family,” Patricia said. “To see it all gone ... it’s heartbreaking.”

The blaze was 0% contained, and residents had been evacuated from an area covering more than 20 square miles. The fire jumped the 210 Freeway and burned in Shadow Hills to the south, where residents scrambled to evacuate hundreds of horses, alpacas and other animals. About 20 of the 30 homes that have burned were in Little Tujunga, Kagel and Lopez canyons, officials said.

Several exits along the 210 Freeway leading into Sylmar, Pacoima, Shadow Hills and Sunland remain closed, the California Highway Patrol said.

About 2,500 homes are still under threat, and about 900 firefighters are battling the blaze, said Los Angeles County fire inspector Gustavo Medina.

Farther north, in Santa Clarita, firefighters were making significant gains against the Rye fire that had burned toward Magic Mountain on Tuesday afternoon. The fire briefly shut down access to the 5 Freeway from Highway 126 and triggered mandatory evacuations.

Roy DeFilippis, 69, and his wife, Yolanda, 66, had only recently arrived home from a vacation and were excited to spend a nice, relaxing afternoon at a campground west of Santa Clarita when the Rye fire started.

The couple have been on a road trip for weeks, starting out at their home in Nova Scotia and traveling to Simi Valley to spend Thanksgiving with their daughter and her family.

Driving thousands of miles, they faced several challenges. The RV broke down in Kingman, Ariz., and then again as they were traveling in California toward Simi Valley. Roy DeFilippis almost lost control going down a mountain.

On Tuesday afternoon, hewas watching TV, considering whether to drink more coffee or switch to cold beer.

“And all of a sudden, we hear sirens and sirens, and police came out and told us we had to evacuate,” he said.

Walking out of their RV, the couple saw flames as tall as their motor home.

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They ditched the Honda Civic they’d been hauling. There was no time.

They ensured their most precious cargo — their eight Yorkies, Spike, Zoey, Lacey, Madison, Spencer, Mickey, Sammy and Snickers — were in the RV, and they rushed onto Highway 126.

Late Wednesday morning, they were parked on a gravel lot between Santa Clarita and Fillmore, waiting until the campground was reopened at noon. They weren’t sure whether their car survived.
But Roy DeFilippis, a retiree from Florida, felt like, because they were safe from the fires, it just made for a good story to tell his friends. “Life is a true adventure, isn’t it?” he said.

The fire had burned 7,000 acres and was 5% contained Wednesday. All evacuations and road closures have been lifted.

After five years of drought, California was inundated with one of its wettest winters on record last year, followed by the hottest summer on record. That created a bountiful crop of light grass and vegetation that then shriveled and is now primed to burn.

The Santa Ana winds that have driven the flames are expected to subside by Friday, the National Weather Service said.

California Under Wind-driven Fires

Wind-driven fires tore through California communities Tuesday for the second time in two months, leaving hundreds of homes feared lost and uprooting tens of thousands of people.

The most damaging fire was in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, where 150 structures were confirmed destroyed. But a fire official said he suspected "hundreds more'' would be lost when flames died down enough to make a thorough assessment.

In the San Gabriel Mountains foothills of Los Angeles about 45 miles (72 kilometers) away from the city, 30 structures burned. Mayor Eric Garcetti said the gusty winds expected to last most of the week had created a dangerous situation and he urged 150,000 people under mandatory evacuation orders to leave their homes before it's too late.

In addition to prompting hasty evacuations, the fires shut down two freeways for hours and sent heavy, acrid smoke billowing over the Los Angeles area, creating a health hazard for millions.

There were no immediate reports of any deaths. Two people were critically injured in a small San Bernardino County fire, but no other serious injuries were reported. The fires were under investigation and no causes had been found.

The Ventura wildfire exploded to nearly 80 square miles (207 square kilometers) in a matter of hours. It was fanned by dry Santa Ana winds clocked at well over 60 mph (96 kph) and spit embers up to a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) ahead of fire lines.

Lisa Kermode ignored the first evacuation alert that buzzed on her phone when it said the fire was 15 miles (24 kilometers) away from her home. But the flames were nearly on top of her an hour later when she rounded up her three children, still in their pajamas, and told them to grab some jeans so they could leave.

They returned home Tuesday to find their home and world in ashes, including a Christmas tree and the presents they had just bought.

"We got knots in our stomach coming back up here,'' Kermode said. "We lost everything, everything, all our clothes, anything that was important to us. All our family heirlooms — it's not sort of gone, it's completely gone.''

The fires came just eight weeks after the deadliest and most destructive series of wildfires in state history burned through Northern California and its fabled wine country and killed 44 people dead and destroyed 8,900 homes and other buildings.

Fires are not typical in Southern California this time of year but can break out when dry vegetation and too little rain combine with the Santa Ana winds. Hardly any measurable rain has fallen in the region over the past six months.
 
Aerial footage showed dozens of homes in one neighborhood burned to the ground and a large subdivision in jeopardy as embers blew about wildly. Burned-out cars sat on their wheel rims next to destroyed homes.

More than 27,000 people were evacuated, and one firefighter suffered bumps and bruises in a vehicle accident in Ventura County.

Southern California's gusty Santa Ana winds have long contributed to some of the region's most disastrous wildfires. They blow from the inland West toward the Pacific Ocean, speeding up as they squeeze through mountain passes and canyons.

Nearly 180,000 electrical customers in the Ventura County lost power, and schools in the district were closed. Some firefighting efforts were hampered when pumping stations lost power and hydrants ran dry.

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