LA fires: evacuation orders expand as Santa Ana winds are expected to pick up
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Neighborhoods now under evacuation orders include Encino and tony Brentwood in west Los Angeles. Evacuations have been ordered for areas of Los Angeles east of the uncontained Palisades fire – as the Santa Ana winds that initially fueled the four-day inferno are expected to moderately pick up.
The Los Angeles fire department issued a new immediate evacuation order at 7pm local time on Friday to areas that cover Sunset Boulevard north to the Encino reservoir and from the 405 Freeway west to Mandeville Canyon. The evacuation order covers parts of the Brentwood – one of the city’s most affluent areas – and Encino neighborhoods in west LA after the fire department warned that the Palisades fire, now at 21,596 acres, saw a “significant flare-up” on Friday evening.
The area was already under an evacuation warning, but it is now an immediate evacuation order. “The Palisades fire has got a new significant flare-up on the eastern portion and continues to move northeast,” Capt Erik Scott of the Los Angeles fire department told KTLA.
The new evacuation order comes as the three major fires in Los Angeles remain out of control after having killed at least 11 people, displaced 200,000, and destroyed more than 10,000 homes and structures, including entire residential neighborhoods. More than 35,000 acres – an area about two and a half times the size of Manhattan – are estimated to have been consumed by the blazes.
The new areas under evacuation orders are close to Brentwood’s Mandeville Canyon Road, a two-lane road that makes emergency access to the pricey homes difficult. The orders also encompass the Getty Center, with its priceless art collection, the Los Angeles Times reported.
