Massive wildfires in Southern California have forced over 30,000 residents to evacuate as firefighters battle the fires that are “continuing to grow” amid “extreme wind conditions.”
Fox News reported that as of Wednesday morning, five wildfires were raging throughout southern California. The five wildfires in Los Angeles County and the surrounding region include the Hurst Fire, the Tyler Fire, the Palisades Fire, the Woodley Fire, and the Eaton Fire.
Reuters cited fire officials who confirmed that at least 2,921 acres of the Pacific Palisades region, which is located between Malibu and Santa Monica, had been consumed by the Palisades Fire as of early Wednesday morning.
A video shared on X, formerly Twitter, by The New York Post shows firefighters attempting to suppress the massive wildfires in Southern California.
During a Wednesday appearance on “Fox & Friends,” Margaret Stewart, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson, described the wildfires as “dynamic and dangerous” and warned that the fires are “continuing to grow.”
“We are in extreme wind conditions,” Stewart said. “We have winds sustained and gusting over 80 mph, which is hurricane force. It is not possible to stop a fire that is wind-driven like this, with this kind of topography, from the ground.”
In a post on X, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) explained that the state deployed over 1,400 firefighting personnel along with hundreds of prepositioned assists to “combat” the “unprecedented fires” in Los Angeles and the surrounding region.
READ MORE: ‘Life-threatening,’ ‘destructive’ windstorm warning issued in Calif.
Newsom added, “Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives.”
Addressing the threat of the Southern California wildfires, Pasadena Fire Department Chief Chad Augustin told “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that the Eaton Fire was “definitely the worst brush fire and worst incident that Pasadena has seen in its history.”
“When I was driving to the command post, it really looked like an apocalypse,” Augustin said. “You couldn’t see – there was spot fires everywhere, there were trees coming down literally as we were driving. And multiple, multiple houses on fire.”
The fire chief added, “We could have another 500 firefighters here on this incident and we still wouldn’t be able to stop this fire. We really need the winds to die down, we need to get aircraft in the air and be able to start doing water drops and then come behind it with fire crews.”
In another video shared by The New York Post, California mansions can be seen being “consumed” by the devastating wildfires.
