PUBLISHED : 8 Jan 2025 at 12: 20
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The wind whips embers as the Palisades Fire burns during a windstorm on the west side of Los Angeles on Tuesday. (Photo: Reuters)
LOS ANGELES — Raging flames driven by a fierce windstorm scorched a rapidly growing area of Southern California on Tuesday, destroying homes, forcing at least 30,000 residents to evacuate and choking the sky with smoke, with officials warning that the worst was yet to come.
Traffic was backed up for miles along Sunset Boulevard as residents tried to flee the Pacific Palisades, an affluent coastal neighbourhood west of downtown Los Angeles that is home to some 24,000 people and many celebrities. Gusts of up to 100 miles per hour, the strongest Southern California has experienced in more than a decade, were forecast through lunchtime Wednesday.
Authorities issued an evacuation order for a northern part of Santa Monica on Tuesday evening, saying there was an immediate threat to life in the area, which was closed to the public. The city, which borders Pacific Palisades, is home to about 90,000 residents, most of whom live south of the evacuation zone.
By then, the fire had jumped to almost 3,000 acres, California fire officials said. Billowing clouds of black and grey smoke drifted from the Paci
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