OAK PARK, Calif. _ The Woolsey fire barreled into Malibu on Friday afternoon with destructive force, burning dozens of hillside homes as thousands tried fleeing down the gridlocked Pacific Coast Highway.
The fire has destroyed dozens of homes in Oak Park, Thousand Oaks, Bell Canyon and other Ventura County communities and shows no signs of slowing as evacuation orders and anxiety keep spreading. Officials in Malibu warned residents at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time to leave immediately as flames began burning out of control toward neighborhoods.
Olivia Damavandi, who lives on Murphy Way in Malibu, fled her home late Friday morning with her husband and two children after flames got too close for comfort. At about noon she was on Pacific Coast Highway trying to determine whether she should leave or check on her neighbors.
"I could tell that this is getting serious. You could just see the plumes of smoke," she said. "I'm just in acceptance _ glad my family is safe and everything is replaceable."
Hidden Hills, a community that hugs the 101 Freeway, was also ordered to evacuate about 1 p.m. as flames approached.
The fire already had done its worst in the neighborhood where Shirley Hertel lives in Thousand Oaks.
Text alerts and a message on her TV from her cable provider finally propelled Hertel, 68, to leave her house with her family at around 1 a.m. Before getting in the car, she stopped at her front door and gave it a kiss.
It was something of a kiss goodbye.
She returned some 11 hours later to a sight that made her weep. Part of her house is standing, nearly half of it is destroyed, very little is undamaged.
The home directly across the street was spared, but another nearby was reduced to a brick chimney.
Her daughter's car, parked in the driveway, burned to its metal frame. The garage door and her daughter's bedroom above are scorched.
She was able to salvage photos of her daughter and her mother, who died two years ago; some important documents; an old painting of the Santa Monica Pier. She knew things would be bad; she'd seen her home in flames on TV.
"How a fire can change your life in a day," she sobbed.
Her husband, her niece and some friends hoisted wooden boards over where windows once were.
The blaze, fueled by dry conditions and extreme winds, has charred 14,000 acres and left a path of destruction and chaos as thousands of people evacuated their homes. The fire also destroyed the historic Western town area at Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills, where productions including the HBO series "Westworld" have filmed.
Firefighters tried to protect structures in Calabasas as flames drew close to neighborhoods.
In Westlake Village, neighbors watched as smoke rose behind a row of homes on the ridge of a hill Friday morning.
Resident Rafael Garcia, 58, grabbed a garden hose and hopped over a fence to spray water on the porch of the house next door as it began to fall apart. The home has been vacant for more than two years, he said.
"I don't think they care if this house burns," he said, rushing to douse flames. "I'm trying to save our homes."
Several minutes later, a firefighter showed up, but Garcia stayed to help.
For those who chose to leave Friday, fleeing many neighborhoods across Los Angeles wasn't easy.
Traffic was jammed as cars inched their way down Pacific Coast Highway from Malibu. The situation was made worse because several traffic signals were out from Topanga Canyon to John Tyler Drive because of power outages. Residents of the coastal town were ordered to evacuate after the blaze jumped the 101 Freeway and began making its way toward the Pacific Ocean early Friday.
A large cloud of smoke darkened the sky behind Quinn Kuriger, 22, as he crept along the highway. He had left his Calabasas home and found refuge at a friend's place in Malibu, but as the fire moved south he was forced to leave again. He had been in the car for at least two hours, but the most he'd seen of the fire was the large plume of smoke nearby.
"It's kind of intimidating," he said.
Despite strong winds and poor visibility from thick smoke hanging over the region, firefighters spent the night and morning battling the fire by air and on the ground, in some cases preventing it from sweeping through neighborhoods. But fire officials said at least 20 homes were destroyed, perhaps more.
"It's been a long night," said Corey Rose, an assistant chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department. "But what makes this good is that we've done it together."
The Woolsey fire along with the nearby Hill fire, which has burned about 6,000 acres in the Santa Rosa Valley area, prompted Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom on Friday to declare a state of emergency for Los Angeles and Ventura counties on behalf of Gov. Jerry Brown, who was out of the state. Newsom also sent a request to federal officials and President Donald Trump for assistance to support communities affected by the fire.
All told, roughly 88,000 homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties had been evacuated by Friday morning. No fatalities or severe injuries had been reported, despite several accounts of people being trapped by the fire.
Ventura County Fire Captain Brian McGrath said crews are flying planes over the fire to get an accurate number of burned acres. There is still no containment of the fire, as strong Santa Ana winds through the region make the blaze difficult to control. Intense winds fueled the blaze overnight into Friday morning, and about 2,000 firefighters are anticipating a tough battle through much of the day as dry conditions are predicted to continue, officials said.
Forecasters said the area should expect gusts of 40 to 50 mph in the valleys and coasts, and from 60 to 70 mph in the mountains on Friday. The National Weather Service issued a red-flag fire warning through Friday night.
L.A. County Deputy Fire Chief David Richardson said that with several fires raging across the state, including the Camp fire in Butte County, agencies were stretched thin.
"There's a multitude of fires happening, and entire communities are being impacted," he said.
Ventura County fire officials said crews that had been working the Hill fire were redirected overnight to the Woolsey fire. Officials said they expect the Hill fire to burn to the ocean.
The news of evacuation in Thousand Oaks added to the exhaustion of residents, many of whom had been shaken by news of the horrific shooting nearby at Borderline Bar and Grill less than a day earlier. Resident Melissa Snyder said it had been a hellish 24 hours for her family.
Early Thursday, she received the devastating news that a close family friend, 21-year-old Noel Sparks, had been among those killed in the massacre. Snyder has known Sparks since she was a baby and could barely make sense of that tragedy, which took place just a few miles from her Hillcrest neighborhood, before she was told to leave her home as the Woolsey fire neared.
"We didn't get over the one tragedy until the next thing started," Snyder said.
On Friday morning, Snyder wore a robe as she stood in a Woodland Hills parking lot outside a Manhattan Bagels with her husband and five children.
Her daughter Kaylee got a frantic call early in the morning from her friend Madison that they needed to get moving.
The normally deserted 101 Freeway at 3 a.m. was packed with cars. Kaylee, 16, said it was "like you were leaving hell."
"I'm confused and overwhelmed," she said.
Steve Snyder said the family's nerves were somewhat frayed from the lack of sleep. As news of the Borderline tragedy broke, they weren't sure whether the shooter had been apprehended. They thought he might be in their neighborhood and stood by the door just in case.
"It's been two nights of no sleep," he said.
Other areas placed under mandatory evacuation include the entire communities of Oak Park and Westlake Village, and portions of Thousand Oaks, from Thousand Oaks Boulevard north to Sunset Hills and from Oak Park west to Highway 23. Previous evacuation orders remain in place for Saddlebow Road in Bell Canyon. In Los Angeles County, evacuations were ordered above the 101 Freeway from Valley Circle to Lindero Canyon Road, and south of Bell Canyon Road, west of Valley Circle Boulevard and east to the Los Angeles city limit.
The Woolsey fire, which broke out Thursday afternoon south of Simi Valley, exploded in size overnight _ with no sign of stopping. It had crossed over the Albertson Motorway, the ridgeline that separates Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, in an area called China Flat, above Cheeseboro and Palo Comado canyons, Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said.
Embers from burning vegetation and structures are the primary contributor to rapid fire spread, according to fire officials.
