A little after midnight on New Year’s Day, Francine Sohn was startled awake by a phone call from a neighbor who sounded hysterical. “There’s a fire on the hill,” the neighbor told him.
Sohn, 72, looked outside and saw a small brush fire dangerously close to his neighborhood in Pacific Palisades, in West Los Angeles. She watched as firefighters put out the flames, waiting to see if she should flee. But it wasn’t necessary: the wind was blowing a fast but manageable speed of 15 mphand the fire was brought under control before dawn, no homes were damaged and no one was injured.
A week later, the same thing happened: another small fire spotted in the same area. But he turned into a monster.
THE Palisades firenow one of the most destructive natural disasters in Los Angeles history, began in the backyard of Palisades Highlands, an isolated, affluent community overlooking the coast between Malibu and Santa Monica. Locals and hikers first saw a modest bushfire looming in the dried-out scrubland.
But whipped by the winds that reached 60 mphflames quickly raced up the mountainside and surged through neighborhoods, spanning more than 20,000 acres and consuming more than 5,000 structures. It is now one of the six forest fires burning simultaneously in Los Angeles County, which forced 180,000 people from their homes and left at least 11 dead.
NBC News spoke with nearly a dozen people who witnessed the early stages of the Palisades Fire on the morning of Jan. 7 and saw it grow and move faster than anything they had seen. never seen before, leaving a path of ruin they never thought possible – even in a place where wildfires are a part of life.
Sohn was already nervous that morning after seeing authorities’ warnings that dry winter winds were forecast across drought-ravaged Los Angeles, increasing the risk of wildfires.
Then, as she left her home on Piedra Morada Drive for a 10:30 a.m. art class at the local recreation center, a neighbor yelled at her from across the street. She looked behind her house and saw fire in the brush less than a mile away. The neighbor’s family had already called 911.
Sohn didn’t wait for someone to tell him to evacuate.
“I ran into the house, woke up my friend, threw my dog in the car with as many photo albums as I could carry,” she said, “and got out there.”
In the brush around the same time, Beni Oren was trail running with friends near Skull Rock, a local landmark, when they smelled smoke. They turned and faced flames about 30 yards away, Oren, 24, said.
They ran in panic, changing direction when they realized the wind was blowing the fire in their direction. A growing plume of smoke rose above the canyon as they moved to safety. “It was a weird experience to realize that, damn, is this all about to catch fire?” Oren said.
The firefighters quickly intervened, sirens blaring. On the radio, they described it as a 10-acre brush fire on a ridgeline, and they planned to deploy planes to absorb the rising flames. It was shortly after 10:30 a.m. The danger was already evident.
“It’s 100% aligned with the wind. It has the potential to grow over 200 acres in the next 20 minutes,” a person reported on Los Angeles County Fire Radio, according to a recording. “We have the potential for structures to be threatened in the next 20 minutes.”
Someone responded, “It grows straight toward the Palisades.” » A few seconds later, he added: “This thing is going to have a good run. »
Alarmed residents of the Palisades Highlands, watching the growing fire from their backyards and patios, came to the same conclusion.
Stephanie Libonati was at home with her mother and brother on Piedra Morada Drive when she saw flames and smoke about three-quarters of a mile away and shouted, “Fire!” His mother called 911, then Libonati and his brother ran outside to alert the neighbors. They began packing up their photos, passports and other valuables and came up with a plan: leave in three separate cars, meet out of town, then continue to her grandfather’s ranch in Santa Clarita .
By the time they left, the fire seemed twice as big, Libonati, 26, said. The fire department had also arrived, telling his brother to stop soaking their back deck and get out of there.
“It felt like a home,” she said. “You could hear the fire crackling and everything burning. And the smell was horrible, ashes were blowing in our faces. It was so fast. You continued to see it spread and spread.
Once they started driving, the family was immediately separated, their paths interrupted by flames, traffic and panic. As she drove through Palisades Village, a shopping district at the base of the hill, Libonati saw people on the side of the road filming the inferno above. “No one would expect the fire to spread all the way to the village,” she said. “That was never the case.”
They finally met, kissed, and continued toward the ranch.
The exodus continued, growing from a trickle to a mad rush. Palisades Drive, the only main road leading straight down the hill to Sunset Boulevard, was clogged with cars. Some tried Fire Road, an alternative escape route in an emergency, but soon after that passageway was surrounded by flames, residents said. The sunset slows to a stop.
Many panicked drivers abandoned their cars on the road and set off on foot, forcing emergency crews to bulldoze vehicles aside to allow fire trucks to pass. Firefighters asked residents in parts of the neighborhood to temporarily stay put because there was no immediate danger at first and there was no easy way out.
Winds picked up, making the flames worse and pushing embers into the air and farther away, where they ignited new hot spots. The fire consumed the mountainside and swept through the Highlands, the village and the rest of the Pacific Palisades, then west along the coast to Malibu.
Colin Fields and Vanita Borwankar, who live near Palisades Drive, left in their car after receiving a text alert about potential evacuations. By the time they left their apartment at 11 a.m., the fire was moving downhill, but the traffic jam forced them to turn back. They walked up the hill to Fields’ parents’ house on the edge of the canyon, where Fields and his brother sprayed hoses on the encroaching flames and reported the flare-ups to the fire department.
