Los Angeles wildfires skirt key highway, museum

Northern and Southern California are now both imperiled by wildfires, as a spectacular blaze encroached on a busy freeway and threatened a famous museum in Los Angeles on Monday.

The wind-whipped flames chased thousands of residents from some of Los Angeles' wealthiest neighborhoods and burned near the famed Getty Center museum on Monday, the latest outbreak in a wildfire season that has caused mass evacuations and power outages across the state.

Fierce winds fanning wildfires elsewhere across California in recent days, including a large blaze consuming parts of Sonoma County's wine country north of San Francisco, were expected to abate later on Monday. Only about 5 percent of that fire was contained early on Monday after crews lost ground against a wind-driven flareup a day earlier.

In Los Angeles, the "Getty fire" emblazoned the sky early Monday morning. By daybreak, it had swept across more than 600 acres in the scrub-covered hills around Interstate 405, the nation's busiest highway, and near some of the city's priciest homes. Southbound portions of the highway were closed.

Basketball great LeBron James, Terminator star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Agents of Shield actor Clark Gregg and Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter all said on Twitter that they had been forced to flee their homes. Commuters posted videos on social media of entire slopes engulfed in blazing orange flames close to the highway's edge.

"If you are in an evacuation zone, don't screw around," Schwarzegger tweeted Monday. "Get out. Right now I am grateful for the best firefighters in the world, the true action heroes who charge into the danger to protect their fellow Californians."

"This is a fire that quickly spread," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a news conference with fire officials, urging residents in the mandatory evacuation zone, which encompasses more than 10,000 homes and businesses, to get out quickly.

"Get out when we say get out," the mayor said, telling homeowners they should not try to fight the fire with garden hoses, the Los Angeles Times reported. "The only thing you cannot replace is you and your family."

James, an area resident who plays for the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, said he had heeded the warning and had been driving around before dawn with his family looking for shelter.

"Finally found a place to accommodate us!" he wrote a short time later on Twitter. "Crazy night man!"

US Senator Kamala Harris, a Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination, said her home in Brentwood was in the evacuation zone.

"They were literally overwhelmed," Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph Terrazas said of crews fighting the fire within neighborhoods, the Times reported. "They had to make some tough decisions on which houses they were able to protect. Many times, it depends upon where the ember lands."

The fire was stoked by sustained winds of 30 to 40 miles per hour, gusting to 50 mph (80 kph), weather officials said. Six-hundred firefighters were battling the LA blaze on land and by plane and helicopter. At least eight homes had burned down and five were damaged, but no injuries were reported, Terrazas said.

Officials at the Getty museum said the blaze was burning north of the building, which was designed with thick stone walls to protect its treasures, such as paintings by Monet, Rembrandt and van Gogh, from flames.

"Many have asked about the art — it is protected by state-of-the-art technology," the museum's Twitter account said. "The safest place for the art and library collections is inside."

Up north, more than 4,000 firefighting personnel were battling the Kincade fire, which has destroyed 96 structures, about a quarter of the homes and other buildings known to have been lost in California wildfires since last week, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide emergency.

The cause of the Kincade fire remained under investigation, although Pacific Gas & Electric Co has acknowledged the blaze ignited near a damaged high-voltage transmission tower around the time a malfunction of the line occurred.

More than 1 million homes and businesses were without electricity on Monday morning, most of those from planned, precautionary power outages. Forecasts of high winds prompted PG&E to shut off power to 940,000 customers in 43 counties on Saturday night to guard against the risk of touching off wildfires.

Amy Xu, who lives in Novato, a small town 20 miles from fire-engulfed Sonoma County, had to spend the past weekend's nights literally in darkness due to PG&E's power outages.

"I sought every corner to collect candles left over from birthday parties and holiday seasons over the years, and in the candlelight I read books and ate my dinners," she told China Daily. "It's like back to the Neolithic Age."

PG&E said it expects to issue a weather all-clear for safety inspections and restoration work to begin on Monday for the northern Sierras and North Coast, the company said.

The governor has been sharply critical of PG&E, saying corporate greed and mismanagement kept it from upgrading its infrastructure while wildfire hazards have steadily worsened over the past decade.

PG&E filed for bankruptcy in January, citing billions of dollars in civil liabilities from deadly wildfires sparked by its equipment in 2017 and 2018.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service said high winds would return later in the week and could become the strongest so far this year in Southern California.

Sonoma County has been hardest hit in the latest spate of more than a dozen California wildfires, with more than 100 square miles (260 sq km) burned and 190,000 people evacuated.

The state's devastating fires in recent years have left some wondering if the infernos have become part of life for Californians.

Climate change and the encroachment of residential building on forest and hillsides were blamed by many for the current situation in an environmentally conscious state.

"We know what's coming as the effects of climate change became more pronounced," the LA Times said in an editorial. "The state will have to contend with more floods, coastal erosion and deadly heat waves. Intense weather will overwhelm existing public and private infrastructure unless we adapt now and build more resilient communities."

Chris D. Nebe, a film director in Hollywood, told China Daily: "The fires in California are partially the result of climate change and environmental neglect. Also, residential buildings have been built closer and closer to fire-endangered forests and barren hillsides. This is a combination of manmade problems which now mankind has to bear as devastating fires ravish the region."

Robert Lempert, an expert on climate risk management, told the LA Times that the Getty blaze and a smaller one in the Palisades last week were examples of the "new normal".

"It's one thing to look at the risk maps and show them to your family," he said. "It's another to get a knock on your door at 3 in the morning."

A headline on usatoday.com blurted: "With raging fires, high winds and blackouts, California is living a disaster movie. Is this the 'new normal'?"

Chang Jun in San Francisco and Reuters contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com