Palisades to Hollywood Hills, raging LA fires trigger destruction, chaos

A terrifying wave of wildfires squeezing Los Angeles on multiple fronts pushed closer to the symbolic heart of the US film industry on Thursday after a new blaze ignited in the hills overlooking Hollywood Boulevard and its Walk of Fame.

- Agencies

Since they began on Tuesday, the series of fires in the Los Angeles area have killed five people, ravaged communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena and sent thousands of people frantically fleeing their homes.

The crescent of flames squeezing Los Angeles includes a huge fire between Santa Monica and Malibu on the city's western flank and a conflagration in the east near Pasadena. They were visible from space as a huge pincer. At least six separate wildfires were burning, including the Palisades fire in the west, the Eaton Fire in the east and the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills.

Nearly 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed in the Palisades and Eaton fires and the number is expected to increase. The five deaths recorded so far were from the Eaton Fire. The Palisades Fire has burned over 17,000 acres, the Eaton Fire more than 10,000 acres and the Hurst Fire, burning in the north, has spread to over 800 acres. The Sunset Fire, which broke out on Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, struck closer to the heart of the city and the roots of its entertainment industry and putting densely populated neighborhoods on edge during exceptionally windy and dry conditions. But only about a mile away, the streets around the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds were bustling, and onlookers used their phones to record video of the blazing hills.