Palisades wildfire live: Thousands evacuated in Los Angeles and southern California

It added in post on X: Winds gusts up to 60mph are expected to continue through Thursday.”

More than 1,400 firefighters have been deployed to fight the “unprecedented fires”, Gavin Newsom the California governor, has said.

“Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives,” Newsom said in a post on X on Wednesday morning.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” he added.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper is reporting that firefighters battling the Palisades fire had reported to colleagues that fire hydrants in the area had run out of water.

“The hydrants are down,” said one firefighter on the internal radio system, reported the Times.

“Water supply just dropped,” said another.

Firefighters attempt to tackle the flames by helicopter

CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA

Elsewhere, the developer who owns a shopping centre called Palisades Village, Rick Caruso, complained of no water in the hydrants.

“The firefighters are there [in the neighbourhood], and there’s nothing they can do — we’ve got neighbourhoods burning, homes burning, and businesses burning … It should never happen.”

Officials in Malibu have warned residents to be prepared to evacuate.

“The city of Malibu urges all residents not currently under evacuation orders to be prepared to evacuate,” the city government said in a statement. “If you require additional time to evacuate, or if you have pets or livestock, consider making preparations to leave now.”

Officials urged people should “gather your family, pets, essential belongings, and evacuation supplies”.

Wildfires last month caused thousands of Malibu residents to leave their homes, including stars Cher and Dick van Dyke.

Thousands of residents in California have already fled their homes

CAROLINE BREHMAN/EPA

Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, has announced more evacuations due to the ongoing wildfires.

Earlier on Wednesday, Bass announced that a state of emergency had been declared and thanked responders for their efforts.

President Biden says he is being “frequently briefed” on the wildfires and has offered any “federal assistance” to those fighting the blazes.

Biden has been personally affected by the situation as was forced to spend an the night in Los Angeles because of the powerful winds.

He had been due to leave the city on Tuesday after designating two national monuments but his flight was pushed back until Wednesday.

At least two film premieres have been cancelled because of the fires.

A US premiere of the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, set to take place on Wednesday night, has been cancelled due to the “dangerous conditions”.

The film sees the former Take That star played by a CGI chimpanzee, a comment on how he feels like a “performing monkey”.

Also lost to the fires was the red-carpet premiere of Jennifer Lopez’s new film Unstoppable. That had been due to go ahead on Tuesday.

Trees and vegetation around the prestigious Getty Villa Museum in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood were burned, but the structure and collections were spared, the museum said in a post on X.

The Getty, set up by J. Paul Getty, the US oil billionaire and collector, houses Greek and Roman antiquities in a re-created Roman country home.

In a post on X, the museum said it would remain closed until at least next Monday.

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the Oscar-winning actor and director are among the residents of Pacific Palisades neighbourhood subject to evacuation warnings as “extreme” winds of up to 100mph feared.

Read in full: California fire: 30,000 told to flee as winds whip up inferno

James Woods, the actor, posted video and pictures of the wildfire encroaching on his home in the Palisades.

Footage showed flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home, as well as one claiming his next door neighbour’s house is on fire. In one message he claimed: “It tests your soul, losing everything at once, I must say.”

In another post, he says he does “not know at this moment if our home is still standing, but sadly houses on our little street are not”.

A long-time Palisades resident, Will Adams, told the Associated Press news agency that he had never witnessed anything like the current wildfires despite having lived in the area for 56 years.

He said could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions”, as the fire took hold in his neighbourhood.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Residents have been forced to evacuate their homes

DAVID SWANSON/AFP

More than 13,000 buildings were under threat from the Pacific Palisades wildfire, said officials.

Although there are no official figures for how many buildings have so far been destroyed, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, had visited the scene of the blaze and said many homes had burned.

Staff were forced to hurriedly evacuate residents from a care centre close to the Eaton fire in Altadena.

They had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a car park where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.

Pictures showed the residents being treated on the streets and being pushed into waiting buses as evacuations took place.

Elderly patients are evacuated into emergency vehicles during the Eaton fire in Pasadena

ETHAN SWOPE/AP

JOSH EDELSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The flames are being pushed by strong winds topping 60 mph (97 kph) in some places.

Forecasters warned that the winds are expected to increase in the next few hours, producing isolated gusts that could top 100 mph (160 kph), including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months, increasing the likelihood that the fires will spread further.

The situation has prompted the Los Angeles Fire Department to take the rare step of putting out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help. It has also been too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly.

Officials have asked off-duty firefighters to help out

ETHAN SWOPE/AP

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection say at least 3,015 acres have been burned by the wildfires.

Officials say there are least three separate blazes, one in the Pacific Palisades area, which is home to Hollywood stars. A second blaze is raging inland close to Pasadena and has been called the Eaton Fire.

The third, the Hurst Fire, is in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles.

The Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles is among the areas affected

ETHAN SWOPE/AP