Harrowing television footage showed flames engulfing some of the multimillion dollar oceanside mansions in Pacific Palisades.
One resident who escaped likened the situation to a scene from a disaster movie.
The word “apocalyptic” – so often misused – is in my view entirely applicable.
Fires are burning out of control all around us, smoke covers the sky in all directions, and the emergency services are stretched to their very limit – running out of water and straining to respond to thousands of 911 calls.
Perhaps the most pitiful image was of elderly residents being evacuated from a convalescent home in the city of Altadena, where the Eaton fire currently spans more than 2,000 acres.
Frail and confused, they were rushed in wheelchairs to safety amid a flurry of burning embers in the depths of night.
Seasonal wildfires are nothing new here. But never in the 25 years that I have lived here in LA have I witnessed a situation so widespread, and so unpredictable.
Two lives have been lost, at least 1,000 buildings have been destroyed – along with many livelihoods – and the forecast suggests the worse is yet to come.
A city of 4 million people is now at the mercy of the weather.
It is – as one fire chief put it – a “widespread disaster”, and a tragic day in the history of America’s second largest city.