Australian reality TV star caught in LA fires forced to drive into the inferno to save her friend amid evacuation order

An Australian reality TV star has been caught up in the Los Angeles fire as celebrity-packed districts are forced to evacuate their homes.

Bryanna Reynolds, 32, who shot to fame in 2021 on Beauty and the Geek, was sitting on her couch in Studio City on Wednesday when she was hit with a news alert.

The Hollywood Hills went up in flames and Reynolds had to act quickly to help her friend, just minutes away in Runyon Canyon, she said. 9news.com.au.

“When the alarm came on our phone about the Hollywood Hills fire, there was pandemonium. Cars started speeding and honking and it immediately felt unsafe,” she said.

“You saw the black and red smoke coming through the city from multiple fires and it was like witnessing something out of an apocalypse movie.”

Despite watching her neighborhood catch fire, Reynolds braved wild traffic to save her friend who had been ordered to evacuate but did not have a car.

Reynolds said the scenes she encountered along the way as people fled the wildfires that had ravaged Los Angeles for days were the most “terrifying” she had ever seen.

“The traffic was complete chaos and there was a moment where we wondered if the gridlocked traffic would move, and if it didn’t we would have to run over.”

She added that “the streets of Hollywood Boulevard were filled with people evacuating Hollywood hotels as the hills burned in the background.”

Reynolds, who is now a reality TV producer, managed to get her friend back to her apartment in Studio City, the neighborhood she has called home for the past five years.

But when news broke that an over-the-hill fire had reached her local neighborhood, the friends fled with their most important possessions.

After staying awake for hours following the news, the friends packed their credit cards, passports, cash, important documents and some clean clothes.

As of Saturday, Reynolds’ home was unaffected by the fires, but she still faces uncertainty about where she will return when the fires finally die out.

Thousands of Los Angeles residents fled their homes on Sunday as the deadly Palisades Fire threatens to engulf two more neighborhoods.

New evacuation orders were issued as flames threatened the celebrity-studded areas of Brentwood and Mandeville Canyon.

Footage from earlier today shows at least one house on fire in the canyon and huge clouds of smoke billowing near Sepulveda Pass off Highway 405.

As thousands of residents in the City of Angels continue to evacuate, multiple drivers on Sunset Boulevard, located south of Mandeville Canyon, have reported being stuck in a gridlock.

A woman in distress was stuck in stationary traffic for two hours as she headed to a fire station to drop off donated goods to the fire brigade. ABC.

“When I first got here, there was something visible, a little patch of blue sky, and it has unfolded into absolutely ugly,” she told the publication.

Firefighters and helicopters have also been seen circling the area, creating huge water drops as the 22,660-hectare fire continued to spread.

The infernal flames have already claimed the lives of around 11 people as they set fire to more than 37,000 hectares of land and destroyed 12,000 structures in their wake.

Officials say at least 13 people are still missing.

In total, approximately 153,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders and approximately 57,000 buildings remain at risk.

Several exits to the 405 Freeway, including Getty Center Drive, Skirball Center Drive, Sunset, Wilshire, Santa Monica and Olympic boulevards, are closed to reduce traffic in the West Los Angeles area.

According to state authority Cal Fire, there are currently at least six fires burning, with the Palisades fire being the largest.

The spread of the flames has forced thousands of others to evacuate from their homes in the upscale suburbs of Brentwood and Encino, where several celebrities, including LeBron James, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kamala Harris, own homes.

‘I pray this nightmare ends soon! So many prayers,” James, who bought his lavish Brentwood pad for $23 million in 2017, tweeted overnight.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Brentwood mansion is also under threat as LA authorities overnight declared a county-wide local health emergency due to poor air quality.

LA County Public Health issued a public health order, stating that the fires had “severely deteriorated air quality,” posing “immediate and long-term risks to public health.”

As planes continue to drop fire retardant into Mandeville Canyon, aiming to create a defensive barrier around homes, federal agents continue to search for fire starters.

Earlier this morning, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell announced that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will take the lead in investigating the exact cause of the fires.

The ATF will serve as the lead agency of a newly formed Los Angeles Regional Wildfire Investigative Task Force – a team of local, state and federal agencies that will “investigate the cause of these fires and see if there is a connection between these fires.”

“They have enormous resources and expertise and can bring in resources from across the country to conduct their research.

“So we’re very grateful for them and their resources,” the chief said.

The National Weather Service has warned that locally strong Santa Ana winds — the nemesis of firefighters — could return soon.

These winds have been blamed for turning forest fires into infernos that completely razed them to the ground neighborhoods in the LA area, where there has been more than no significant rainfall eight months.