MALIBU, California — Cooler temperatures, calmer winds and a chance of rain this week in Southern California are forecast to help firefighters battle a wind-driven blaze on steep, rugged terrain that has drawn thousands, including celebrities. from their homes in Malibu.
The weather improved so much Wednesday that meteorologists said all red flag warnings, which indicate high fire danger conditions and the infamous Santa Ana winds, have been halted. The conditions allowed firefighters to have “great success” despite the nearly inaccessible terrain, CalFire Assistant Chief Dusty Martin said.
Still, about 20,000 residents remained under evacuation orders and warnings Wednesday evening due to the fire. called the Franklin Fireof which only 7% covers more than 16 square kilometers.
It is unclear how the fire started. Officials said nine structures had been destroyed and at least six others damaged, although crews had examined only about 25% of the affected area, said Deputy Chief Albert Yanagisawa of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Much of the destruction occurred in Malibu, a community of about 10,000 people on the western edge of Los Angeles known for its stunning cliffs and Zuma Beach, which has featured in many Hollywood films.
Flames burned near horse farms, celebrity mansions on the coast and Pepperdine University, where students had to go into hiding on campus for a second night on Tuesday.
Faculty members are determining how best to complete the semester, which ends this week at Pepperdine. Final exams were postponed or canceled depending on the class, university spokesman Michael Friel said. An early analysis showed little to no damage to structures on campus, the university said.
Lonnie Vidaurri’s four-bedroom home in the Malibu Knolls neighborhood is among the destroyed homes. After evacuating to a hotel in Santa Monica with his wife and two young daughters, a neighbor called to tell Vidaurri that firefighters would have to break into his home.
“It’s pretty burned everywhere,” Vidaurri said. He expects that the family’s bunnies did not survive the fire and that they lost most of their belongings. “My girls were crying, of course, but it could have been worse.”
Mimi Teller, a Red Cross spokesperson who worked in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, said many people arrived in their pajamas and were “absolutely in shock.”
“Nobody even had a backpack, it was, ‘Get out now,’” Teller said. “One lady didn’t even have a leash for her dog, she just picked it up.”
Shawn Smith said he was sleeping early Tuesday when someone knocked on his camper at 3 a.m. to wake him up to evacuate the Malibu RV Park.
“You could see the fires coming in, across the divide,” he said. “It was like, ‘Holy crap, this is real.’”
He returned Wednesday to find the RV park had been saved; firefighters stopped the flames just before entering the area.
“We were lucky,” he said.
Dick Van Dyke, one of several celebrities with homes in Malibu, said in a Facebook post that he and his wife, Arlene Silver, evacuated when the fire broke out. And Cher has been ordered evacuated from her Malibu home and is staying in a hotel. her publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said Tuesday.
The fire broke out shortly before 11 p.m. Monday and quickly moved south, jumping the famed Pacific Coast Highway and stretching all the way to the ocean. It was propelled by Santa Ana windwith wind gusts reaching 40 mph (64 km per hour). Santa Anas are notorious seasonal winds that blow dry air from inland to the coast, pushing back moist ocean breezes.
Alec Gellis stayed behind Monday evening to save his home in Malibu’s Serra Retreat neighborhood from the flames. He used pumps in the home’s swimming pool to spray water over the house and surrounding vegetation, turning the lush area “into a rainforest.”
Gellis said there were flames on all sides within 5 feet of the house. “The entire canyon was completely illuminated.”
Utilities are preemptively turning off power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. from Monday eveningUnpleasant mitigate the consequences of the Santa Ana winds, whose strong gusts can damage electrical equipment and start wildfires.
As of Wednesday afternoon, there was still no electricity for about 600 Edison customers in Southern California, the majority of them in Los Angeles County, utility spokesperson Gabriela Ornelas said.
“We have made significant progress,” she said.
Outages in Malibu are not included in that figure, Ornelas said. About 3,300 customers in the Malibu area were without power due to safety shutoffs and for fire department safety. Power was turned off for the first time to most customers in Malibu on Monday evening.
The Woolsey fire that swept through the area in 2018, killing three people and destroying 1,600 homes, was fueled by Edison equipment. When asked Wednesday whether Edison equipment was involved in the Franklin fire, Ornelas referred all questions about the cause to fire officials.
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Weber reported from Los Angeles and Aoun reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles; Amy Taxin in Orange County, California; Sarah Brumfield in Washington; and Eric Thayer, Damian Dovarganes and Jaimie Ding in Malibu, California, contributed to this report.