Online Reporter
LOS ANGELES. − The fires ripping through Los Angeles have escalated into the city’s worst natural disaster in decades.
Driven by hurricane-strength gusts, the flames tore up prosperous neighbourhoods, where the Hollywood rich and famous live, killed at least five people and forced more than 100,000 residents to flee.
President Joe Biden cancelled a planned trip to Italy to help monitor the fire that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called “the big one.”
Indeed, a preliminary estimate of the financial impact ranks the blazes among the costliest-ever natural disaster in the US.
The latest California blaze that erupted on Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills was threatening Los Angeles landmarks indelibly associated with the city’s glamour and the history of the American film industry.
The Sunset fire, which quickly grew to 50 acres, was burning out of control near Runyon Canyon, close to hiking trails and secluded mansions.
Encroaching on a densely populated part of metropolitan Los Angeles, the blaze has created a new level of fear in residents used to thinking about wildfires as a concern only for those who live in hilly communities.
It was less than a mile west of the Hollywood Bowl, which is one of the city’s biggest entertainment venues and is inside the mandatory evacuation zone set up after the Sunset fire broke out.
The Dolby Theatre, where the Academy Awards are held, the TCL Chinese Theatre and the Capital Records building are also in the zone.
The Hollywood sign is near the evacuation area, as is the Griffith Observatory.– Bloomberg/New York Times
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