Homes burn in California as wind-driven wildfire prompts evacuations

Thousands of Southern California residents were under evacuation orders and warnings Tuesday as firefighters battled a wind-driven wildfire in Malibu that burned near seaside mansions and Pepperdine University, where students sheltering at the school’s library watched as the blaze intensified and the sky turned deep red.

A “minimal number” of homes burned, but the exact number wasn’t immediately known, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Anthony Marrone said. More than 8,100 homes and other structures were under threat, including more than 2,000 where residents have been ordered to evacuate. Some 6,000 more people were warned to be prepared to evacuate at a moment’s notice.

Ryan Song, a resident assistant at Pepperdine University, said he first noticed the power went out at his dorm late Monday and then looked out the window and saw a huge pink glow.

“I thought, ‘This is too bright,’ and it got bigger and bigger,” the 20-year-old junior said. “I immediately went outside and saw that it was a real fire.”

Song and the other resident assistants went door to door, evacuating students. Most were calm and followed instructions, he said; a few who were scared rushed to their cars to get off campus.

Song spent the next few hours racing back and forth in the dark between his dorm and the main campus to ensure no one was left behind as fire raged down a mountain, he said.

“It felt really close,” he said, adding he was probably less than a mile away. “Seeing the fire rampaging down the hill is obviously scary for students, but I felt like our staff was prepared.”

The university later said the worst of the fire had pushed past campus.

It was not immediately known how the blaze, named the Franklin Fire, started. County officials estimated that more than 9 square kilometers of trees and dry brush had burned. There was no containment.

The fire burned amid dangerous conditions because of notorious Santa Ana winds expected to last into Wednesday.

Marrone said at least a thousand firefighters would be scrambling to get a handle on the blaze before 2 p.m., when winds were expected to regain strength. “Time is of the essence for us to grab ahold of the fire and start getting some containment,” the chief said at a morning news conference.

The fire erupted shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday and swiftly moved south, jumping over the famous Pacific Coast Highway and extending all the way to the ocean, where large homes line the beach and inland canyons are notoriously fire prone. At one point, it threatened the historic Malibu Pier, but the structure was protected and is intact, officials said.

Pepperdine canceled classes and finals for the day and there was a shelter-in-place order on campus. Helicopters dropped water collected from lakes in the school’s Alumni Park onto the flames.

Firefighters with flashlights and hoses protected nearby homes overnight, ABC 7 reported. As the sun came up Tuesday, smoke billowed over the campus and the adjacent mountains that plunge toward the coast.

North to northeast winds were forecast to increase to 48 to 64 kph with gusts up to 105 kph expected, the National Weather Service’s office for Los Angeles posted on social media platform X.

Power to about 40,000 customers had been shut off by Monday night, including 11,000 in Los Angeles County, as Southern California Edison worked to mitigate the impacts of the Santa Ana winds, whose strong gusts can damage electrical equipment and spark wildfires. Email and phone messages were left with Edison inquiring whether electricity had been turned off in Malibu before the fire started.

The Woolsey Fire that roared through Malibu in 2018, killing three people and destroying 1,600 homes, was sparked by Edison equipment.

Santa Anas are dry, warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from the interior of Southern California toward the coast and offshore. They typically occur during the fall months and continue through winter and into early spring.