The Eaton fire in Altadena started near a nature preserve just before 6:30 p.m. The flames spread so rapidly that staff at a senior care center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot where they waited in their bedclothes for ambulances and other vehicles to take them to safety.

Thousands of people have been forced to flee after "unprecedented" Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires ravage Los Angeles County.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in Southern California to attend the naming of a national monument by President Joe Biden, made a detour to the canyon to see “firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers,” and he said he found “not a few — many structures already destroyed.”