A rapidly growing wildfire in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest above Sylmar and Lake View Terrace has jumped the 210 Freeway on its way to destroying 30 homes, injuring two firefighters and scorching 11,000 acres Tuesday, authorities said.

Driven by powerful Santa Ana winds, the Creek fire broke out off Little Tujunga Canyon Road about 4 a.m. and threatened homes on both sides of the 210 Freeway.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a state of emergency for the city and said 110,000 to 150,000 people were evacuated from the area as Santa Ana winds drove flames down into the San Fernando Valley.

“We want to be really clear with folks. We have lost structures — we have not lost lives. Do not wait, leave your homes,” Garcetti said. “We are erring on a side of abundance of caution for those evacuations because this wind could pick up and go a different direction. We simply don’t know what this fire will do.”


The California Highway Patrol closed the freeway in both directions between the 5 and 2 freeways before noon, and officials said it may not reopen until Wednesday morning. More than a dozen area schools were also expected to be closed, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said.

The blaze was 0% contained Tuesday, and more than 20 square miles of residential property had been evacuated. The fire jumped the 210 Freeway and burned in Shadow Hills, where residents scrambled to evacuate hundreds of horses, packs of alpacas and other four-legged animals. About 20 of the 30 homes burned were in Little Tujunga, Kagel and Lopez canyons, officials said.

1 / 41 Virginia Padilla, left, who lost 29 horses at her Padilla Ranch on Little Tujunga Road is comforted by horse trainer Shelby Hope. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 41 Maria Kirkland, right, waves and calls for her husband who walked down a canyon to check on their home in Indian Springs Ranch. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 41 Gail Thackeray is distraught over loss of her home and two horses after the Creek fire swept through Indian Springs Ranch. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 41 Smoke from the Creek fire hangs in the air above the San Fernando Valley as seen from the 14 Freeway Wednesday morning. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 41 Marinwood firefighter Brandon Selvitella knocks down smoldering embers on a hillside off Wentworth Street in Sunland-Tujunga. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 41 Oscar Martinez saddened by the death of 29 horses at Padilla Ranch. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 41 The Creek fire burns into the night in the Shadow Hills. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 41 A firefighter monitors the Creek fire as it burns a house inear the intersection of Johanna Avenue and McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 41 A home and cars in the path of the Creek fire are engulfed in flames near the intersection of Johanna Avenue and McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 41 A structure burns on McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 41 Judy Hofmann-Sanders can only watch as her home is consumed by the Creek fire along McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 41 A structure burns on McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 41 Firefighters battle the Creek Fire as it burns near a church along Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 41 A vehicle is engulfed in flames as the Creek Fire burns near the intersection of Johanna Avenue and McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 41 Jessica Farrell evacuates her mother’s dog Hazel as the Creek fire threatened homes at the end of Esko Avenue in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 41 A firefighter battles a blaze on McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 41 A structure burns on McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 41 The sun peers through a bank of smoke from the Creek Fire in Sunland. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 41 Firefighters hit hotspots while trying to save homes along Hillrose Street from the Creek fire in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 41 Ziggy Hosn hits hot spots on his brother’s property along La Canada Way in Sunland. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 41 Jarrald Ingram, 33, hits hot spots where embers from the Creek Fire were threatening homes along along Bengal Street in Sunland on December 5, 2017. Ingram, who lives in downtown Los Angeles, was trying to make his way to his father’s home and couldn’t get there because of a police barricade. He decided to help defend the homes in the area with a garden hose. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 41 A firefighter stands next to a house that’s completely engulfed in flames in the Creek fire along Hillrose Street in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 41 A structure burns on McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 41 LAPD officers evacuate a pair of horses as the Creek Fire burns along Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 41 A structure burns the path of the Creek Fire near the intersection of Johanna Avenue and McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 41 Judy Hofmann-Sanders survey’s the area after her home was consumed by the Creek fire along McBroom Street in Shadow Hills. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 41 Smoke from the Rye fire obscures Interstate 5 near Magic Mountain (lower right) in Santa Clarita. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 41 Gina Donaldson evacuates her horse as the Creek fire bears down on Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 41 Firefighters try to stop a portion of the Creek fire from jumping the 210 Freeway in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 41 Peter Hernandez waters down the roof of a friend’s house as the Creek fire approaches in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 41 Caltrans workers move cones against a backdrop of the Creek fire along Wheatland Avenue in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 41 Two firefighters confront flames along Kagel Canyon Street in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 41 A woman evacuates her horse as the Creek fire bears down on Foothill Boulevard in Sylmar. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 41 Firefighters try to control a pile of railroad ties and a trailer burning to protect the structure near Dexter County Park in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 41 Firefighters try to control a pile of railroad ties and a trailer burning to protect the structure near Dexter County Park in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 41 A fireman keeps an eye on surrounding structure near a smoldering tree in Kagel Canyon in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 41 Firefighters try to control a pile of railroad ties and a trailer burning to protect the structure near Dexter County Park in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 41 A horse that got spooked by flames and fell behind a structure is rescued from the fast-approaching Creek fire in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 41 An early morning brush fire that broke out in the Kagel Canyon area above Sylmar on Tuesday charred thousands of acres and damaged homes. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 41 Alex Grigoryants uses a hose to protect his home, located on Kagel Canyon Street in Lake View Terrace, from the Creek fire. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 41 A firefighter climbs a hill to confront flames along Kagel Canyon Street in Lake View Terrace. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Judy Hofman-Sanders, 63, stood in front of her home in the 9900 block of McBroom Street in Shadow Hills south of the 210 Freeway on Tuesday afternoon as it was engulfed in flames.


She said she was in shock and struggled to describe what she was feeling. She and her husband were dropping off belongings where they planned to stay for the night when their home for the last 10 years started to burn.

“The fire was in Sylmar, 15 miles away,” Hofman-Sanders said. “We came over to get another load, and within half an hour, the wind…. It’s like Armageddon.”

Elsewhere at the blaze, a firefighter was injured and was listed in stable condition after a bulldozer he was operating rolled over. A second firefighter was burned when a propane tank exploded, Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said.

“Our people are working hard. They know our mission to protect life and property is critical,” Terrazas said.


At a morning briefing, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said the conditions were challenging for crews.

Behind him, trees swayed as the winds whipped across the landscape.

“We’re in an extreme firefight,” the chief said. “We had a very warm, dry summer, our fuels are at critical levels, and they’re very explosive, as you can see right now.”

There are more than 800 firefighters battling the blaze and more than 50 fire engines within Sylmar’s neighborhoods, officials said. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told residents that if they’re in the evacuation zone, they need to leave.


“This will not be the only fire,” Beck said. “We’re going to be hard-pressed to meet all the resources throughout the city and the county of Los Angeles due to this weather event, and if you stay in your homes, you cause our resources to be diverted to take care of you.”

The department was on a citywide tactical alert to ensure full staffing because of the fire, officials said.

A neighbor woke Wood Grigsby up about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Grigsby has lived in upper Kagel Canyon for 12 years.

“I came outside, and we were surrounded pretty much on all sides by fire,” Grigsby said.


He said his house is well-defended against fire — he clears the brush, has gravel and there isn’t much to burn close to him. But he and his son did take furniture in from the porch and grabbed shovels to put out little fires burning in the grass and fields of his neighbor’s house.

His neighbor’s house, about 180 feet up the mountain from him, burned, which worried him.

Sources: L.A. County Fire Department, Mapzen, OpenStreetMap (Raoul Ranoa/@latimesgraphics )

“By the time the Fire Department got there, it was completely engulfed in flames,” he said. “The wind would change ... and when it did that, it would blow up a bunch of embers into the air. It’s very dramatic looking in the dark to see those embers coming by in a tornado-like fashion and just dropping all over my property.”


He and his son stayed outside for about three hours putting out the embers to make sure they didn’t start fires on his property or neighbors’ lots.

“The Fire Department was just stretched so thin. When you get a big fire going like this, there’s only so much we can do. So my son and I were out there with our little shovels, helping as much as we could.”

Grigsby said he was unaware of any mandatory evacuations. The Fire Department checked in on them, he said, and they just told him to be careful.

About five miles from the incident’s command post, evacuated families took shelter at the Sylmar Recreation Center. There were 30 to 50 people there before noon.


Scott Wells sat with his wife and son in the center’s gym between the basketball hoops, waiting to learn when he might be able to go home. When Wells woke up in the predawn hours in his home in upper Kagel Canyon, he smelled the smoke.

When he looked outside, there was brush burning all around. He woke his wife, Patricia Beckmann Wells, and the two began putting out spot fires.

“It was pretty scary,” Wells said. “It was all around us.”

When their 5-year-old son, Petey, woke up and smelled smoke, “he got a little freaked out,” Wells said. “But we talked him down.… And then he was fine.”


The Fire Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department later came and asked them to evacuate. “There were houses on fire,” Wells said.

He said they’ve been monitoring a Facebook group for the canyon, and they’ve been told their house is fine. He said there are at least two houses they know that are gone and they’ve heard of more.

Wood Grigsby, who lives in upper Kagel Canyon, also sent me this video he took around 5:30 this morning. #CreekFire pic.twitter.com/7ZNr3P1FM7 — Brittny Mejia (@brittny_mejia) December 5, 2017

The Santa Ana winds are expected to linger through at least Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.


The blaze comes as other firefighters are dealing with a fast-moving, wind-driven wildfire that has swept into the city of Ventura, burned 50,000 acres, destroyed homes and forced 27,000 people to evacuate. About 150 structures — including at least one large apartment complex — were consumed by flames, and many more were threatened as the fire crept about a quarter-mile from Ventura City Hall.

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The South Coast Air Quality Management District cautioned residents in the San Fernando Valley and northwest coastal areas of L.A. County to stay indoors and avoid areas with visible smoke because of unhealthy air quality.

“It is difficult to tell where ash or soot from a fire will go, or how winds will affect the level of dust particles in the air, so we ask all individuals to be aware of their immediate environment and to take actions to safeguard their health,” Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, interim health officer for Los Angeles County, said in a statement. “Smoke and ash can be harmful to health, especially in vulnerable individuals, like the elderly, people with asthma or individuals with other respiratory and heart conditions.”

UPDATES:


6:05 p.m.: This article was updated with the number of structures destroyed.

4:15 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from a Shadow Hills resident.

1:40 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from the LAFD chief.

1:15 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from residents.


11:35 a.m.: This article was updated with additional evacuations and freeway closures.

10:05 a.m.: This article was updated with a revised estimate of acreage burned and comments from officials.

9:15 a.m.: This article was updated with a revised estimate of acreage burned and comments from firefighters.

7 a.m.: This article was updated with a revised estimate of acreage burned and evacuation zones.


5:05 a.m.: This article was updated with a revised estimate of acreage burned.

This article was originally published at 4:55 a.m.