Strong winds drive wildfires across Los Angeles

California firefighters have battled wind-whipped wildfires that have torn across the Los Angeles area, destroying homes and clogging roadways as tens of thousands fled, straining resources as officials prepared for the situation to worsen.

The blaze that broke out on Tuesday evening in the foothills northeast of Los Angeles spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living centre had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a car park.

The residents waited in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

A blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighbourhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialised by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin’ USA”.

In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable, as scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.