The Pacific Palisades fire started on Tuesday morning, whipping through neighborhoods and downtown, destroying gas stations, a shopping mall, and a grocery. "Never in 20 years have I seen anything like this," said John Safier.

Wildfires tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force Wednesday after setting off a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke. The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot.