Dramatic imagery released by the US space technology company Maxar has revealed the immense scale of the fires across Los Angeles.
One image, captured using infrared technology to detect heat signatures, shows a large blaze immediately to the north-west of the coastal neighbourhood of Pacific Palisades. The Palisades fire has now grown to more than 17,200 acres.
Another infrared image captured around 25 miles (40km) to the north-east shows fires engulfing residential areas of Altadena, near Pasadena. The Eaton fire, the second biggest, has since burned at least 10,600 acres.
Before and after pictures show businesses completely devastated by the Palisades blaze. Buildings have been burned to their bones as what is expected to be the most destructive fire to hit Los Angeles continues to tear unabated through the suburbs.
The Eaton fire has already claimed the lives of five people and has spread across more than 10,600 acres of land in California.
The intense wildfires have been difficult to tackle due to high winds, dry conditions and low water pressure.
Six wildfires are now raging across Los Angeles, with the two largest – Eaton and Palisades – still entirely uncontained, according to authorities.
Evacuation orders remain in place, with more than 137,000 people forced to evacuate across the city.
Sunset Boulevard, the famous strip that stretches for miles through Los Angeles, lies in ruins in the Palisades after fires tore through the thoroughfare, according to reports in the LA Times.
Local residents have described seeing banks, cafes and supermarkets they’ve frequented for decades completely destroyed.
Michael Payton, store director of the Erewhon supermarket chain, told the LA Times, external the shop, famous for its patronage by Los Angeles A-listers, had survived but that the area was levelled.
“The whole Palisades is done,” he said, “The whole town is done. This is complete devastation.”
The Sunset fire first broke out on Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills and now covers about 43 acres.
Footage of the fires across Los Angeles show the Sunset fire, which broke out in the Hollywood Hills where the famous Hollywood sign sits.
Mandatory evacuations were triggered by the fire on Wednesday evening causing traffic chaos on Hollywood Boulevard.
The fire weather outlook for southern California has now been downgraded from “extremely critical” to “critical”.
Winds speeds through Wednesday evening continued to gust widely between 40-60mph (64-97kmh), with isolated gusts over the hills between 70-85mph (113-137kmh).
We should have seen the peak of the highest gusts now, with wind speeds forecast to gradually weaken a little over the next few hours into Thursday morning. However, throughout Thursday, winds could strengthen again a little, with afternoon gusts of up to 40mph still affecting parts of Los Angeles. Humidity will remain low, too.
Although we’ve seen the worst of the Santa Ana winds, a red flag warning of critical fire weather remains in force until 18:00 local time Friday (02:00 GMT Saturday) for strong, gusty winds and low humidity.
Although temperatures may fall by a few degrees over the next few days, there is no rain in the forecast for at least the next week.
So despite a modest improvement in fire weather conditions, significant fire growth remains likely with ongoing or new fires.
