An Australian reality TV star has been caught in the Los Angeles fire as celebrity-packed districts are forced to evacuate their homes.
Bryanna Reynolds, 32, who shot to fame on Beauty and the Geek in 2021, was sitting on her couch in Studio City when she was hit with a news warning on Wednesday.
The Hollywood Hills were going up in flames and Reynolds had to act fast to help her friend just a few minutes away in Runyon Canyon, she told 9news.com.au.
‘When the alert hit our phone about the Hollywood Hills fire, there was pandemonium. Cars began speeding, honking and immediately it felt unsafe,’ she said.
‘You could see the black and red smoke coming across the city from multiple fires and it was like witnessing something out of an apocalypse film.’
Despite watching her neighbourhood catch on fire, Reynolds braved the wild traffic to rescue her friend who was ordered to evacuate but didn’t have a vehicle.
Reynolds said the scenes she faced on the road as people fled the wildfires which had ravaged Los Angeles for days were the most ‘terrifying’ she had ever seen.
‘The traffic was in complete chaos and there was a moment where we wondered if the gridlock traffic would move, and if it didn’t we would have to make a run for it.’
She added that the ‘streets of Hollywood Boulevard were lined with people evacuating hotels in Hollywood as the hills burnt in the background’.
Reynolds, who is now a reality TV producer, was able to get her friend back to her apartment in Studio City, the district she has called home for the last five years.
But when the news broke that a blaze had made its way over the hill and into her local neighbourhood, the friends fled with their most important possessions.
After staying awake for hours to monitor the news, the friends packed up their credit cards, passports, cash, important documents and a few changes of clothes.
As of Saturday, Reynolds’ home was unaffected by the fires, but she remains in a state of uncertainty about what she will return to when the fires finally die out.
Thousands more Los Angeles residents fled their homes on Sunday as the deadly Palisades Fire threatens to engulf two more neighbourhoods.
Fresh evacuation orders were issued as the flames threatened the celebrity-studded Brentwood and Mandeville Canyon areas.
Footage from earlier today shows at least one house ablaze in the canyon and massive clouds of smoke billowing near Sepulveda Pass at Highway 405.
As thousands of residents in the City of Angels continue to evacuate, multiple drivers on Sunset Boulevard, located south of Mandeville Canyon, have reported being stuck in a gridlock.
One distressed woman remained stuck in unmoving traffic for two hours while heading toward a fire station to drop off donated goods for firefighters, according to ABC.
‘There was a visibility when I first got here, a little bit of blue sky, and it has unfolded to absolutely ugliness,’ she told the publication.
Firefighters and helicopters have also been seen circling the area and making massive water drops as the 22,660-acre fire continues to spread.
The hellish flames have already claimed the lives of about 11 people while burning over 37,000 acres of land and destroying 12,000 structures in its wake.
At least 13 people remain missing, according to officials.
In total, about 153,000 residents are under mandatory evacuation orders and about 57,000 structures remain at risk.
Several off-ramps to the 405 Freeway including Getty Center Drive, Skirball Center Drive, Sunset, Wilshire, Santa Monica and Olympic boulevards have been closed in order to limit traffic in the West Los Angeles area.
According to state authority Cal Fire, there are at least six fires currently burning, with the Palisades fire being the largest.
The spread of flames has forced thousands more to evacuate from their homes in the upscale Brentwood and Encino suburbs where several celebrities, such as LeBron James, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kamala Harris, own homes.
‘I pray this nightmare ends soon! So many prayers’, James, who purchased his lavish Brentwood pad in 2017 for $23 million, tweeted over night.
Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Brentwood mansion is also under threat as LA authorities declared a local health emergency over night for the whole county due to poor air quality.
LA County Public Health issued a public health order, stating that the fires had ‘severely degraded air quality’ that poses ‘immediate and long-term risks to public health’.
As airplanes continue dropping fire retardant in Mandeville Canyon, aiming to create a defensive barrier around homes, federal agents remain on the lookout for fire starters.
Earlier this morning, Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell announced that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be taking the lead in investigating the exact cause of the fires.
The ATF will serve as lead agency of a newly formed Los Angeles Regional Wildfire Investigative Task Force—a team of local, state and federal agencies that will ‘investigate the cause of these fires and to see if there’s any connection between them.’
‘They have tremendous resources and expertise and can bring in resources from across the country to do their investigation.
‘So we’re very thankful for them and their resources,’ the Chief said.
The National Weather Service has warned that locally strong Santa Ana winds – the nemesis of firefighters – could soon return.
Those winds have been blamed for turning wildfires into infernos that levelled entire neighbourhoods in the LA area, where there has been no significant rainfall in more than eight months.
