• The Palisades and Eaton fires are devastating parts of Los Angeles, destroying entire communities.
• Photos offer a glimpse at the scale of destruction that occurred in just a day and a half.
• The situation is still ongoing and dangerous, with evacuation orders in many areas.

The Palisades and Eaton fires are ripping through parts of Los Angeles and causing mass destruction.

Firefighters are still struggling to contain the blazes, which grew rapidly and have continued for more than 24 hours.

The fires have destroyed at least 1,000 homes. Five people are reported dead. These counts are preliminary, as the situation is still dynamic.

It's difficult to grasp the scale of these fires, but emerging photos paint a grim picture.

The massive Palisades and Eaton fires ripping through Los Angeles show how quickly brush fires can escalate under dry, windy conditions.

More than 70,000 people were under evacuation orders on Wednesday afternoon. Officials have warned that people in many other surrounding regions should prepare to leave their homes at a moment's notice.

Pat Durland, a wildfire-mitigation specialist and instructor for the National Fire Protection Association with 30 years of federal wildfire management experience, told Business Insider that if he lived in the area, he would leave before evacuation orders even hit his home.

"I would have left and gone to the beach or gotten a hotel," he said.

A giant smoke plume was rising over Santa Monica within an hour of the Palisades Fire igniting Tuesday morning.

UC San Diego's ALERTCalifornia camera network captured it from the other side of Santa Monica. At that time the fire covered about 200 acres.

So many people had to evacuate that Palisades Drive was gridlocked.

Many people abandoned their cars and fled on foot.

Since then, the Palisades Fire has burned through more than 15,800 acres. This was the area with evacuation zones early Wednesday afternoon.

That's where the acreage stood at 2:30 p.m. PT on Wednesday. Throughout the morning it was increasing hour by hour.

The most up-to-date evacuation orders and warnings are available through CalFire.

Photos are emerging from areas where the Palisades Fire has burned its way through.

The Eaton Fire in nearby Pasadena also rapidly ballooned overnight and Wednesday morning.

The Eaton Fire covered 10,600 acres as of 1 p.m. PT on Wednesday.

Images from that area show a similar situation to Pacific Palisades: frantic evacuations and destroyed homes.

The smoke from the fires filled the Los Angeles area, darkening the skies and causing unhealthy air quality.

A powerful windstorm spread the flames quickly, sending embers flying and igniting new spots, even jumping across roads.

Hurricane-force winds peaked overnight and Wednesday morning, and firefighters were unable to contain the blazes.

"Despite the efforts we put in with well-trained firefighters and equipment and aircraft, the wind and the weather still are ruling these situations," Durland said of major, fast-moving fires like these.

Another ALERTCalifornia camera captured the rising smoke from a ridge on the other side of the fire about an hour after it started.

This was the view from the same trailhead Tuesday night. This camera has since gone offline.

Bone-dry vegetation provided abundant fire fuel due to a phenomenon called weather whiplash.

The last two winters in Southern California have been quite wet, even causing flooding. That led to an explosion of grasses and shrubs, nearly twice as much as a normal season, according to the UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

However, this winter has been different. Months without precipitation have dried out all that vegetation, blanketing the LA hillsides with fire fuel.

Grasses and shrubs help spread the fire, but it's "human fuels" that ignite homes, Durland said.

"It's bark mulch, it's ornamental grasses, it's structures that are readily flammable," Durland said.

"This is an urban fire. We're burning urban fuels," he added.

That means that cities and homeowners can do something about it. More fire-resistant landscaping and construction can help protect homes from future firestorms like this.

There are always houses that survive wildfires, Durland said, and everyone can learn from that.

It helps to build homes with ample space between them and maintain a perimeter of at least five feet that's totally free of dry or flammable vegetation or mulch.

Homeowners can also keep their roofs and gutters clear and remove anything flammable from underneath porches and decks.

The Palisades were full of multi-million-dollar homes, which means this could be the costliest fire in US history, Swain said.

According to a preliminary estimate from JP Morgan, insured losses alone could amount to $10 billion.

The Eaton fire, burning in Pasadena and Altadena, was at 0% containment as of Wednesday afternoon.

• SpaceX launched its Starship mega-rocket system on Tuesday for the sixth time.
• SpaceX didn't attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster by a pair of "chopsticks" mid-air as planned.
• Starship moving towards full, rapid reusability is key to Elon Musk's plans for Mars.

SpaceX launched its Starship mega-rocket for the sixth time on Tuesday, but the main event was canceled.

The space company successfully launched the 36-story-tall rocket system but ended up abandoning its plan to catch the Super Heavy booster upon its return to Earth with a giant pair of metal arms, nicknamed "chopsticks."

SpaceX achieved the major feat for the first time in October, during Starship's fifth test launch.

Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO, has said his plans of building a Mars city rests on Starship.

The Starship rocket system is the largest ever built, consisting of two stages: a Super Heavy booster at the bottom and a Starship on top.

On Tuesday, Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines roared to life, heaving Starship through the skies.

After about three minutes, Super Heavy released itself and fell back to Earth.

When the catch attempt was called off, the booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico nearly seven minutes after launch while Starship continued on toward space.

SpaceX officials said on the company's livestream that the catch wasn't attempted this time because "strict criteria were not met" and this was a known possibility before launch.

During Starship's fifth test flight in October, SpaceX successfully caught the Super Heavy booster with a giant pair of metal arms, nicknamed "chopsticks," that caught it before it reached the ground.

SpaceX's next major milestone for Starship

Ultimately, Starship is designed to be the first ever fully, rapidly reusable rocket.

SpaceX has been reusing its fleet of Falcon 9 rockets for years, but only the first stage returns for reuse, the second stage is discarded after each launch.

Moreover, the Falcon 9 first stage lands on a barge in the ocean and must be retrieved for reuse, which takes extra time.

Starship is different. Both its first-stage Super Heavy booster and second-stage Starship are designed to be rapidly reusable by returning to the launch site after lift-off.

This is SpaceX's North Star. If the company succeeds, it could make spaceflight 10 times cheaper, and, ultimately, help humanity achieve multi-planetary status.

SpaceX's next major goal is to prove it can consistently retrieve Super Heavy and also retrieve Starship — but that milestone remains for another day.

For this test launch, Starship splashed down in the Indian Ocean as expected about an hour and five minutes after launch.

During its flight in space, Starship fired one of its Raptor engines for the first time, proving a capability it will need during future launches to return and touch down on land.

SpaceX also chose to launch Starship in the afternoon this time instead of the early morning, so that it can better observe Starship's landing, The New York Times reported.

SpaceX and Musk are racking up wins

Despite SpaceX not catching Super Heavy on its return to Earth, the test launch is still another successful step toward making Starship viable for orbital flights, moon landings, and eventually long journeys to and from Mars.

Tuesday's flight came just one month after the Starship's fifth test flight. That's a rapid turnaround for such a major test.

Maintaining this fast pace will be critical to achieving Musk's latest goal of sending the first Starships to Mars in just two years.

Another notable development was that President-elect Donald Trump attended the Starship launch.

Ahead of the event, Trump announced on Truth Social that he'd be in attendance, writing, "Good luck to Elon Musk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project!"

Trump's presence indicates just how influential Musk may become in the next administration, which could be a boon for space exploration.