• A wildfire has broken out in Los Angeles and is raging through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
• "Star Wars" actor Mark Hamill was among the 30,000 people in LA evacuated from their homes.
• The average house price in the northern LA area is $4.5 million.

A wildfire in Los Angeles is tearing through the Pacific Palisades area, which is home to A-list actors including Ben Affleck — who bought his $20.5 million mansion there last July.

Other A-listers such as Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Keaton, Adam Sandler, Miles Teller, and Eugene Levy also live in the Palisades.

The area is situated in northern LA, where the average house price is $4.5 million, per Realtor.com.

The fire started on Tuesday in the Palisades before spreading west toward the Malibu stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway. On Wednesday, the city of Malibu issued a statement on X advising residents to prepare to evacuate.

Among the at least 30,000 LA residents asked to evacuate their homes due to the fire was "Star Wars" actor Mark Hamill. He said on Instagram that he had left his Malibu home on Tuesday with Marilou, his wife, and their dog, Trixie. He described it as the "most horrific fire since '93."

He said: "Evacuated Malibu so last-minute there were small fires on both sides of the road as we approached PCH."

On Wednesday morning, "Halloween" star Jamie Lee Curtis assured fans on Instagram that she was safe, but said that her home in west LA might not be.

She wrote: "My community and possibly my home is on fire. My family is safe. Many of my friends will lose their homes. Many other communities as well. There are so many conflicting reports. With all the technology there seems to be very little information. Please post facts! It will help those wondering!"

Oscar-nominated actor James Woods said on X that he and his family safely evacuated from the Palisades, but he didn't know if his home "is still standing."

On Tuesday, TMZ reported that Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, stars of "The Hills," lost their home in the fire after they were evacuated from the area.

The Palisades Charter High School also burned down, per The Hollywood Reporter. The campus was used for films including "Carrie," "Freaky Friday," "Project X," and MTV's "Teen Wolf" TV series.

Premieres for "Wolf Man" and "Unstoppable," which were due to happen on Tuesday, were canceled.

In 2023, the University of California, Irvine, found that California's wildfires have worsened each year over the past two decades.

The fire that started on Tuesday quickly spread due to the Santa Ana winds, which created up to 80-mile-per-hour gusts. The drought in Southern California also exacerbated the situation, creating dangerously dry conditions.

In 2018, Kim Kardashian and her ex-husband Kanye West were criticized by fans for hiring private firefighters to protect their $60 million home in the Hidden Hills when the Woolsey fire burned almost 100,000 acres of land.

• A major brush fire is making its way through the Pacific Palisades and looks set to get stronger.
• The Palisades Fire had burned over 5,000 acres at 0% containment as of 8 a.m. local time Wednesday.
• One climate scientist said it was the worst wildfire in Southern California since 2011.

Major fires blazing across thousands of acres in Southern California have claimed two lives, officials said Wednesday.

Two civilians died as a result of the Eaton fire burning near Pasadena, to the northeast of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

Multiple blazes in the area have injured residents and destroyed hundreds of structures, Marrone said at a press conference Wednesday morning. None of them were contained, and the cause of the fires was unknown, he said.

The largest of four active fires in Los Angeles County, the Palisades Fire, had burned 1,000 structures, including homes, as of Wednesday morning local time. It has threatened tens of thousands more homes int he affluent communityand forced people to flee on foot amid traffic jams, according to KNBC.

The Palisades Fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, and quickly spread.

It had burned over 5,000 acres at 0% containment as of 8:00 a.m. local time Wednesday, officials said.

Evacuation orders and warnings have also been issued for two further fires. The Hurst fire, in the north of the region, covered over 500 acres, and the Eaton fire, in the north-east, covered over 2,200 acres, both as of 9.30 a.m. local time.

The fires forced some Los Angeles-area landmarks to close, including the Hollywood sign and the Los Angeles Zoo. Even miles from the fires in South Los Angeles, smoke reduced visibility to just one block, officials said.

High winds kept firefighters from dropping water on the fires, though officials said that they hoped to resume the drops as winds calm down later Wednesday.

Police also made some arrests for looting as some people tried to steal in the areas affected by the fires, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at Wednesday morning's press conference.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, said in a BlueSky post on Tuesday that it was the worst wildfire in Southern California since 2011.

The National Weather Service said that "extreme" fire weather conditions were set to continue until mid-afternoon Wednesday.

Almost 33,000 residents have been ordered to evacuate, while residents not under an evacuation order, such as in the coastal city of Malibu, which is home to many celebrities, were told by city officials to prepare to leave.

More than 377,000 Californians were out of power as of 8:39 a.m. local time, according to a tracking site.

As of 9 a.m., electricity provider Southern California Edison said that it had cut power to more than 35,000 homes and was considering cuts to a further 121,345 "due to heightened wildfire risk" in Los Angeles County.

The cause of the fires is still being investigated.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley said earlier more than 25,700 people were threatened by the fire, as well as around 10,367 homes and 13,208 structures.

The median home price in Pacific Palisades, an affluent area, was $3.2 million as of November, according to Redfin.

Crowley said the fire was being fueled by strong winds and the surrounding topography, which were "making it extremely challenging" for firefighters on the scene.

Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the area all the way down to the Pacific Ocean.

California's Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.

"There's no fire season, it's fire year," Newsom said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, noting other fires California has faced in recent months, including the Franklin and Mountain fires. "It's year-round."

In a post on X on Wednesday, Newsom said that 1,400 firefighters were involved, with more on their way.

During the press conference, Newsom encouraged residents to heed the evacuation orders. He also announced Tuesday that the state had secured federal assistance from FEMA to support the fire response. 

Live footage on ABC7 showed houses burning Tuesday afternoon.

The fire could spread further and grow stronger as extreme winds in the area are forecast to peak in the evening through Wednesday morning.

As winds pick up, humidity is set to decrease.

"Just about everything is going to get worse before it gets better," Swain, the UCLA scientist, said in a video update Tuesday afternoon.

Evacuees abandoned cars as traffic stalled

Palisades Drive, the major road out of the neighborhood, was packed with slow-moving lines of cars shortly after noon Tuesday, as people evacuated beneath a smoky haze and bright-orange flames licked the hillside in the distance, shown live on ABC7.

The state agency CalFire reported that the fire was on both sides of Palisades Drive.

ABC7 spoke to multiple people who were evacuating on foot, including some who had abandoned their cars on the road.

One resident told the news channel that "a whole bunch of neighbors" were stuck in their homes on Palisades Drive.

"This is apocalyptic. We've had small fires, nothing like this," they added.

Jonathan Vigliotti, a CBS News correspondent who was on the ground as a neighborhood went up in flames, said on X that there was "mass panic in the streets."

Historic windstorm is 'worst possible scenario'

Officials have not yet determined how the fire started, but it erupted during a high-risk major windstorm that created extreme fire conditions in the area.

Warm, dry Santa Ana winds from the deserts of Nevada and Utah were expected to bring gusts up to 100 mph to Southern California through Wednesday morning.

The National Weather Service called the windstorm "life-threatening and destructive" and warned that these could be the strongest north winds in 14 years.

With low humidity and dry vegetation in the region, the winds created a perfect storm for fire ignition.

The NWS urged residents to be ready to evacuate, as such winds can rapidly spread any fire that breaks out.

"This is pretty much the worst possible scenario for a firefight," David Ortiz of the LAFD told local news station KTLA.