'We have lost everything': Despair in the Los Angeles fires

by Sébastien VUAGNAT

Homes reduced to ashes, businesses in flames, and in the midst of the devastation, haggard residents: the California city of Altadena, ravaged Wednesday by a violent fire, looked like an area that has just been bombed.

"This was our home," William Gonzales told AFP, pointing to smouldering ruins where only embers and a chimney remain.

"We have lost practically everything," he sighed. "The flames have consumed all our dreams."

Swathes of the Los Angeles area have been ravaged since Tuesday by violent fires that have killed at least five people.

More than 100,000 people have been told to flee their homes in the face of flames and violent winds that have gusted up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.

In Altadena, behind the mountains north of Los Angeles, firefighters have been overwhelmed by the scale of a blaze that has already destroyed around 500 buildings, including many homes.

On Wednesday, the streets were filled with ash, with buildings everywhere in flames.

AFP met a shopkeeper in his sixties who was crying in front of the ruins of his liquor store.

"This was my whole life," he sobbed.

A dazed Jesus Hernandez said he did not know if his parents would be compensated for their $1.3 million house.

"Hopefully the insurance can pay for most of it, if not, then we're going to have to stay with friends or someone," he said.

- Water cut -

Fires have sprouted all over the Los Angeles area in little more than 24 hours, with the latest breaking out in the Hollywood Hills, mere yards (meters) from storied Hollywood Boulevard.

Vicious winds have flung embers up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers), sparking new spot fires faster than firefighters can quell them.

The Santa Ana winds that are currently blowing are a classic part of Californian autumns and winters.

But this week, they have reached an intensity not seen since 2011, according to meteorologists.

That has combined with tinder dry countryside to create the perfect fire storm -- and a nightmare for firefighters who have also struggled with water supplies.

In the Pacific Palisades fire, hydrants stopped working after massive storage tanks ran dry.

David Stewart said he was not prepared to just surrender his neighborhood to the flames.

"The county turned off our water supply so we're out there with shovels throwing dirt on fires," he told AFP.

"We saved I think three neighbors' houses so far but the fires are still moving towards our house."

He struggled to make sense of the area he has lived his whole life.

"This was a just a little antique shop, a pizza place. These places have been here forever, ever since I've been alive."

A fretful Jesse Banks was trying to make contact with his son, who had fled the flames earlier in the day.

"My son left the house before us on foot, he doesn't have a cell phone or anything like that, so I'm searching for him now," he said.

"I've lived in this area for over 20 years and we've seen fires in the mountains and the hills and that, but never anything like this."

The fight is far from over.

Wind speeds were expected to moderate, but a Red Flag warning -- alerting residents to high fire risk -- was set to remain in place until Friday evening.

Amid the catastrophe, scientists' warnings, which regularly remind us that humanity's dependence on fossil fuels is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events, are being felt in the flesh.

"It's probably climate change affecting everything," said shop owner Debbie Collins.

"I'm sure it's added to it, made this happen. The world's just in a really bad place and we need to do more."

© Agence France-Presse