The fire broke out Thursday morning in Bel Air, east of Highway 405 in Sepulveda Pass.
The fire was burning uphill toward Sepulveda Fire Road. National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Hall said wind speeds in the area were about 8 to 15 mph, with gusts up to 25 mph. The air is very dry, with relative humidity ranging from 3% to 8%.
Multiple fire engines were dispatched. A firefighting helicopter was dropping water into the nearby Stone Canyon Reservoir to replenish it.
The paper’s first words were published just after 11pm on Wednesday, and it appears to have spread quickly, with the app Watch Duty sending out a push alert at 11:08pm. By 12:45 a.m. Thursday, the fire’s spread appeared to have slowed and the fire’s glow had dimmed significantly.
Evacuation warnings were issued for parts of Bel Air and Brentwood, including Mount St. Mary’s University, and for residences along Cassiano Road, Moraga Drive and Sharon Road. There are homes valued at more than $10 million along Moraga Drive, many with tennis courts.
A front desk employee at the Hotel Angeleno said 121 people were evacuated from the Hotel Angeleno due to the fire, which is located just across Highway 405 from the hotel.
Alexandria Sivak, a spokeswoman for the J. Paul Getty Trust, said in an email early Thursday morning that the Getty Center, south of the fire scene, had “fire prevention measures in place and updated information will be available soon.” We will continue to provide them as they become available,” he said in an email. The Getty Center is located across Route 405 from the new fire site.
The evacuation zone includes Moraga Bel Air Vineyards, owned by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch reportedly paid $30 million for the 16-acre property in 2013. According to the winery’s website, Moraga was the first commercial winery in Los Angeles to be bonded after Prohibition ended in 1933.
Murdoch is known to spend time at Moraga Bel Air Vineyards. He married his fifth wife, Russian molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, in Moraga last June.
This is not the first time a wildfire has occurred at the facility. Part of the vineyard was destroyed in the 2017 Skirball fire.
UCLA students expressed concern over news of the fire, which was visible from campus. UCLA is not in an evacuation zone.
“Well I’m so stressed out. It’s too late to get on a plane now and I haven’t even thought about where I’m going if I have to evacuate,” one Reddit user wrote.
“I know how you feel. I don’t even know how to sleep, I have a quiz tomorrow,” another user replied.
The Sepulveda fire occurred during a busy day for firefighters.
A massive fire broke out north of Castaic on Wednesday, scorching more than 10,000 acres and forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes amid a month of extreme fires that has plagued Southern California.
The Hughes Fire started just before 11 a.m. on Lake Hughes Road, and evacuation orders were immediately issued in and around Castaic Lake, but by the afternoon its area had expanded to near Ventura County to the west and Sandburg to the north. It has spread to More than 31,000 people were ordered to evacuate and warnings were issued for another 23,000.
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