'Get Out, Get Out Now'

The fire rose from the bone-dry hills, as so many others have, and then rapidly tore across the coast and hills of one of America's most famous cities-oblivious to the demographics of the lives it disrupted. It burned mansions in Malibu and low-income housing in Pasadena.

- By Jim Carlton and Sara Randazzo

And after more than a day, the reality was setting in that it isn't even close to over.

Paul Hirsch, 79 years old, felt this one was different. At his home perched above the ocean, the wind gusts were so much stronger this time. He scrambled to stow his collection of paintings in a fireproof vault at his home on Las Pulgas Place, in the Pacific Palisades area of L.A.'s west side. After an hour or so of emails and texts from others urging him to leave-as well as a ring on his doorbell-he and his wife, Jane, also 79, piled into their car Tuesday and headed down the hill toward what they thought would be an orderly evacuation route on Sunset Boulevard.

Ash rained down on their car and he could see flames next to the street as they wound their way through gridlock to the Pacific Coast Highway and on to refuge with relatives. In the commotion, Hirsch realized he had left something important behind: a tuxedo he was to wear to accept a lifetime achievement award Jan. 18 from the American Cinema Editors for his work as an Oscar-winning film editor.

"I guess I'll go in bluejeans or something," Hirsch said.

Multiple Los Angeles fires burning out of control are striking one of the most iconic swaths of the nation-including the Pacific Coast Highway, Sunset Boulevard and the route of the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena. Well-known, idyllic stretches of Malibu were decimated. Actor James Woods posted on social media that his neighbors' houses in the Palisades were burning, Ricki Lake said on Instagram that she lost her "dream home" overlooking Malibu, and "Star Wars" star Mark Hamill said in an Instagram post that he left Malibu as small fires burned on both sides of the road.