Firefighters have stopped a new 40-acre brush fire from spreading early Thursday morning near Interstate 405, the Getty Museum and Bellaire in Los Angeles, officials said.
The Los Angeles Fire Department issued an evacuation warning after a fire called the Sepulveda Fire broke out in Sepulveda Pass late Wednesday night. The fire department canceled the warning hours later. “Air support and other aggressive operations have been deployed to combat the new fire east of Highway 405,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
On social media, people posted photos and videos of drivers stopping along the road to capture the blaze. Route 405 is the busiest highway in the country.
In 2017, a devastating fire broke out in the same area, the Skirball Fire, which burned 475 acres and destroyed several mansions, including one owned by Rupert Murdoch.
The Sepulveda fire added more anxiety to the city, and the Palisades and Eaton fires are still burning two weeks later, destroying entire communities and killing at least 27 people.
Amid continued dangerous fire conditions in the region, another fire — the Hughes Fire — broke out Wednesday and quickly spread to more than 10,000 acres near Santa Clarita, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The fires forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate and temporarily closed several schools and businesses.
The Los Angeles area is expected to experience lower humidity and drier desert winds Thursday that will fuel fires, with winds expected to peak around 9 a.m., according to the National Weather Service. Weather patterns are expected to change over the weekend, with some rainfall possible in Los Angeles, the service said.
Nazanin Ghaffar Contributed reporting.
