Residents of California are fleeing the forest fire, leaving their cars behind

Screaming Los Angeles residents abandoned their cars to escape a fast-moving wildfire closing in on the picturesque celebrity enclave, witnesses said, describing scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie.

Within hours Tuesday, the storm turned a seemingly typical brush fire into a raging inferno, sending flames toward the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

Thirty thousand people were ordered to evacuate as the fire engulfed the city’s western suburbs, quickly growing from 10 acres to several thousand.

Bordering Malibu, Pacific Palisades is a haven of hillside streets and winding roads set against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretching to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

But Pacific Coast Highway, the main route in or out, was quickly closed, causing many motorists to abandon their vehicles near Sunset Boulevard as the flames approached.

One resident, Marsha Horowitz, said firefighters told people to get out of their cars as the fire, fanned by gusts that sometimes reached 100 mph (160 km/h) in the mountains and foothills, approached.

“The fire was directly against the cars,” she said.

Another Pacific Palisades resident told ABC News she ran home from her job in Hollywood as soon as she heard about the evacuation.

Abandoning the car, she went home to grab her cat. As she ran to safety, pieces of burning palm fell on her.

“They hit me with palm leaves, I hit a car,” said the woman, who did not give her name.

“It’s terrible. It’s like a horror movie. I scream and cry as I walk down the street.’

Some evacuees described seeing houses burning as they fled.

Hollywood actor James Woods was among the celebrities forced out of their properties.

Actor Steve Guttenberg, also a Pacific Palisades resident, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys inside so the cars could be moved to make room for fire trucks.

“It’s not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA. “I have friends there and they can’t evacuate.”

Bulldozers later cleared the abandoned cars to open a route for emergency vehicles.

Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper, Tom Hanks, Reese Witherspoon, Adam Sandler and Michael Keaton also have homes in Pacific Palisades, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

People were fleeing a wildfire in the nearby Los Angeles suburb of Topanga Canyon, home to Ewan McGregor.

One resident, Melanie, told KTLA she tried to get out, but the path was engulfed in flames and she was forced to return home.

She was trying to take Palisades Drive to Pacific Coast Highway and said she had to make a “very quick U-turn because there were flames coming down the hill toward the road.”

“I would drive straight into the fire,” she said. “We’re stuck here. I can’t see the flames, but I know they’re there.”

Residents of Venice Beach, about 10 km from the city, also reported seeing flames.

Kelsey Trainor said ash was scattered all around as the fire jumped from one side of the road to the other.

“People were getting out of their cars with their dogs, babies and bags, they were crying and screaming,” she told the Associated Press.

“They just blocked the road, as if they blocked it completely for an hour.”

Ellen Delos-Bacher told the Los Angeles Times how she rushed from downtown Los Angeles to her home, where her 95-year-old mother and their two dogs live.

She also got stuck at Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive.

Ms. DeLache-Bacher described a fire that erupted behind a nearby Starbucks and police racing down the road, yelling at stranded motorists: “Save your lives!”

She left the car with the keys in the ignition and ran half a mile down to the beach.

“It’s like the apocalypse,” she said.