A fire was burning Thursday morning in the Bel-Air area east of the 405 Freeway at Sepulveda Pass.
The fire was burning uphill, toward Sepulveda Fire Road. National Weather Service meteorologist Todd Hall said winds in the area were 8 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. The air was very dry with humidity ranging from 3% to 8%.
Several fire engines were at the scene. Firefighting helicopters were dropping and refilling water at the nearby Stone Canyon Reservoir.
The fire was reported shortly after 11pm on Wednesday and spread rapidly. As of 12:50 a.m., the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported that the fire was 0% contained at 20 acres. At that point, TV footage appeared to show the fire receding and its glow fading.
Evacuation warnings were issued for parts of Bel-Air and Brentwood, including Mount St. Mary's University, as well as homes along Cassiano Road, Moraga Drive and Salon Road. Moraga Drive, a row of multimillion dollar homes, has several tennis courts.
The Hotel Angelino, across the 405 Freeway from the hotel, was evacuating 121 people because of a nearby fire, a front desk employee said.
The Getty Center, south of the fire, “has implemented fire safety measures and will continue to provide updates as they become available,” J. Alexandria Sivak, spokeswoman for the Paul Getty Foundation, said in an email early Thursday. .
Moraga Bel Air Vineyards, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is one of the properties in the evacuation alert area. Murdoch reportedly paid $30 million for the 16-acre property in 2013.
Murdoch is known to spend time in the garden. He married his fifth wife, former Russian molecular biologist Elena Zhukova, last June in Moraga.
This isn't the property's first brush with wildfire. There were parts of the vineyard burned out During the Skirbal fire in 2017.
Some UCLA students expressed concern over news of the fire on social media. Although the university was not in the evacuation zone, it was visible from the campus.
“Bruh I'm so stressed, it's too late to catch a flight now, where would I even go if we had to leave,” one said. Reddit user wrote.
“I feel you. I don't even know how to sleep, I have a quiz tomorrow,” another user replied.
The Sepulveda fire comes amid a busy day for firefighters.
A massive fire broke out north of Castaic on Wednesday, burning more than 10,000 acres and forcing thousands to flee their homes, amid a month of extreme fire conditions that have plagued Southern California.
The Hughes Fire started off Lake Hughes Road just before 11 a.m. and quickly prompted evacuation orders in and around Castaic Lake, which extended into Ventura County to the west and north near Sandberg by late afternoon. More than 31,000 people were ordered to evacuate, and 23,000 were put on alert.