Several fires continue to rage in different parts of the metropolis. People are trying to save what they can of their homes and lives, while simultaneously trying to understand what is happening.
It's so crushing to hear how many have lost everything. What I have left is what we recorded in the studio. I can't understand what has happened, says singer and vocal coach Sandra Pehrsson.
Her music studio in Pacific Palisades has just burned down in one of the worst fires in Los Angeles history. And some areas in the western part of the city "look like they've been bombed", as Sheriff Robert Luna expressed it to NBC News.
Sandra Pehrsson originally comes from Örkelljunga, but now lives outside Los Angeles. Over the past few days, her family has been evacuated from Malibu and several of her friends have lost their homes.
My producer's house and my musician friends' houses in Pacific Palisades – everything is gone, she says.
For the past few days, the entire city has been breathing smoke. Local news estimates that the air quality is currently the fourth worst in the world.
"Did everything we could"
Conference technician Jonathan Holmes lives north of Gothenburg and is on vacation in Los Angeles to visit his aunt and uncle in Pacific Palisades.
We were out walking and saw smoke up in the mountains. We thought "oh, it's close, but it's happened before". But it was blowing hard and when we got back to the house, there was smoke everywhere, he tells us over the phone and continues:
We threw up fire hoses and sprinklers on the roof and took out gas tanks from the house. We did everything we could.
The family evacuated with their pets and ended up at a hotel in Santa Monica, but after a few hours, they were forced to flee again when the fire reached there as well. Soon they found out that the house in Pacific Palisades had burned down.
We have neighbors who have been in the area now and looked, and unfortunately, the house is gone, says Jonathan Holmes.
The family has now moved in with another friend in Hancock Park, in central Los Angeles, a few kilometers from the "Sunset fire" that started near Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening.
"A calculated risk"
Anders Larsson is a musician and photographer from San Diego who lives in Los Feliz, between the massive fire in Eaton and the one in Sunset.
On Tuesday evening, we could see several fires from our balcony. Then the fire at Sunset started on Wednesday and the evacuation zone came close to us. Now we've taken a calculated risk and are staying vigilant, but staying in our house until we have to leave it, he says.
It's hard to grasp the catastrophe of the past few days, where many restaurants, concert halls, and art galleries have gone up in smoke.
Everyone is overwhelmed and wants to know how we ended up here and what we could have done differently. But we're still in the middle of it, says Anders Larsson.
At least ten lives have been claimed in the fires that started in and around Los Angeles on Tuesday, January 7.
Thousands of homes have burned down and over a hundred thousand have been evacuated. At least 20 people have been arrested for looting other people's homes.
