Residents in Venice Beach, some six miles (10km) away, reported seeing the flames, too.

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

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

“The road was just blocked, like full-on blocked for an hour.”

Ellen Delosh-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, too, hit gridlock at Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive.

Ms Delosh-Bacher described fire exploding behind a nearby Starbucks and police rushing down the road shouting to stuck motorists: “Run for your lives!”

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

“This is like an apocalypse,” she said.