Thousands of people have fled their homes as a brush fire in the Pacific Palisades has grown to more than 17,000 acres Wednesday.

The Santa Ana winds are a notorious wind event in California. It has been fueling the southern California wildfires.

Forecasters are warning of a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm expected to last several days and affect a massive swath of Southern California beginning early Tuesday. The offshore winds will be dry,

A brush fire broke out Tuesday near the Pacific Palisades, a coastal neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles, and quickly exploded.

The Palisades fire had grown to more than 2,900 acres as of Tuesday evening, driven by ‘life-threatening and destructive’ winds. The extreme wind event blasting Southern California is forecast to peak between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Mark E. Potts is the senior editor for video at the Los Angeles Times. A native of Enid, Okla., Potts graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. He has created and edited video for DreamWorks, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony and BET. Gina Ferazzi grew up in the small New England town of Longmeadow, Mass. She has been a staff photographer with the Los Angeles Times since 1994. Her photos are a part of the staff Pulitzer Prizes for Breaking News in 2016 for the San Bernardino terrorist attack and for the wildfires in 2004. She’s an all-around photographer covering assignments from Winter Olympics, presidential campaigns to local and national news events. Her video documentaries include stories on black tar heroin, health clinics, women priests and Marine suicide. A two-sport scholarship athlete at the University of Maine, Orono, she still holds the record for five goals in one field hockey game.

Strong winds in Los Angeles are stoking several fires in the area, with a Pacific Palisades blaze causing evacuations all the way to Pacific Coast Highway. The blaze is estimated to be at 200 acres, with evacuation warnings for hilly areas including Sunset Mesa,