LOS ANGELES — A rapidly growing wildfire raged across an upscale section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, destroying homes and creating traffic jams as 30,000 people evacuated beneath huge plumes of smoke that covered much of the metropolitan area.

At least 2,921 acres (1,182 hectares) of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal settlements of Santa Monica and Malibu had burned, officials said, after they had already warned of extreme fire danger from powerful winds that arrived following extended dry weather.

The fire spread as officials warned the worst wind conditions were expected to come overnight, leading to concerns that more neighborhoods could be forced to flee. The city of Santa Monica later ordered evacuations in the northern fringe of town.

Witnesses reported a number homes on fire with flames nearly scorching their cars when people fled the hills of Topanga Canyon, as the fire spread from there down to the Pacific Ocean.

“We feel very blessed at this point that there’s no injuries that are reported,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley told a press conference, adding that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.

Firefighters in aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the nearby flames. Flames engulfed homes and bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.

As the sun sets over Los Angeles, towering orange flames illuminated the hills leading to Topanga Canyon.

The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because of preventive efforts to trim brush surrounding the buildings, the museum said.

With only one major road leading from the canyon to the coast, and only one coastal highway leading to safety, traffic crawled to a halt, leading people to flee on foot.

Cindy Festa, a Pacific Palisades resident, said that as she evacuated out of the canyon, fires were “this close to the cars,” demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.

“People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees — everything is going,” Ms. Festa said from her car.

Before the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Tuesday through Thursday, predicting wind gusts of 50 to 80 mph (80 to 130 kph).

With low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,” the Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service said on X.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency, said the state positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region, he added.

“Hopefully, we’re wrong, but we’re anticipating other fires happening concurrently,” Mr. Newsom told the press conference.

A second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire later broke out some 30 miles (50 km) inland in the foothills above Pasadena, consuming 200 acres (80 hectares), Cal Fire said.

The powerful winds changed President Joseph R. Biden’s travel plans, grounding Air Force One in Los Angeles. He had planned to make a short flight inland to the Coachella Valley for a ceremony to create two new national monuments in California but the event was rescheduled for a later date at the White House.

“I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire,” Mr. Biden said in statement. A federal grant had already been approved to help reimburse the state of California for its fire response, Mr. Biden said.

Pacific Palisades is home to several Hollywood stars. Actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate but added, “I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing.”

Actor Steve Guttenberg told KTLA television that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars in the road.

“It’s really important for everybody to band together and don’t worry about your personal property. Just get out,” Mr. Guttenberg said. “Get your loved ones and get out.” — Reuters

HANOI — The US trade deficit with Vietnam exceeded $110 billion in the first 11 months of 2024, latest US figures show, as exports from the Southeast Asian industrial hub grew amid a record fall of its currency against the dollar.

The latest reading, released on Tuesday by the US statistics agency, showed a nearly 18% rise in the deficit compared with the same period the previous year. The data confirms the Communist-run country has the fourth highest commercial surplus with the United States, topped only by China, the European Union and Mexico.

The large gap is seen by analysts as a major risk for the export-reliant nation amid threats from President-elect Donald Trump to impose tariffs of up to 20% on all US imports.

That risk has been compounded by a sharp fall of Vietnam’s dong in recent months, with the dong trading near its lowest ever levels against the dollar. The trend is closely watched in Washington as Vietnam is one of the countries under scrutiny for potential currency manipulation.

Vietnam, which counts the US as its biggest market, is home to big export-focussed industrial operations of US multinationals such as Apple , Google, Nike  and Intel.

Latest seasonally adjusted trade figures show that in the January-November period Vietnam accumulated a commercial surplus with the US of $111.6 billion, up from $94.8 billion in the same period in 2023. Unadjusted data pointed to a larger gap of $113.1 billion.

In November, the trade gap expanded by another $11.3 billion, accelerating from October, as Vietnam’s exports to the US rose, the adjusted data show, possibly supported by the weak dong.

“If the US perceives that Vietnam is deliberately keeping the dong weak to gain an unfair trade advantage, it could trigger renewed accusations of currency manipulation,” said Leif Schneider, head of international law firm Luther in Vietnam.

Mr. Trump ended his first term in the White House with Treasury declarations of Vietnam and Switzerland as currency manipulators over their market interventions to weaken the value of their currencies.

Vietnam’s central bank has said it was ready to intervene in the foreign exchange market in case of adverse economic impacts from currency moves, and has sold dollars in the past to strengthen the dong.

On Tuesday, before new trade figures were released, the bank said it would monitor Mr. Trump’s policies and adjust accordingly.

The dong’s most recent depreciation against the dollar is broadly in line with other major currencies. — Reuters

BRUSSELS — Global efforts to address climate change will be dealt a severe blow if US President-elect Donald Trump again pulls the country out of the Paris Agreement, the European Union’s (EU) head of climate change policy has warned.

Mr.Trump’s transition team has prepared executive orders to withdraw the United States — currently the world’s second-biggest polluter, after China — from the main global treaty on climate change, according to sources in the team.

“If that were to happen, that would be a serious blow for international climate diplomacy,” EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told Reuters in an interview.

Another US exit from the Paris Agreement would require other countries to “double down on climate diplomacy” in response, he said.

“There’s no alternative to make sure that, in the end, everyone chips in, because climate change is indiscriminate,” Mr. Hoekstra said of the United Nations (UN) climate talks. “This truly is a problem that the world needs to solve together.”

The Paris Agreement is the centerpiece of United Nations climate negotiations in which nearly 200 countries discuss steps to curb emissions and funding to pay for these efforts.

The US has played a central role in the talks, including by working with China — the world’s biggest polluter and second-biggest economy — to lay the groundwork for recent global climate deals.

A turnaround is expected under Mr. Trump, who returns to the White House on Jan. 20. He has called climate change a hoax, and withdrew from the Paris Accord during his first term from 2017 to 2021. Last month he warned the EU it must buy more US oil and gas or face tariffs.

Mr. Hoekstra said the EU will “constructively engage” with the new US administration on issues including climate change. He said the Commission is reaching out to US contacts across the political spectrum, including at the non-federal level.

“Making sure that our American friends, as much as is possible, are actually staying on board and are working on this together with us, is clearly something I will strive for,” he said.

But even as Brussels faces pressure to step up its climate leadership to fill a potential US vacuum, the EU is set to miss a February deadline for all countries to send new national climate plans to the U.N. The outgoing Biden administration already published the US’s contribution.

Mr. Hoekstra said the timings of the EU’s political cycle did not line up with the U.N. deadline but that Europe would have its 2035 climate plan ready by this year’s U.N. climate summit in November in Belem, Brazil.

“The important thing here is to make sure we have an ambitious number before we walk into Belem,” he said. “I can promise you that we will have.” — Reuters