The Los Angeles wildfires continued to grow rapidly Wednesday, engulfing homes in the Pacific Palisades and other neighborhoods, including star-studded Calabasas and Altadena, north of Pasadena.

The fires have spread in less than 24 hours and expanded to 5,000 acres. They have been fueled by a fierce windstorm known as the Santa Ana winds, and officials are warning the situation could get worse as none of the blazes have been contained.

The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed its first deaths as the fast-moving blazes forced some 80,000 residents to evacuate their homes across California.

Gusts up to 70 mph in some areas are essentially fanning the flames as well as grounding firefighting aircraft. A wind advisory is in effect through Wednesday evening in southern California.

Multiple injuries have been reported from residents who did not evacuate and officials say more than 1,000 structures have been damaged.

Where are the fires currently burning?

The first and most major fire is burning in the Pacific Palisades, an affluent coastal neighborhood on the west of Los Angeles, having started in 10.30 a.m. PT Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, it has burned about 4.5 square miles.

The blaze caused flaming embers to rain onto trees and rooftops in the neighborhood, with residents rushing to escape. It also created a traffic jam on Palisades Drive, blocking emergency vehicles from getting through. Crews used a bulldozer to push the abandoned cars off to the side, the Associated Press reported.

Another, the Eaton fire in the Altadena area, north of Pasadena – which started at around 6.30 p.m. PT Tuesday – has burned about 1.6 square miles.

The Hurst fire in the San Fernando Valley has burned about 500 acres and the Tyler fire in Coachella, home to the world-famous music festival. The blaze, near to Joshua Tree National Park, has burned about 15 acres.

As of Wednesday morning, all four fires remained at 0 percent containment, according to LAFD fire chief Anthony Marrone.

Which areas are being evacuated?

Some 80,000 residents are reported to have been evacuated across California, according to NBC News.

Many of the evacuations were in the Pacific Palisades area, but others were in parts of Santa Monica and Altadena, with a mandatory evacuation order in place for the region between Piedra Morada Drive and Pacific Coast Highway due to dangerous conditions.

Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said that areas north of the highway, south of Mulholland Drive and east of Topanga County Boulevard were also being evacuated.

About 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders from the Palisades fire and more than 13,000 structures were under threat, authorities said. Several Hollywood stars – including Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Mark Hamill, have been forced to flee.

The Eaton fire prompted more than 50,000 evacuation orders, Angeles National Forest officials added. City spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said at least 550 houses were within the evacuation zones of the Eaton Canyon fire.

“We were having dinner with the family and we just had to leave because the fire was coming so fast,” Darinka Whitmore from Eaton Canyon in Altadena, who fled with her husband and their four children, told The New York Times. “We just grabbed our backpacks and our kids and our doggies.”

Emergency shelters are open for Angelenos who have been evacuated due to these devastating fires. The Palisades fire shelter is located at the Westwood Recreation Center and the Hurst fire shelter is at Ritchie Valens Recreation Center.

In addition to the evacuations, more than 180,000 customers were without power in southern California, with the vast majority of them in Los Angeles County, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.

Have there been any casualties?

Marrone confirmed that two people had died as a result of the Eaton fire, and several more had been injured. No further details about the victims have been released.

LAFD spokesperson Erik Scott said previously that a 25-year-old female firefighter and “multiple burn victims” are among the injured.

The blaze has destroyed 1,000 structures in the Pacific Palisades and although no deaths had been reported in the area, there were a high number of significant injuries for residents who did not evacuate, according to Marrone.

“We ask that you keep all of Los Angeles County in your thoughts and prayers,” he said.

What is causing the fires?

The fast-moving wildfires are being fueled by a weather phenomenon known as the Santa Ana winds.

The Santa Anas are dry, warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from Nevada and Utah to Southern California toward the coast. They move in the opposite direction of the normal onshore flow that carries moist air from the Pacific into the region.

The name is understood to be linked to Santa Ana Canyon in Orange County, but the weather has other nicknames such as “devil winds” or “red wind.”

LAFD officials said they are bracing themselves for the bruising winds to reach gusts of up to 60 mph through Thursday. In some parts, the Santa Anas could reach speeds of up to 100 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

The weather service has issued an extreme weather warning of a life-threatening and destructive windstorm for some areas.

Ongoing red flag warnings highlight extremely critical fire weather conditions due to a combination of strong wind gusts in some of the highest terrain Wednesday morning and exceptionally dry relative humidity levels, according to Peter Mullinax, a meteorologist with the weather service’s office in College Park, Maryland.

What have officials said?

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” California governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday afternoon. “I saw firsthand the impact of these swirling winds and the embers and the number of structures that are destroyed. Not a few, many structures already destroyed.”

Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency because of the Palisades fire. “The city is working aggressively to confront this emergency,” she said.