Before one of the most destructive fires in California history swept through, the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on Los Angeles' west side was filled with expensive homes fronted by green, well-tended landscaping and popular boutiques and cafes.

For five consecutive days, wildfires fanned by strong winds have ravaged neighborhoods in Los Angeles, destroying more than 12,300 homes and buildings and leaving at least 11 dead. Fresh evacuations were ordered from Mandeville Canyon to the Interstate 405 freeway on Friday evening because of a flare up of the massive Palisades Fire.

In Los Angeles’s chaparral-covered ecosystem, wildfires in the mountains are an annual ritual. But when those fires leaped into residential neighborhoods earlier this week, killing 11 people and destroying thousands of homes, the city suddenly found itself in survival mode.