Raquel Westlake, who lives in the Stonecrest neighborhood, said she her area was evacuated about 4:30 p.m.

One Mint Canyon Resident:

“As residents were packing up their most treasured belongings including dogs, family members and other important family items in their homes a Sheriff’s deputy said over a loudspeaker, ‘Fire Department is not responding, we’re on our own. We need to evacuate.’

Pam Connolly: one of the first to have her street evacuated

Pam Connolly watched a wall of flame sweep across Tick Canyon towards her house near Shadow Pines.

“Flames, flames; it was horrible,” she said.

Connolly and her daughter, one of several families who live on Park Glen, a cul-de-sac, evacuated by fire officials with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

“We started putting all our (most important) items in our vehicle about 40 minutes before we left,” she said. “Once we saw the flames we said, ‘We can’t do this’ and we left.

“They have everything blocked off,” Connolly said. “You can’t get in, you can only get out.”

Connolly, who lives at the top of a hill on the cul-de-sac, said she saw what looked like all the residents of her street leaving, as well.

As she drove away from the advancing fire and from her home, she saw firefighters “going up and down the streets” near Shadow Pines, telling people to leave.

Connolly drove to the Golden Valley area and watched the flames from there as a dark spreading cloud of smoke covered the Northeast section of the SCV.