In Los Angeles, Hotels Become a Refuge for Fire Evacuees

The lobby of Shutters on the Beach, the luxury oceanfront hotel in Santa Monica that is usually abuzz with tourists and entertainment professionals, had by Thursday transformed into a refuge for Los Angeles residents displaced by the raging wildfires that have ripped through thousands of acres and leveled entire neighborhoods to ash.In the middle of one table sat something that has probably never been in the lobby of Shutters before: a portable plastic goldfish tank.“It’s my daughter’s,” said Kevin Fossee, 48.

Mr.Fossee and his wife, Olivia Barth, 45, had evacuated to the hotel on Tuesday evening shortly after the fire in the Los Angeles Pacific Palisades area flared up near their home in Malibu.Suddenly, an evacuation alert came in.

Every phone in the lobby wailed at once, scaring young children who began to cry inconsolably.People put away their phones a second later when they realized it was a false alarm.Similar scenes have been unfolding across other Los Angeles hotels as the fires spread and the number of people under evacuation orders soars above 100,000.

IHG, which includes the Intercontinental, Regent and Holiday Inn chains, said 19 of its hotels across the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas were accommodating evacuees.The Palisades fire, which has been raging since Tuesday and has become the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles, struck neighborhoods filled with mansions owned by the wealthy, as well as the homes of middle-class families who have owned them for generations.Now they all need places to stay.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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