(Reuters) - In one image, two people hug tightly, wrapped up in comforting each other as two houses burn behind them. In another, the Stars and Stripes on a flagpole - grimy but still flapping against the blue sky - remains standing amid a crush of destroyed masonry. It recalls images taken in New York in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Reuters photographers and videographers have been on the ground in Los Angeles capturing visuals that bring home the scale of fires that exploded on Tuesday, whipped by Santa Ana wind gusts, and are the most destructive in the city's history. Many are veterans who have covered multiple wildfires, but say they have never witnessed anything like this.
"I've been in California 24 years and this was by far the worst I've seen," said photographer Mike Blake. "The wind is so strong, you can't stand up. And we haven't had any rain."
Blake and colleagues shot some photos on the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, lined by multimillion-dollar beach homes, on Wednesday evening - on Tuesday it was too dangerous even to approach. By the time they arrived at sunset, almost all the homes had gone. Some flames still licked around structures, their orange color the same shade as the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.
Not all those affected lived in wealthy neighborhoods. Ringo Chiu captured a small, modest house in the Palisades area completely engulfed in fire, sparks flying into the night. Videographer Jorge Garcia spoke to a man who gave his name only as Curtis, who returned on Wednesday to his mobile home park, also in the Palisades, to find nothing left.
"It was just raw emotion," said Garcia. "He felt really helpless." Garcia had seen people from different backgrounds banding together and trying to help each other, he said.
The fire appears erratic in its path. "One house is in flames, while next to it a house is untouched," said photographer Dave Swanson. "There is no rhyme or reason."
Swanson took a photo of one man carefully lowering and folding the American flag from the front yard of his cousin's house in Altadena. Behind him, the interior of the house glows a hellish orange and smoke billows into the sky.
As the fire burned out, parts of structures remained. In some places, the fireplace and chimney are the only recognizable parts. In others, staircases lead to nowhere.
"I took an image of a charred staircase suspended in mid-air on what was left of a house's foundations," said Daniel Cole. "Even though the house was on the beach side of the road, it was still consumed by the fire."
Cole's photo was taken on the Pacific Coast Highway, long a favorite destination for locals and visitors alike, and a place that as Garcia says is associated with "pleasant memories as you go to take in the breeze."
"And now those memories will be changed forever," he said.