After ripping through thousands of buildings, wildfires in Los Angeles were looming Saturday toward the celebrated Getty Center and its priceless collection.Nestled in the mountains above Los Angeles, the famed art museum is within a new evacuation warning zone as the Palisades Fire roars east toward populated areas.Dubbed a “beautiful fortress” and constructed of fire-resistant travertine stone, as well as cement and steel, the center has drawn museum experts from around the world to observe its safety system.Its roofs are covered with crushed stone to prevent embers igniting, and even in the gardens, resilient plants were chosen.Inside, the galleries can be closed off with a vault-like double door that, museum officials say, is practically impenetrable.”Getty staff, the art collections and buildings remain safe from the Palisades Fire,” the museum said Friday, hours before the evacuation warning.”The threat is still happening,” Getty added in an X post.The museum’s unique collection comprises 125,000 artworks — including paintings by Rembrandt, Turner, Van Gogh and Monet — and 1.4 million documents. It also houses a research hub and a foundation.Museum officials have previously said the collection is protected within the center’s fireproof structure, made up of 300,000 travertine blocks and 12,500 tons of steel bars.”The Getty was constructed to house valuable art and keep it very safe from fires, from earthquakes, from any type of damage,” said Lisa Lapin, communications vice president now and when Getty was threatened by fire in 2019.”We are really built like a beautiful fortress, and everything inside is quite safe,” she told AFP at the time.- Getty shuts its doors -Built more than two decades ago by architect Richard Meier, at a cost of $1 billion, the center’s protection measures also include a million-gallon (3.8-million liter) water tank feeding its irrigation system.The building’s ventilation system has an internal recycling system, similar to those found in cars, preventing smoke from entering rooms from the outside.Despite such extensive measures, Getty announced its closure earlier this week “out of caution and to help alleviate traffic.”When the 2019 fire threatened the center, it served as a base for firefighters battling the blaze. Caused by a tree branch falling on power lines, that fire burned 745 acres (300 hectares) and destroyed 10 homes.A fire two years prior also triggered safety measures at Getty, although it affected only the far side of an adjacent freeway.”In both cases, we’ve been very confident that the center is fine,” said Lapin in 2019.The Palisades Fire has ravaged more than 22,000 acres since erupting on Tuesday, and is just 11 percent contained as a series of fires burn through Los Angeles neighborhoods.The fire threatened the separate Getty Villa, which also has special flame resistant protections, earlier in the week.Trees and vegetation around the coastal villa were burned, but the structure and collections — including Greek and Roman antiquities — were spared.

The largest of the Los Angeles’ fires spread toward previously untouched neighborhoods Saturday, forcing new evacuations and dimming hopes that the disaster was coming under control.Across the city, at least 11 people have died as multiple fires have ripped through residential areas since Tuesday, razing thousands of homes in destruction that US President Joe Biden likened to a “war scene.”Despite huge firefighting efforts, the Palisades fire’s expansion prompted evacuation orders in ritzy neighborhoods along its eastern flank, which include the famous Getty Center art museum.Winds were forecast to pick up again on Saturday after a brief lull, posing the risk of new fires as embers are blown into dry brush.Los Angeles residents have increasingly demanded to know who is at fault for the disaster as they grapple with the ruin and local anger rises over officials’ preparedness and response.Residents like Nicole Perri, whose home in the upscale Pacific Palisades burnt down, told AFP that officials “completely let us down.””I don’t think the officials were prepared at all,” said James Brown, a 65-year-old retired lawyer across the city in Altadena.California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered a “full independent review,” describing the lack of water supplies during the initial fires as “deeply troubling.””We need answers to how that happened,” he wrote in an open letter.As reports of looting grew, a sunset-to-sunrise curfew was imposed in evacuated areas.Around two dozen arrests have already been made across Los Angeles, where some residents have organized street patrols and kept armed watch over their own houses.The National Guard has been deployed to bolster law enforcement.- 12,000 buildings gone -Five separate fires have so far burned more than 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares), destroying around 12,000 buildings, California’s fire agency reported.The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office confirmed an additional fatality on Friday, bringing the overall death toll so far to 11, though the figure is expected to rise.”It reminded me of more of a war scene, where you had certain targets that were bombarded,” said Biden, as he received a briefing at the White House.Winds had calmed Friday, providing a fleeting window of opportunity for firefighters battling blazes around the clock for a fourth consecutive day.”Braveheart” actor Mel Gibson was the latest celebrity to reveal his Malibu home had burned down, telling NewsNation the loss was “devastating.”Paris Hilton, Anthony Hopkins and Billy Crystal were among a long list of celebrities who lost houses, while Prince Harry and his wife Meghan — who quit royal life in 2020 and moved to California — were seen comforting survivors.The Palisades fire was only eight percent contained on Saturday morning and spreading east after burning 21,600 acres.Emergency chiefs warned the situation was still extremely dangerous.The winds “are going to increase again in the coming days,” said Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).Authorities have said it was too early to know the cause of the blazes.- Blame game -Biden on Friday took a veiled swipe at incoming president Donald Trump, who has spread misinformation over the fires that has then been amplified on social media.”You’re going to have a lot of demagogues out there trying to take advantage,” the president said.Newsom, who has been blamed for the disaster by the president-elect, invited Trump to visit Los Angeles and survey the devastation with him.”We must not politicize human tragedy or spread disinformation from the sidelines,” said Newsom.Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley pointed to recent funding cuts of the service, saying her department was chronically under-resourced and short of staff.Wildfires occur naturally, but scientists say human-caused climate change is altering weather and changing the dynamics of the blazes.Emergency managers apologized Friday after false evacuation alerts were erroneously sent to millions of mobile phones, sparking panic.