evacuation

More than 400,000 people heeded evacuation orders ahead of the storm, civil defence said.

Israel has issued a general evacuation order for the south of Lebanon since its ground invasion began.

But after the first phase of evacuation in 2021-22, progress has been extremely slow.

In a matter of hours, the Mountain fire charged rapidly across the Santa Susana Mountains and into nearby foothill neighborhoods, forcing widespread evacuations and demanding intense firefights from crews showered in red-hot embers.

Israeli forces have also “repeatedly struck designated evacuation routes and safe zones”, it adds.