Fire crews gathered around a roof here, a fence there. But mostly, everything was just gone. The inferno had torn down the cliffs, destroyed the scarps, hopped the Pacific Coast Highway and ignited almost every last structure until it reached the sand.

Multiple wildfires fueled by fierce Santa Ana winds, have killed 10 and burned more than 35,000 acres near Los Angeles. The winds, which occur most often in the fall and winter, push dry air from over the inland deserts of California and the Southwest toward the coast, the National Weather Service said.