Two other fires inland were also spreading fast, officials said.
Numerous buildings were destroyed and nearly 1200 hectares burned in the Pacific Palisades area between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu, officials said.
The area is home to many film and music stars.
Roads were jammed with people fleeing the inferno, some abandoning their cars as flames licked the edges, and plumes of smoke and flames rose in the night sky over Los Angeles and its suburbs.
Firefighters had not contained the blaze by the early hours and Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency.
Pacific Palisades resident Cindy Festa said that as she fled, fires were "this close to the cars," demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.
Buildings including nursing homes in California have been evacuated as wildfires advance. (AP PHOTO)
"People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees - everything is going," Festa said from her car.
A fire official told local television station KTLA that several people were injured in the Palisades Fire, some with burns to faces and hands.
One female firefighter had suffered a head injury.
Hollywood actor James Woods said on X he was able to leave his Pacific Palisades house but added: "I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing."
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass said the windstorm is expected to worsen through the morning.
A second blaze, dubbed the Eaton Fire, broke out 50km inland in Altadena, near Pasadena, and rapidly increased in size to 400 hectares in a few hours, according to Cal Fire.
Almost 100 residents from a nursing home in Pasadena were helped to leave, CBS News said.
Video showed elderly residents, many in wheelchairs and on gurneys, crowded onto a smoky and windswept parking lot as fire trucks and ambulances attended.
Fire officials said a third blaze named the Hurst Fire had started in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations of some nearby homes.
The Hurst fire has grown to 200 hectares from 40 hectares earlier, according to Cal Fire.
More than 220,000 homes and businesses in Los Angeles county were without power late on Tuesday, data from PowerOutage.us showed.
Witnesses reported a number of homes on fire with flames nearly scorching their cars when people fled the hills of Topanga Canyon as the fire spread from there down to the Pacific Ocean.
Local media reported the fire had also spread north, torching homes near Malibu.
Parts of Malibu and Santa Monica are under evacuation orders.
Multiple burn victims were treated after walking toward Duke's restaurant in Malibu in the evening, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a fire official.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley had earlier told a press conference that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.
Firefighting aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the flames as they engulfed homes.
Bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.
The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because nearby bushes had been trimmed as a preventive measure, the museum said.
