Amidst the still-raging Los Angeles wildfires, Angelenos across the county — including Downtown LA, Culver City, Los Feliz and West Hollywood, were startled by an Los Angeles Fire Department emergency notification to evacuate.
On-air KTLA reporters all received the alert on their phones at the same time, with one anchor noting, “If they just accidentally sent an evacuation notice to the entire county, that’s a big oops.”
People checking in with friends, coworkers and love ones across SoCal also realized that such an all-encompassing evacuation notice must be a mistake.
“I have been informed the evacuation warning that many of us just received on our phones was mistakenly issued countywide due to a technical error,” County Supervisor Janice Hahn wrote on X. “A correction will be issued shortly.”
A short while later, another push notification was sent to clarify that the evacuation had only been ordered for Woodland Hills and anyone else threatened by the new Kenneth Fire.
One recipient of the notice wrote on X that he’d “almost had a heart attack.”
Over on Bluesky, Paul F. Tompkins took issue with the fact that the corrected alert also used the same panic-inducing sound: “Hey not to tell you how to be a phone but maybe when you’re retracting the emergency don’t still use the terrifying YOU ARE IN GRAVE DANGER klaxon, maybe use the ol’ sad trombone or something.”
The Daily Wonder account noted on X, “This incident has caused significant confusion and stress among residents, highlighting issues with the emergency alert system’s accuracy and reliability.”
“KTLA Los Angeles says cell phones across ALL OF Los Angeles COUNTY (9.6 million people) just received a “mandatory evacuation message” That is apparently a mistaken alert. This is a disaster,” wrote @NoFrankingWay.
The notice urged people to “gather loved ones, pets and supplies,” something thousands of residents have already been doing for fires centered in the Pacific Palisades, Eaton Canyon and Sunset Blvd/Hollywood Hills.
Meanwhile, in actual emergency news, the rapidly growing Kenneth Fire is currently estimated to be 50 acres and growing rapidly, in the San Fernando Valley near Hidden Hills, Woodland Hills and West Hills. It is burning near a trailhead at Victory Boulevard near the L.A.-Ventura County border, which is near the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve, according to AOL.
