Scenes from the western Los Angeles suburb have shocked its residents, thousands of whom were forced to flee as the area’s biggest fire closed in.

David Latt, one of those residents, has just spoken to The World With Yalda Hakim and compared what he’s seen to pictures of the notorious Second World War bombing of Dresden in Germany.

“The vastness of the devastation, an entire community you’re seeing those images… it looks to me like, OK, I’m not old enough to have seen it, but Dresden during World War Two,” he said.

“It’s become shadows, as if a photograph was taken and people disappeared, and all you saw was where they used to be.”

Mr Latt is used to fires or earthquakes in the area, but this time, he added, his neighbourhood was “gone” within hours.

“I just saw a video that was taken of our block, and there’s nothing,” he said.

“There’s just nothing.”