‘The wind is apocalyptic’: one couple’s midnight flight from wildfires raging in California

British music producer David Tickle and his model fiancée Kate Elizabeth Hallam were awoken at 3am on Friday morning (California time) by a desperate knock on their window and a police loud speaker at their home in Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks.

The 59-year-old Tickle, who has worked with Prince, U2, 4 Non Blondes and Split Enz, and Hallam were ordered to evacuate immediately as raging brush fires that started the day before had reached their area in Ventura County in Southern California.

The people of Thousand Oaks had barely recovered from a deadly bar shooting that claimed 12 lives, including that of a police officer, before the “worst fire since 1982” spread in populated parts of the city forcing thousands into their cars in search of temporary accommodation or emergency shelters.

“We ran out on to the drive way and it was like a movie. The first was raging,” said Hallam, 34, an actor, model and bass player with the band Makela. “The winds are just so bad, 70 miles per hour, and they can’t get a handle on the fire with so far zero per cent containment on it.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, we can only pray all involved. The feelings and energy is very surreal. The wind is dramatic, it feels apocalyptic,” added Hallam, who said the couple had given up searching for a hotel after hours of driving around and decided to head to the nearest evacuation centre.

The inferno started from two brush fires in Ventura County on Thursday and rapidly spread. More than 70,000 have been forced to evacuate and, according to reports, a number of homes have been lost to the blaze.