“Ferocious” Santa Ana winds whipping across California that have driven unprecedented wildfires in Los Angeles evoked memories of hurricanes for Wanda Ray Willis, a Bermudian artist and performer who has called the state home for decades.

Ms Ray Willis, who was forced to evacuate her apartment in the city of Glendale in Los Angeles County, said the scale of the fires carried on the high winds went beyond anything she had witnessed in a state where she has lived since the 1990s.

“Nothing I’ve seen has been this humungous or this horrific,” the singer, producer and actor told The Royal Gazette from a hotel in Costa Mesa, a city about an hour from home.

Ms Ray Willis was awakened early in the week to “winds howling outside like a hurricane”.

Wildfire quickly followed as the winds swiftly carried embers into communities around Los Angeles left dangerously dry this winter.

She said: “They have found bodies and are going to keep finding them. Even if people get warnings, in some cases the fires move so quickly ‒ one moved the equivalent of five football fields in a minute.”

As the blaze swept down from the mountains on Wednesday, the smoke-filled skies remained light at 5pm, while “in the distance you could see orange and red at the base before the mountains”.

She called the scene “apocalyptic”.

Online notices showed evacuation orders for her community. Then the electricity went out.

Ms Ray Willis packed essentials, including scripts she was working on, but in her haste to get to safety she left behind recordings of her artistic work that she hopes will survive.

Searching for a petrol station to top up her car, she found one closed and wrapped in emergency tape.

“That put the fear of God in me,” she said.

She stocked up on non-perishable food, headed for safety and gradually found it easier to breathe in Costa Mesa, close to the ocean.

Back where she had evacuated, the blaze, known as the Eaton Fire, fell short of her home and was gradually wrestled under relative control east of Glendale ‒ but Ms Ray Willis knows others less fortunate.

“I know people who lost homes in Pasadena and Altadena,” she said. “The winds are the real culprit.

“It was so difficult for the firemen as well because the winds kept changing direction. They didn’t know where it would come from next.”

Like many California residents accustomed to the state’s weather extremes, Ms Ray Willis believes the warming environment has played a role.

She is involved in non-profits and community groups, as well as working across the arts from producing to recording music, in her area.

“These winds are more like something from climate change,” she said.

“These people who have lost their homes, what do they do? They’ve lost everything. I don’t care how wealthy they were or how poor they were. When you’ve lost everything, everyone is on the same level of feeling. We all hurt alike.”

With Glendale at the lowest threat level, Ms Ray Willis said she was unsure of what to do, but would headed back to her apartment and ensure her recordings and other work were safe.

“I’ll have those in my ready-to-go bag just in case,” she said. “They’re telling everybody ‒ just in case, have your bag packed.”