LA residents rushing to flee wildfires this week faced choke points, gridlock and the tough decision of whether to abandon their cars to the fire.

Wildfires raged for the third straight day, destroying swaths of America’s most populated county and displacing tens of thousands of residents, with firefighters struggling to contain the biggest blazes.

Firefighters are battling to control a series of major fires in the Los Angeles area that have killed five people, ravaged communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena and sent thousands of people frantically fleeing their homes.