Millions of residents in the Los Angeles area were shaken by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake early Thursday morning, while the region continues to battle numerous wildfires that have not yet been brought under control.

The quake’s epicenter was 4 miles north of Malibu, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake dislodged boulders on a Malibu street, visibly shook Santa Monica’s historic 1909 boardwalk and ripped people from their beds. No injuries or damage were reported.

The quake was felt as far away as 45 miles (72 kilometers) in Orange County, where people reported objects moving in their homes. Several smaller aftershocks followed. A live camera at the 115-year-old Santa Monica Pier, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Malibu, showed several seconds of violent shaking. Malibu City Councilman Bruce Silverstein said he has lived in the community for 13 years and this was the strongest quake he has ever experienced.

“Our house shook for about two or three seconds. I was afraid the windows were going to break,” Silverstein said.

Some of Los Angeles’ prominent residents, including Paris Hilton, took to social media shortly afterward to speak out. “That #earthquake was scary,” the heiress and media personality wrote on X. Reality TV star Khloe Kardashian posted, “Damn that was a big quake.”

Thursday’s quake was one of many smaller earthquakes to shake the region recently, including a magnitude 4.4 quake that rattled nerves and rocked buildings last month. Southern California has now experienced its 14th earthquake of magnitude 4.0 or greater this year. While that’s above the average of eight to 10 earthquakes per year over the past few decades, it’s too early to say whether the increased activity is statistically significant, said Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology. The previous high was 13 earthquakes of that magnitude in 1988.

The quake came as the greater Los Angeles area was battling three major wildfires that had left dozens of homes ablaze and forced thousands to evacuate. The fires broke out during a scorching heat wave that is only just beginning to recede.

The firefighters hoped They took advantage of the cooler weather and slowly gained the upper hand. However, dozens of houses had already been destroyed and thousands of people had been forced to evacuate.

California is just beginning its wildfire season, but it has already burned nearly three times as much land as it did in all of 2023. The wildfires have threatened tens of thousands of homes and other buildings across Southern California since they accelerated during a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures over the weekend.

No fatalities were reported, but at least a dozen people, mostly firefighters, were treated for injuries, mostly heat-related, authorities said.

In the small community of Wrightwood, about 90 minutes outside of Los Angeles, authorities urged residents to flee the exploding Bridge Fire, which had grown tenfold in a day, burning more than 20,000 acres of land and setting at least 33 homes ablaze.

Erin Arias, a local resident, said she was running up the hill when she was told to leave. She did so, taking her passport and her dog with her. On Wednesday, she and her husband doused the roof of their still-standing house with water. Her cat was missing, she said.

“It’s absolutely terrifying,” Arias said, looking at the embers of her neighbor’s house. “We were really lucky.”

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the fire spread exceptionally quickly over difficult terrain, likely giving residents less time to evacuate than usual and catching even experienced firefighters by surprise.

“(The fire) had to burn up slopes, down slopes, jump valleys, burn over new ridges and then make it back down the slope at least two more times within a single burn season,” Swain said.

Governor Gavin Newsom deployed National Guard troops to assist with the evacuations, and the White House said Joe Biden was monitoring the situation.

Elsewhere, the so-called Airport Fire caused more than 5,500 homes in Riverside County to be evacuated, affecting more than 19,000 residents. Several recreational cabins and buildings in the Cleveland National Forest were damaged.

In San Bernardino County, about 65,600 homes and buildings were threatened by the Line Fire, and residents along the southern shore of Big Bear Lake, a mountain town popular for winter sports and lakeside recreation, were ordered to evacuate Tuesday.

On the Nevada-California border near Reno, the Davis Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend, destroyed one home and a dozen buildings and charred nearly 23 square kilometers of forest and brush on the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada.