LOS ANGELES — Wildfires tore across the Los Angeles area with devastating force Wednesday after setting off a desperate escape from burning homes through flames, ferocious winds and towering clouds of smoke. The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. …Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences… A third wildfire started around 10:30 p.m. and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that is the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles, and a fourth was reported early Wednesday in Coachella, in Riverside County.