In Video: Almost 200,000 acres scorched by California wildfires while lack of water frustrates firefighters
Devastation in Los Angeles: A Look at the Worst Wildfire in the City’s History
Good evening to you. What you see behind me is a pile of misery, and it is not unique. There are several communities and neighborhoods and residential areas that look just like this. This was a shopping center and beyond that, a school, and now you can’t even figure out what it is. Tonight, everyone in this area is praying that the winds don’t pick up, as a firefighter told me that the smallest ember with those winds can turn into a blowtorch.
The Destructive Wildfire
This is what the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history looks like. Everything is gone. The toll of the devastation is staggering. Thousands of structures have already been obliterated, more than authorities can even count. The burn area in the Pacific Palisades is now bigger than Manhattan. The fire has killed five people, and I think the death toll will rise. I hope I’m wrong, but I think it’s going to rise.
The Aftermath
These are the cars that were abandoned when people got stuck in gridlock and had to run for safety. A bulldozer came through here to let fire crews out. Those cars were spared, but these cars right here were stuck in the inferno. You can see how hot it got. Look at that – that’s molten metal that was rolling down the bluff.
Threat to Infrastructure
Today’s stunning video shows the threat to Los Angeles’s infrastructure as the eaten fire approaches the transmission towers on Mount Wilson, threatening radio, cellular, and broadcast signals citywide. Roughly 2,000 firefighters are still stretched across the front lines, but it’s not enough. Residents are pitching in to save their own homes. This is a tragedy – you just never think it’s going to be you, and now that it is, I can’t tell you the amount of heaviness in this disaster.
Fighting the Fire
Firefighters are going non-stop, 60 hours battling more than just the flame. How’s your water pressure been? Uh, water pressure has been a big issue. We have had hydrants dead hydrants, so we’ve been having to go back to Sunset Boulevard to get water to come all the way out here. The smoke hasn’t cleared, and anger is growing. Many questions loom: Was Los Angeles prepared? We will absolutely do an evaluation to look at what worked, what didn’t work, and to correct or to hold accountable any body, department, individual, etc.
The Cause of the Fire
The cause of the fire is still unknown, but the damage is incalculable. Before and after satellite pictures show the story on the Malibu Coast, a row of multi-million-dollar mansions laid to waste. 40 miles away, this view from Altadena shows a middle-class neighborhood dotted with destructive fires. It’s a wasteland for those coming back home, and it looks like a hellscape. We couldn’t even recognize one block from our house because everything was so different. There’s no landmarks left.
Looting Concerns
And on our way up here, we didn’t even know where we were. Tonight, officials are warning about looting. If you can believe it, people are coming to areas like this and stealing what little people have left. So far, there have been at least a dozen arrests.
The Struggle for Water
The task of fighting such a massive area of fire is immense, and as Morgan Chesy reports, the struggle for water is complicating the fight on the front lines tonight. A relentless firefight far from over, frontline crews facing challenges that only start with the flames.
