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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Three Days Of Fury, L.A. Fires Burn Everything in Path; Deadly Fires Decimate L.A. Area, Like a Bomb Dropped; Seven Now Dead In L.A. Fires, 5,000-Plus Structures Decimated; CNN Follows The Latest Developments On The Palisades Fire; Trump Faults Governor Gavin Newsom In The Palisades Fire. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired January 09, 2025 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It looks like a bombscape, a war zone.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Helicopters dropping water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Homes just completely and utterly destroyed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not only are our homes gone, but our entire community is gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just goes on and on. I don't see any homes standing right here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's Armageddon. I'm driving through a war zone right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire crews have been out here working so hard. This home has gone up in flames so quick.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just haven't seen anything quite like this. The imagery of this is next level shocking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To the place that you've lived in almost 17 years, flames coming out of the windows and there's nothing you can do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the frame. That's the door.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The magnitude of this and the devastation emotionally is just in our whole town. Everything is gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a first responder. I teach people to save lives and I couldn't even save my house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we're going to be okay. You know, it's going to be okay. It has to be. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what America is talking about, Los Angeles burned beyond recognition. Entire sections of the city have melted by fires that remain white, hot, and spreading tonight. It is pure pain for thousands of Americans. Every picture from the ground is just one piece of the sad mosaic.

When you start to zoom out, you get more of a complete and more horrifying picture of the row-by-row, home-by-home destruction. What you're looking at right now is a crushing comparison. The top row, what various neighborhoods in L.A. looked like at the start of the week, the bottom row, the charred remains of people's lives.

There is barely anything left untouched by the flames. For thousands more, they have no idea when they'll be able to go home, or even if they'll have a house to go home to.

CNN is on the frontlines of the fire. We'll go to Erin Burnett in just a moment. But first to Anderson Cooper, who is on the ground in L.A.

Anderson, the wind has been the antagonist of this whole episode, but they're worried now that it could be back tonight. What are you hearing?

COOPER: Yes. I mean, the wind today -- by the way, I'm at a staging area in the Pacific Palisades along the Pacific Coast Highway. Law enforcement personnel, firefighters there is a battle going on right now tonight in -- with six different fires. As you know, a new fire came up today. The Kenneth fire started out as 50 acres. Last estimate I heard about an hour ago, it's at 1,000 acres. But the two biggest ones, the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire, Eaton has, what, decimated Altadena yesterday where we were, the Palisades fire still going on here.

I spent the day up in Topanga basically watching firefighters try to protect the community of Topanga, residential homes there very up in the mountains, beautiful area, very -- a lot of, you know, winding small road, switchbacks, very difficult to maneuver. If you're trying to escape if you're trying to get big fire equipment up there, it takes a long time to get up there. But we watched fire crews battling this thing.

The good news today up there was that the wind was relatively low. There wasn't a lot of heavy winds. But, you know, the fire, that's basically Topanga, it's the northern edge of the Palisades fire. And fire crews are trying to dig sort of a barrier of dirt, getting all debris out all over that northern edge of the fire to stop its progression further northward and trying to save the houses in Topanga.

We watched them for hours drop with helicopters, multiple loads of water on two sides of a mountain. It would seem like they put the fire out every time the water was dropped. The helicopters would then, you know, disappear over the horizon, and there's just seconds or even minutes later, you see more flames just popping up from that same area.

We watched them drop at least three or four helicopters, probably more, of water on one particular spot and it just kept coming back. And so right before we left, the wind shifted.

[22:05:02]

To get your point about the wind, the wind suddenly shifted and the entire sort of valley between these two mountains just exploded in flames. And so it's just a microcosm. That's just one spot of fire that has many spots all throughout the Palisades up in Topanga Canyon. So, there is a lot that they are battling right now.

I want to check in with our Erin Burnett who is also in the Palisades in a different area from where I am right now. Erin, explain where you are, what you have been seeing today.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: So, Anderson, we're here basically on top of the hill, so I'm just putting my mask down now. You know, I don't know if people can see it, and you're breathing it to Anderson. I mean, the air is just full of ash, large chunks that you can see. And then just behind us just -- you're just breathing this in. This is what is happening here across Los Angeles.

But here on top of the Palisades Hill, I mean, Anderson, when you look at some of the satellite images that we're just getting in the past few minutes, any structure north of Sunset Boulevard and Palisades is gone. And up here, it is -- you've described as a hellscape. I've described it that way. That is what we're looking at, just burned out car after burned out car.

And one thing that bizarrely stands out, as you drive past is not just the destruction. And, ironically, you'll see burnt trees, the bark of the trees completely charred and then the houses next to them are completely burnt to the ground.

The one thing in the houses that is standing more than anything else are the chimneys. That's what's left. And this house where I'm standing now, a woman who lived in it, Lonnie Wittenberg (ph), for 41 years raised her four children here, we were able to find her and call her. She hasn't been up here yet. These were the first images actually that we were able to show her of her home. You see on one side of the screen what it looked like a couple days ago, and now here we are, just that chimney left. And it is just total devastation.

And I also think it's worth mentioning, and, Anderson, I heard you clear your throat, just the air quality that anybody here is experiencing. It's bad. And this isn't just smoke that you can smell even on an airplane as you're flying in, as we did, when you get close to L.A. It fills the cabin just that faint smell of smoke.

Here, it is acrid. It is chemical, sometimes sulfuric, as you know, right? People here are breathing in everything that's in a house that could burn. So, there's that issue as well, even as those -- you've got the new fire you're talking about and the anticipation that the winds are going to pick up.

One last thing I'll say, Anderson, when we were up here with the fire chiefs, one of their biggest concerns is, you know, when you're looking at these houses, you see a lot of smoke still coming up. We can see open fires in certain places. They're very worried about what they call re-ignition coming. As the winds come back through in these coming hours, and that's one of the biggest fears in addition to those new fires that you were just describing, so dramatically expanding and scope even right now as we speak. Anderson?

COOPER: Yes. There's so many places to get to communities like that. It is shocking to see. Erin, we'll check in with you throughout the evening.

I want to go to Mike Rothschild. Mike, if you can hear me, you lived in Altadena, which is where I spent the day yesterday watching your community burn, and it was just stunning to see. Can you just talk about when you got -- if you got a notification when did you know you had to get out?

MIKE ROTHSCHILD, JOURNALIST WHO LOST HOME IN CALIFORNIA FIRES: (INAUDIBLE) not in evacuation. We could see the fire from what is now the smoking ruins of our front porch. And we watched it creep over the mountains. And at about 3:50 in the morning, we got a notification that not only were we on standby but we had to go.

We had packed some valuables in the car, just out of an abundance of caution, thinking we would pack more if the go order came and the go order came. We had ten minutes. We had no power. Our kids were screaming and we got out.

COOPER: You know, I think the Eaton fire is the one that hit your community, the embers from it. Did you -- and just -- I mean, I know you were saying you were watching it. Did you ever really think that it would come to Altadena?

ROTHSCHILD: We live south of what used to be the dividing line for fire danger, and we've always thought there's too much concrete there. There's too many streets, things that don't burn here the way they do in a forest. But the wind was so powerful and whipping these embers so far that anything, two or three miles down range was at risk. And so embers started hitting homes. And that was the point where everything was so dry that it just started going up in flames.

[22:10:00]

COOPER: Yes. And we got there, I don't know, it was maybe around 2:00. The hydrants had basically run dry. I talked to a firefighter and he said that they just -- the hydrants had run dry two minutes before I started talking to him. So, that was one of the difficulties firefighters had there, obviously. They basically tried to build defensive perimeters around houses that they could, removing any shrubbery or debris that might, you know, ignite the whole house. But after that, there wasn't much they could do and they would just move on to another block, trying to see if hydrants working there. Later in the afternoon, they came back more with hoses, using hoses from the fire trucks themselves and were able to save some homes. What do you do now in a situation like this?

ROTHSCHILD: Well, we've gotten the panic out of the way. What we're doing now is we're calling our insurance company, we're contacting our mortgage company, we're contacting FEMA. We are just trying to assess what we are going to do long-term. But there's also the question of where are we sleeping tonight? Where are we going to be tomorrow? Can our kids go to school on Monday? We don't have any answers to any of those questions.

So, as I've been telling my kids, sometimes I don't know is the only answer. And a lot of this, we just don't know yet. We're just taking it minute-by-minute in some cases.

COOPER: You know, I also think this is something we haven't talked enough about is the effect of this on kids. I think your kids are like eight and ten. Is that right?

ROTHSCHILD: They are they're traumatized. They don't know what's going on. They don't know where they're going to be tomorrow. They want to talk to their friends. They don't understand what's happening. But then there are moments where they crack jokes or sit down and read books or say things that soothe us.

You know, these kids have been through so much with COVID, and now this. I worry about how this is going to affect them the rest of their lives and I worry about how they're going to sleep tonight.

As a parent, this is an impossible task. But here we are and we have to do it.

COOPER: Yes. And for little -- I mean, you know, little kids, it's so hard to explain what is going on.

Mike Rothschild, I'm glad you and your family are safe, most of all, and I'm so sorry for what has happened to you. And I wish you the best thing in the days ahead.

Abby, let's go back to you.

PHILLIP: Thank you, Anderson.

Coming up next for us, we're going to talk to a mother who chose three items to save from her home, the one that she raised her daughter in.

Plus, we have new details on the looting that has been happening across L.A. and what is being done to stop it.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

COOPER: And welcome back to our continuing coverage of these fires. We're at a staging area in the Pacific Palisades where we've been really focused today on the Palisades fire. And obviously there are six fires right now. The newest one, the Kenneth fire, that has now grown from 50 acres to a thousand acres. We know the death toll overall has now been raised to seven confirmed, likely to rise too from the -- excuse me, two from the Palisades fire, five from the Eaton fire.

I want you to meet two people who that are trying to help out. And we have seen communities coming together. We've seen neighbors helping neighbors and business owners doing what they can to help others. This is Rudy Beuve and Pedro Mori. What is the restaurant that you have?

RUDY BEUVE, CHEF AND OWNER, LE GREAT OUTDOOR: The restaurant is named Le Great Outdoor.

COOPER: Explain what you are doing.

BEUVE: So, what we're doing basically is that we had to shut down the restaurant because of the fire. We combined all our forces from the staff and our customer community to provide food for the firefighters. And so for the last, let's say, 24 hours, we've been biking around the city, mostly at Santa Monica that we know a lot because we bike a lot over there, to provide meal to help the firefighters.

COOPER: So, you're bringing meals on your bike?

BEUVE: On a bike, on a backpack. So, we've been doing that for the last two days.

COOPER: And how long can you keep that up? I mean --

BEUVE: I mean, we have a lot of friends, so we've been doing rotation and everything. So, we do like maybe four or five rotations.

COOPER: What is it -- I mean, this is your community. I mean, this -- you've made a life here. What is it like to see what's going on?

BEUVE: It's pretty crazy. It's pretty sad. It's a big tragedy, like to see all those people losing their houses, their home. Very sad for the wildlife, too. You know, we named the restaurant Le Great Outdoor because we love the great outdoors. And to see everything burning alive in front of our eyes is pretty, pretty painful. It's very painful. Like last Thursday, we went camping in the same mountain, and this Tuesday, we saw this fire. So, it's very, very painful to see this and --

COOPER: Have you ever seen anything like this? I mean, Pedro, have you ever seen anything like this?

PEDRO MORI, CO-FOUNDER, LE GREAT OUTDOORS: Nothing to that extent. I think 2018 was pretty shocking, but not to this point. And we just didn't think twice before we got into whatever we could. We are a restaurant, so the first thing we could think is provide food, and we wouldn't stop because of that.

COOPER: Have you been surprised by the outpouring from people to, I mean, wanting to help? Because, you know, in normal times, people are often disconnected, living their own lives and suddenly something like this, it does bring a lot of people together.

BEUVE: Yes. Bring a lot of people together, I'm very surprised by the help from everyone. Everybody's sticking together now. So, it's very, very good to see that happening. Hopefully, it's going to last. I hope so. But, yes, it's very, very enjoyable to see that. And that gives us a lot of power and energy to help those who are in need.

And so now we need to be in contact with shelter and people who can guide us to where we can deliver the food more efficiently.

[22:20:01]

So, now we cannot continue by bike. We have to have support from people who can guide us on where to provide the food, because we have the resources. We have the resources to make the food, but we need to know where we can give it to.

COOPER: Well, I appreciate all you're doing, and I'm sure a lot of other people do. Thank you so much, Rudy Beuve and Pedro Mori as well. I appreciate it.

Abby, let's go back to you.

PHILLIP: Tens of thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes, including my next guest, Allegra Richdale. She lost her home to these wildfires, and she is currently in the process of trying to rebuild. Allegra, thank you very much for joining us.

First of all, I'm so sorry for what you and your family have gone through. Can you just tell us where are you right now? What have the last 24 or 36 hours been like for you and your family?

ALLEGRA RICHDALE, PACIFIC PALISADES RESIDENT WHO LOST HOME TO FIRE: Abby, they've been harrowing. And I just want to say our whole community has been so devastated and I'm not alone in this feeling and this sense of loss. It's not just personal, but it's communitywide. So, there's a way to take comfort that we're all in this together and the solidarity that brings, and I'm seeing that in every facet of our experience since this has happened. Everyone's gathering together and extending helping hands and trying to carve ways to find a path forward. So, that's been very sustaining.

And, you know, we are fortunate that we have a place to shelter right now, and we're sorting things out the next steps. You had guests earlier that said, it's going down that checklist of talking to your insurance agency, talking to loan people, just, maybe some part-time housing, short-term housing. It's overwhelming but necessary and a good thing because it keeps you busy.

PHILLIP: Yes, I can only imagine. I mean, you've been through the threat of fires before. When you realized what was happening in Los Angeles, did you know that this was different? Did you feel that maybe you might not come back to your house?

RICHDALE: No. We have evacuated before. That's correct. And it was a couple of years ago. And it was sort of a routine fire drill, just stay out of the area. And we've never ever been fearful that fire would come to the village. And this time, while we had a little -- I'd say there was a foreboding because of the way the flames looked from a distance from our home. We could see it.

I packed a little more than I did last time. I had just this instinct that maybe just take something of value or something that's special. Because while I assumed we would return, I had this little voice that just said, there's something different about this. There's -- the flames were too big and the winds are unexplainably fast and overwhelmingly just carrying the flames we could see, you know, from a distance, although it still seemed far away.

PHILLIP: Yes. You know, I don't know that a lot of people spend time thinking about this, but you did make the decision to take a few more things than usual. What did you decide on? How did you even approach that?

RICHDALE: It's overwhelming to think about. You look at your home and what you've built and what you've put so much love and the times you've shared with your family there. I didn't know where to start. We grabbed a few pieces of clothing just to think how to get through the next few days. But what I landed on was some art. My father gave me a painting that is very dear to me. And there was a piece that always hung in my mother's study in my home growing up that I sat with her under for many years growing up, and that was an important piece for me to have. And so that made the cut in the car.

PHILLIP: Have you been able to go back to your neighborhood? You know that the house is gone, but have you been able to see it? What do things look like right now?

RICHDALE: I haven't been able to get in. There's been no access. I'm not sure I want to go, truthfully. And can you -- I'm sorry, can you repeat what you asked?

PHILLIP: Well, I just wondered if you'd seen it. But the other thing I'm wondering about is your daughter. I know that she lived almost her entire life in that house. How's she doing? How's she taking all of this?

RICHDALE: She's been incredibly strong. She had seconds to come back, run into her room, having just returned from school.

[22:25:02]

Early midday, they released her and took a few things that were of meaning to her letters, some sentimental things.

I think when she got the confirming news on Wednesday morning that there was nothing left standing, there was a physical reaction, just feeling sick.

And it's been a process, it ebbs and flows. But she's 18, and she's with us and we're safe and she's receiving so much support. She and her friends are going through this together. There are so many school friends that have lost their homes, so many of our neighbors that, as I referred to before, we're together in this and we're helping each other.

PHILLIP: Allegra Richdale, thank you very much for talking to us. I can't imagine what this must be like for you to have lost everything like this. But I'm glad that you and your family are safe tonight. Thank you again for sharing that with us.

RICHDALE: And, Abby, thank you so much for shining a spotlight on this. We appreciate it.

PHILLIP: Thank you.

Coming up next for us, CNN has much more on these deadly fires, where at least seven people are confirmed dead. And unbelievably, others are looting.

More on our special coverage, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:30:48]

COOPER: And welcome back. As I was telling you, we spent the day on the northern edge of the Palisades fire, watching crews just for hours trying to save community of Topanga, which seems relatively unscathed at this point, at least a number of houses in this little area that we were. But we watched them battle a number of fires that kept popping up. Take a look at some of what we saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): As of this afternoon, the Palisades fire, which we are right now on the northern edge of, is the one that concerns fire crews most. Obviously, they are battling all the fires that are going on. You can see a helicopter that's used to drop water flying over this area. We're in Topanga right now.

And what is happening here is there are two smaller fires which are moving up this hill and have been over the last hour or so. The firefighters here have been watching this, just tracking its progress as they prepare. Over the ridge there is a community. There's a residential community there. There's homes. That is, of course, what they are trying to defend.

This is just one small part of the Palisades fire, obviously. But what they're trying to do for the entire Palisades fire is use bulldozers, in some cases using shovels, whatever they can to build a perimeter around the fire.

So, we've seen -- we've seen three drops from these helicopters of water just on this one spot in the last ten minutes. There's a number of helicopters with water circling, trying to find the best locations for them to actually put down some water.

But this is a persistent fire that's been moving up this mountain. It looked like the helicopters had put it out, but it keeps flaring up again. There's also spotter aircraft -- spotter helicopters, which go around trying to assess where it is they should put water down.

Over on this ridge, a large crew of firefighters, those are actually inmates who have volunteered to learn firefighting skills, they are working, clearing. You see the road they're on. That's a road likely created by bulldozers earlier to kind of create a fire line. They are now widening that road, clearing out more underbrush and then they will move to other locations.

But this is a very active spot. This is the northern edge of the Palisades fire and there are certainly, because the wind has died down today, they're able to get a lot more air assets in the sky and a lot more water coming down.

They've dropped a lot of water from helicopters over the last hour or so. It seems like the wind shifted and suddenly the fire just erupted.

JEFF GILBERT, CHIEF, WILLIAMS FIRE PROTECTION AUTHORITY: Exactly, you know, afternoons, they get the wind shifts up here. So, that's exactly what's happened and they had to vacate the line that we thought we were going to put in. So, back to a contingency line, come down around these houses and just try to cut this bowl off.

COOPER: You guys are doing incredible work. Is this the worst you've seen?

GILBERT: We're from Northern California, so this is a little bit different down here.

COOPER: There's another fire now. There's a residential community right over here, but there is another fire as you can see on the other side of it. So, there's a lot of different areas that crews are trying to work on. They're trying to kind of build a defensive perimeter around the entire part of this northern edge of this fire, but it is -- it is a very dynamic situation. It is changing.

The good news is the wind has died down. They're able to get a lot of these air assets. But you know, just watching this one little tiny part of the Palisades fire, seeing numerous water drops on it, and yet the fire comes back. So, it is a -- it's a very tough, tough battle right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: What's so crazy is just as we were leaving that location, the wind shifted and all that area just -- the flame just the exploded for several minutes and a lot of the shrubbery there, the growth just -- I mean, it just burned to the ground.

[22:35:06]

And again, more helicopters came in. And at that point, we were pulling out to get back to this location, which is a staging ground. So, that battle rages on hill by hill, mountainside by mountainside, and ridgeline by ridgeline.

I want to go to our Nick Watt, who is elsewhere in the Pacific Palisades. He's been working this since the beginning, round the clock. Nick, talk about what you've been seeing today.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, you were talking about that drop in the wind and the firefighters taking advantage of that. People who used to live in the Pacific Palisades have also been trying to take advantage of that. Some of them walking for miles into the evacuation zone to see if there's anything left of their house. For most people, it is not good news.

We've also had today on the ground here in the Palisades arson investigators with a dog that can smell accelerant, trying to figure out what exactly started this fire. We also saw Gavin Newsom, the governor, came in unexpectedly.

We were just down in the village and he jumped out of an SUV and was pretty quickly confronted by a very angry woman who was asking, why was there no water to fight this fire here in the Palisades when it was -- when it was at its height?

We've also had a death confirmed here in the Palisades -- the first death from this fire. There will sadly be more when they come in, the sheriffs come in with the cadaver dogs. There was also a strange incident a couple of hours ago where a -- evacuation alert was mistakenly sent to almost everybody in Los Angeles.

So, there were people who have been on the edge of these evacuation zones, who've been going out, coming back in, getting anxious. That message went out. People started hosing down their homes, packing up their cars before realizing that it was, in fact, sent out in error.

As you say though, those winds are going to be picking up again. So, people are fearful. You know, this has been a slight lull. I mean, listen, a slight lull in a terrible, terrible ongoing story. But you know, the fear now, of course, is that as those winds pick up again, that we're going to have more problems.

You know, fires popping up here and there. I mean, you were talking about that there. These flames are dynamic. And you know, last night, we saw that fire pop up in Hollywood. Where is it going to come next? People are scared. Back to you.

COOPER: Nick, I appreciate it -- Nick Watt. I want to talk to Nathan Hockman, the district attorney for Los Angeles. I appreciate you joining us. I know how busy you are. I just want to talk about a couple different things, but there have been, I understand, a number of arrests for looting. Can you just talk about what you've been seeing?

NATHAN HOCHMAN, LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Yes, unfortunately, we've seen already 20 people arrested for looting. And we've sent out the message and tried to make it as simple and clear as we can.

If anyone wants to take advantage of this tragedy, people who have lost their lives, their businesses, and want to loot, want to steal, want to commit burglary, robbery or eventually commit scams on the internet or whatnot, they are going to be arrested.

They're going to be prosecuted. And they're going to be punished to the full extent of the law. Their actions are despicable. And we are going to stand with the people and support the people who have suffered these tragedies.

In fact, sadly, my sister lived in Pacific Palisades for 15 years and her house was burned down to rubble along with so many of her neighbors and so many of our friends and community members. So, the people who want to illegally profit from this tragedy, they'll be met by the full force of the law.

COOPER: We should also point out what's so distressing about that idea of people taking advantage in looting in a time like this is we have seen so many people coming together, helping out, reaching out to their neighbors, helping people, you know, get out of the Palisades, had to run for their vehicles. So, to have people do this, it's just an insult to all those who have been so helpful to others.

Do you have any information about -- there's certainly a lot of questions about, you know, how the fire in the Palisades began? How did some of these other fires began? Are there investigations going on? Are you involved in that? Can you tell us about anything -- anything along those lines?

HOCHMAN: Yes, I can. And Anderson, by the way, you're right. The first responders who've responded to this, the firefighters were working literally around the clock, law enforcement, not just from here in Los Angeles County, but from throughout the entire state. They have really acted in a heroic manner. The 180,000 people who have evacuated and did so, you know, orderly and voluntarily, again, tremendous efforts.

[22:40:03]

So, with respect to the people who actually set these fires, we're going to investigate the cause of every one of these fires. If it's a natural cause, so be it. But if it's manmade, we will bring the full force of the law against each and every arsonist who decided they were going to play with fire. And that fire has tragically resulted in the largest natural disaster caused by fire in Los Angeles County history.

COOPER: And I just want to be clear, do you -- do you have any information that any of these fires were purposely set or at this stage?

HOCHMAN: At this point, some of it is just speculation. We get to see the actual evidence of any of them being set. I'm absolutely convinced that the fire department right now is focused solely on getting these fires put out and the situation stabilized as is law enforcement. Once that's done then they'll turn to the causation to see how these fires came about.

COOPER: District Attorney Nathan Hochman, I appreciate your time and yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Abby, back to you.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Anderson, thank you so much for all of your reporting tonight. I hope you continue to stay safe. We want to give you an opportunity to get out from under the ash that has been covering all of Los Angeles today.

Coming up next for us though, could anything have prevented the on- going and raging destruction underway in Southern California? We're going to have an expert here to talk about the fire science behind some of this. Plus, we'll fact-check some of the claims being made by Donald Trump and others on social media.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:46:08]

PHILLIP: Tonight, anger and a search for where to put it. Los Angelenos are fighting through the worst days of their lives, and they're trying to figure out who to point the finger at to explain this gut punch loss that they are wading through right now. President- elect Donald Trump is faulting the governor, Gavin Newsom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (R): Gavin Newsom had an opportunity to have millions of gallons a week, a day, millions and millions of gallons come down from the north.

And I was able to get a federal approval from that, from actually, from the Department of Commerce -- of all departments. I didn't realize it would go through Commerce. I would have thought Environmental, but it goes through commerce. I got all of the approvals and he said, I don't want to sign it. I don't want the water --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: CNN's Daniel Dale is joining us for a fact-check of some of this. So, Daniel, can you tell us about what Trump said there? Is it true?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: I showed a social media post from the president-elect yesterday to an expert in California water policy, a man named Jeffrey Mount. He said, Abby, none of it is true. So, this has just been a staggering quantity of wrongness from the president- elect in a very short period of time.

And there have been some small specific examples. Like he keeps saying that Governor Newsom refused to sign a so-called Water Restoration Declaration. In fact, no such declaration even exists as Newsom's office has pointed out. He also said yesterday that they're not using firefighting planes. We've seen those planes, they're there.

But more than that, Abby, I think the president-elect has promoted an overarching false narrative, you heard a bit of it there, that this -- the challenges we're seeing in the firefighting effort have something to do with a long-running policy battle about how much water should be kept in the north of the state to protect fish species like the delta smelt on other environmental ecosystems.

And how much should be sent to the south to help agricultural interests farmers in an area called the Central Valley. Now, two water policy experts in California told me emphatically yesterday, none of this has anything to do with each other.

There is simply no connection between the protection of that smelt fish in that estuary, in the Delta in the north and what we're seeing in the south for a number of reasons. But number one, there is no shortage of water in the Los Angeles area. The reservoirs are at or above historical levels. The water is there.

Now, we have seen high-profile issues in one part of the city, Pacific Palisades, where some hydrants were dry or did not have a lot of water. But that was not because there was not enough water in the region. That was because of technical, logistical infrastructure issues related to the hilly, mountainous terrain and the location where water tanks have been situated.

So, the idea that not enough water has been sent down from the north and instead has been, you know, protecting a little fish there, and that's why we're seeing these fires be hard to contain, simply does not bear out at all.

PHILLIP: That's really important information there, Daniel. One other thing, you know, Trump is talking about President Biden not leaving him any money with FEMA to deal with these wildfires. What are the facts around that?

DALE: It's just not true. We heard this from Trump after Hurricane Helene in the fall. It wasn't true then and it's not true now. Now, it is true that FEMA's disaster relief fund was severely depleted by the number of disasters last year. But critically, Abby, it was replenished by the disaster relief supplemental bill that President Biden signed in December.

I spoke to FEMA yesterday. They told me that there is approximately $27 billion today in that disaster relief fund, plus billions of dollars of additional disaster related funding they have in other pockets of money.

Now, it is true that $27 billion might well not be enough to cover the needs produced by every disaster we unfortunately end up seeing over the rest of 2025. But $27 billion is simply not no money, which is what Trump said yesterday.

PHILLIP: Yeah. All right, Daniel Dale, thank you very much for that.

[22:50:00]

Joining me now here in studio is Associate Professor for Fire Science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Glenn Corbett. He has extensive experience in fire protection, including firefighting and fire prevention. Glenn, everybody wants to know what caused this. What is your sense of why this fire became so out of control? And was there anything that could have been done to stop it? GLENN CORBETT, FIRE SCIENCE ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF

CRIMINAL JUSTICE: Well, this is going to prove to be probably the most significant conflagrations in American history. Conflagrations is an uncontrollable large fire basin. They've happened to cities across America since the mid-1800s.

And so, when you look back at the situation here, it's important to recognize that what happened, particularly on the first day, is that this fire involved winds in an excess of 70, 80 miles an hour. There's absolutely no fire department on the planet that could have stopped what was happening then.

But a lot of the conditions that were in play here have been decades in the making. You know, the choice to build in these areas, the type of buildings they build, the narrow roadways -- all those kind of things played a role in what's happening, actually happening right now.

PHILLIP: Talk to us about the water issue. I mean, Daniel Dale went through it, I think, pretty well.

CORBETT: Sure.

PHILLIP: But this idea that -- that the city is not doing enough to keep water in the area, what's your sense of how much that played a role in any of this?

CORBETT: Well, I don't know that initially, like particularly yesterday, if that would have played much of a role because we, you know, again, it was unstoppable -- what was happening. But, you know, we don't know exactly why the water wasn't in those hydrants. It could be a few things. It could be the tanks were empty. Some people suggested that.

It also could suggest that the pumps that are used, particularly in hilly areas and things, may have gone down with the power -- loss of power. Now, of course, that begs a question whether generators for example to supply that. So, these are all details we don't know yet and we're are going to have to find out exactly.

PHILLIP: These are -- it sounds like infrastructure issues --

CORBETT: Yeah.

PHILLIP: -- that the city needs to address.

CORBETT: Right, and a lot of these water tanks are put as developments go in these additional tanks are installed, so, they only handle a particular area. And these particular areas may have been the ones that -- it sounds like I've had the problems, so --

PHILLIP: Yeah. What about forest management? I mean, we also hear that a lot. And I think it is an important question. I mean, we saw in Anderson earlier today, there were people right now cutting down brush and creating these fire barriers. But is California doing enough to do that in advance of times like this when they know that winds are coming and they know that the land is dry and that fires are likely?

CORBETT: And that takes time to do that. So, it can't be a day or two before the winds come. It needs to be an ongoing effort to clear the vegetation around the buildings. That's a well-known practice, particularly in California. They had the most experience with this. And so, that is a really important thing. And I think once we get an inquiry into what happened here, we'll find out the policies they actually used.

One good example is the Getty Museum. The Getty Museum survived all this, as it did in a previous fire because they not only had a building that was designed to be resistant to these kind of fires, but also they cleared all the vegetation away from the immediate area around the building.

PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, what is your sense of the future here for California? I mean, we know that these fires are becoming more deadly because of just how dry it is. They had basically no rain for more than half of the year last year.

CORBETT: Yeah.

PHILLIP: But is the state really doing, in your view, as much as it can be doing given the reality of the climate, given the reality of the topography that they are inhabiting?

CORBETT: Right. So, this is really an issue for us in the country, really, to think about this, because similar kind of things happen along the eastern shore with hurricanes or, you know, with tornadoes -- things like that.

And so, I think the issue for us is this -- is that, we really need to have a much deep dive into what actually happened here. We need to know, again, what role all these things play. We know for a fact that -- that narrow roadways don't allow for people to egress out and for firefighters to get in. We know that the vegetation is certainly an issue here.

We know about the water supply. So, these are all things that have been decades in the making here, that we're allowing people to build in areas perhaps where they shouldn't really be building it. So, that's the big kind of questions here.

And of course, one big thing that's on the horizon here is what's going to happen with insurance going forward here? Because a lot of people have already lost their policies before this fire and you can see how this is pushing the insurance industry to the edge in terms of what they're going to insure, so --

PHILLIP: These are some of the most beautiful parts of California but it's also, as we know now, extremely dangerous and at risk. Glenn Corbett, thank you very much for all of that information.

CORBETT: Thank you, Abby.

PHILLIP: Coming up next for us, more breaking news. The Supreme Court says the president-elect Trump does need to face sentencing tomorrow. We'll have the details next.

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[22:59:26]

PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight. The Supreme Court says Donald Trump can be sentenced tomorrow in the New York hush money case. The justices rejected Trump's emergency request to stop that sentencing -- five to four. That means that his sentencing is going to proceed as planned tomorrow morning before he is inaugurated.

A source tells CNN that he plans to appear virtually this time. And you'll recall that Trump was convicted back in May on 34 counts in that Stormy Daniels case. Judge Juan Merchan, the judge who oversees the New York trial, has indicated that Trump will not face penalties or prison time.

[23:00:00]

The president-elect's appeal to his conviction is still pending and it is working its way through appeals courts. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight"."Laura Coates Live" starts right now.