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Wildfires in Los Angeles County Continue to Burn Uncontrollably; CAL FIRE Incident Commander Indicates High Winds Anticipated to Abate Allowing for More Water Dropping Helicopters to Help Contain Los Angeles County Fires. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired January 09, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Really heartbreaking post as well, talking about what his home meant to him and his family, the home that they lost. He said "Janice," his wife," and I lived in our home since 1979. We raised our children and grandchildren here." I mean, just so much pain. "Every inch of our house was filled with love, beautiful memories that can never be taken away." I mean, it's just unimaginable, John, what's happening to so many people. And we're getting a firsthand view of it because of celebrities and their long reach.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hopefully they have those memories. Lisa France, obviously the fires, they don't care about class or job or anything. They are simply raging out of control. Thank you so much for being with us.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw a big ball of orange with the smoke, so it looked like it was here towards the top of the hill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went outside and I'd seen everybody running back and forth. And I looked to my left, and I just seen a fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever seen anything like this in Hollywood?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, nothing like this. I'd never think something like that would happen over here in this area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This, this hurts. And it hurts seeing the scale of it. I've lived here in L.A. area my whole life, 32 years. It's never been this bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The devastation to hear people wailing and crying and concerned about their pet, their family. They're just bewildered about what's just, what they're experiencing. And again, not just experience. I was not talking past tense. This is happening in real time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Nothing like this has ever happened. Los Angeles County is a hellscape, a scene like no one has ever experienced before. There are now five major fires ravaging several cities. Not a single one of those fires is under control this morning. Satellite images show the enormous scale of the populated areas that are burning at this hour.

And overnight, another major fire exploded in the iconic Hollywood Hills, forcing more evacuations. CAL FIRE says the winds have died down, but those Santa Ana winds are forecasted to pick up again, leaving no home safe.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones starts our coverage this morning. What are you seeing there? I think you're in Altadena. After another night of fires.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are, Sara. This is Altadena. Every street that we've been on has been like this, just total destruction. This house, yesterday, I was here as it was catching fire. Sara, I actually, I stopped in my tracks. We were going somewhere else, and I was like, oh, my God, look at this. I wanted to come back here today because I wanted to see what had happened.

This is -- it's not just the one street that we were on. On every street, and you can see in the background here, there's still some hotspots. This is what -- please be careful here. We're still seeing hotspots burning in the distance.

And look, firefighters are doing what they can and making really tough choices on when to leave a scene and move on to the next thing, to the next hotspot that needs their attention. They've been working 36, 48 hour shifts trying to fight this.

But another thing that's been going on, Sara, is that we're seeing residents helping each other. And we saw this all through yesterday, and we're seeing the results of that today. Yesterday, let's go over here. Yesterday I saw -- as I saw this house on fire, I saw volunteers doing everything they could to try to help save this house. I spoke to that and I played that soundbite just about an hour ago with the resident of this house, Gail (ph). Three or four volunteers, she said, had just showed up at her house, and the garden hose is still here. Theres still wet spots. This is the impact that these people had. They helped save this one woman's house. Her entire life, she said she's been living here for more than 10 years. Everything is inside this house.

And it is heartwarming to see how people have been coming together. But also the desperation, Sara, as they're coming and pleading with authorities. Some people say, look, I've called, I've told the fire department that my house is on fire. There's not that much that they can do for me at this point. So taking matters into their own hands to try and stop this fire from spreading even further.

SIDNER: Julia, you are in Altadena, about 35 miles away in the Pacific Palisades. The fires are still raging as well. Thank you for taking us through that. I appreciate it.

John?

BERMAN: All right, with us now is incident commander for CAL FIRE Jim Hudson. Commander, thank you so much for being with us. We've been checking in with you periodically throughout this blaze, and we talked to you overnight about the Palisades fire burning in Pacific Palisades. Sara was just talking about that. What is the status this morning?

[08:05:00]

JIM HUDSON, INCIDENT COMMANDER, CAL FIRE: Well, this morning, the fire is approximately 17,234 acres. Currently, the winds, we still are getting an offshore flow in the Santa Ana winds, but they have subsided since what we saw the first day-and-a-half of this incident. We have firefighters deployed throughout the communities all around the perimeter and are really looking to make some headway today as we start to see the winds subside and really take an opportunity to extinguish any ignitions around structures, as well as establishing perimeter control around the incident.

BERMAN: The people should know that the pictures on your screen right now are live from Pacific Palisades. You can see those fires raging right now. The commander just told us 17,000 acres burned. Talk to us more about the conditions today. You do expect today to be more favorable?

HUDSON: Yes. We're still going to see threatening winds. I don't think they're -- they're not predicted to be that the magnitude that we saw the first day, day-and-a-half of this incident when we were seeing sustained winds up to 50 miles an hour, gusts over 90 in some areas of the fire up at the ridge tops. So the challenges that we were presented the first two days of this fire, day-and-a-half, roughly where we're getting a massive ember cast and just spot fire ignitions ahead of the main body of the fire and around structures.

As the winds subside, we expect that to reduce today, but we'll be prepared in what we're continuing to bring resources in from across the state, as well as outside of the state of California through mutual aid and to really, hopefully, as the winds die down, we could start to get a little bit more progress on perimeter control today.

BERMAN: Do you anticipate more evacuations will be necessary?

HUDSON: That's a continuous evaluation throughout, it will be throughout the course of this incident until we have really solid containment. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will occur today, but we are always in the planning phase. We'll have messaging early if that does occur. But if the winds do die down today, we're hoping to make some significant progress.

BERMAN: How is water availability at this moment to fight these fires? I know in some places you are taxing resources.

HUDSON: Yes, we did tax the water system the first day-and-a-half. We worked with the local water agencies. They've been able to provide some supplemental water through water trucks or what we call water tenders. It was a challenge early but no reports overnight of any issues with water, water pressure. We're bringing a lot more engines in ahead of the initial attack in that first day, too, which allows us to be more mobile, move water around the incident, as well as requesting more water trucks. So we've worked around some mitigations for that, and the water system is starting to stabilize.

BERMAN: Well, that is good news. And we just showed pictures before of fighting these blazes from the air, a helicopter there. I know the fires were so fierce and the winds so strong at certain times that you were not able to do that. Are you able to get those air resources in at this time?

HUDSON: Yes, we've had helicopter -- water dropping helicopters up working all night. The first day, it was very challenging. There was aircraft up, but we really have to gauge the safety and the effectiveness of what they're able to accomplish. So last night, we had seven helicopters up, water dropping as well as some aerial supervision and intelligence platforms. So that was a bonus and really helpful as the winds died down, or were not at the scale they were the first day-and-a-half of this incident.

BERMAN: Again, that is good news, seven helicopters out working overnight. What is your biggest concern this morning?

HUDSON: It's just going to be continued -- continue to be the winds. Even though they might be predicted to not be sustained winds like they were, any gust could throw an ember across the line. We could get ignitions around structures that were not impacted. So we'll do our due diligence, make sure that we continue to staff the areas of the fire that have the potential for structure loss heavily, and really look for those opportunities to gain perimeter control on this incident.

BERMAN: All right, Jim Hudson, I know it's been a long few days for you, it will be a long day ahead. Thank you so much for sharing all this new information.

Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: As we know, and as is very clear, weather conditions are so critical in this fight and the fight that we were just talking about there with John, especially when it comes to the wind. Let's get a new update on that from meteorologist Derek Van Dam. Derek, what are fire crews up against right now?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: OK, so I was so encouraged overnight and to wake up to this morning to see helicopters were flying, and now to hear it from the incident command chief there talking with John just moments ago, seven helicopters up overnight. There's one of which fighting this fire from the air, this is an effective way to fight and contain blazes like this. We need it desperately.

[08:10:01] So what will the wind do? It did relax from yesterday's torrent of wind that brought the hurricane force gusts. You can see this morning it will be a lot calmer than what it was 24 hours ago. But I want to advance this by six hours because we do anticipate the winds to pick up once again today, the typical vulnerable areas to Santa Ana winds. We'll see the ridge top, 60 mile per hour plus, down to the valleys and coastline below, perhaps 30 to 45 miles per hour. So the potential for further ignition certainly exists before Friday's relaxation of the winds, and we get an improvement in the fire conditions.

It is bone dry. Relative humidity levels between five and 15 percent. Still a critical fire danger today. That becomes an elevated fire danger tomorrow. So that's a lesser scale. And of course, we're breathing in all this toxic air from the wildfire smoke, not to mention the urban interface here that is interacting with, so all the chemicals that are being released into the atmosphere making Pasadena and surrounding locations in western L.A. County some of the most hazardous air on the planet. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Derek Van Dam, thank you so much, Derek. Really appreciate it.

Coming up for us --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a very, very long night, similar to today, lack of resources, lack of water. You can't prepare enough for something like this. It's impossible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: More than 2,000 structures have been charred to the ground as these raging wildfires are just scorching thousands and thousands of acres with little containment so far. Federal government -- what is the federal government doing to help? FEMA's chief will be joining us.

And watch as a man escapes the fire about to engulf his friend's home he was trying to save. We're going to check in with him as the fires continue to rage unabated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, dude, let's get out of here. We tried, we tried, bro. I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:36]

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news. Just moments ago, we heard from an incident commander that conditions in and around Los Angeles overnight, they have improved. The winds are not as fierce as they had been. They were able to get helicopters up overnight dropping water, which is a huge, huge help. Still, the worst of the fires not contained, zero percent contained, especially around Pasadena and Altadena. CNN's Anderson Cooper was right in the middle of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": In Altadena, the fires are still just out of control in so many, so many areas. This house has been burning now for quite some time. We've been watching. It has just spread to that tree. I don't know if you can see the entire tree is just incinerated within seconds. But the important part is look at all of these embers, all of these embers in the trees. They're now going through the air.

They're now flying down the block to a number of houses which have not yet burned. And those embers -- now, look, those embers have caught in that tree and that cascading effect. There's a lot of trees on this block. There's a lot of bushes. There's a lot of logs.

Whoa. Okay, so there's a lot of explosions also, obviously as vehicles, as gas tanks -- as vehicles ignite, gas tanks explode. That car exploded probably about 20 minutes ago when we first got to this location.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The situation is so unpredictable. With us now is FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.

Administrator, thank you so much for being with us. I know you've been monitoring this around the clock. What's your understanding of the situation as people wake up in Los Angeles this morning?

DEANNE CRISWELL, FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: I think the most important thing right now, John, is for people to remember that while there may be some improvement in the wind conditions, which is great for the firefighters, it's still a very dangerous situation. And people need to make sure that they're listening to their local officials and that they're keeping themselves safe.

If they have not found a shelter, they can download the FEMA app. They can find shelters that are close to them. They need to really focus on making sure they're staying out of harm's way so the firefighters can do the critical work that they need to contain these tragic fires.

BERMAN: And that battle is still very much on. In some cases, it's just beginning. Have you been able to assess the amount of damage to this point?

CRISWELL: We have not. I mean, we are hearing the reports of more than a thousand structures that have been impacted. I don't know how many of those are homes that have been impacted, but we know that there's several hundred potentially homes, if not more than that, that are probably destroyed if not having significant smoke damage.

And so, we know that there's going to be lots of families that are going to be in great need. And so, with the Presidential Disaster Declaration that was declared yesterday, President Biden opening up the resources for these families, this gives them a chance to really now start their recovery process.

And so, if they're in a safe place, if you're in a safe place, then you can contact FEMA, go to DisasterAssistance.gov and you can start that process of your recovery.

BERMAN: You deal with many different kinds of natural disasters at FEMA. What is unique to fires in terms of the immediate recovery?

CRISWELL: Yeah, I mean, I think they all certainly have their own unique characteristics, but I think with the fires that I have gone to, you know, what affects me the most when I go there and I'm on my way there right now, is the fact that they've lost everything. They've lost all of their memories, all of their belongings, nothing for them to really even sift through.

[08:20:12]

And so, this makes the recovery process both from a physical standpoint of having to rebuild, but also the emotional standpoint so difficult for so many people.

And that's why we're going to have those services. We're going to support the state and governor for his needs and making sure that were bringing in all of those resources, whether its crisis counseling, long-term housing, short-term housing to help people manage, you know, what they're going through, what they're feeling and what they're going to need to do to rebuild.

BERMAN: It's only been very recently, over the last few hours, that firefighters were even able to get close enough to these blazes to try to push them back. In terms of recovery teams and officials, when might they be on scene?

CRISWELL: So, we are going to have people. Now that we have the Presidential Disaster Declaration, we will have people going into the communities, into that local area and where we will start is, we'll start in the shelters, because that's where we know people will be.

We want to be able to start to talk to people, help them register for assistance. But I have already had people staged in and working side by side with the State Emergency Operations team in Sacramento, making sure that we are moving the resources in their request for what they need to help support this.

I've been coordinating with the North Com commander and the president of the American Red Cross, so we can ensure that we have all of the right resources there, but people will start to see individuals in FEMA shirts helping them register, starting in the shelter areas where people are and we'll try to find people if they're in hotels so we can get them started on this process.

BERMAN: One of the ways to make response easier is prevention and warning. What can be done to give people more warning, give them a longer runway before an incident like this? CRISWELL: You know, I think -- we saw that there were red flag conditions early. The governor, he moved resources in ahead of these fires because of these red flag warnings. We need to be able to communicate this information out to individuals.

But the part that we can't do is tell them exactly where something like this is going to start. We don't know where that fire start is going to be. We don't know how strong the winds will be and where it's going to push it.

That's why it's so important for individuals as they're building their preparedness plans to know where they're going to get information and know how they're going to evacuate and where they're going to go when something like this does happen.

BERMAN: I know these situations can be violently unpredictable, but what is your anticipation over the next several hours and days in terms of the possibility for improvement?

CRISWELL: I think it all depends on the weather, right?

The firefighters need to be able to work in conditions that they're not putting their own lives in jeopardy, and the weather conditions are going to be one of the biggest factors that influence that.

And so, as they monitor the weather, they take advantage of the reduction in the winds that they're seeing today to start to put some fire retardant on the fires, to continue to put out the fires. But if the winds change, you know, they're going to have to ensure that they're protecting themselves so they can continue the larger fight of containing all of these fires and eventually extinguishing all of them.

It is, as you said, John, just really unpredictable because we don't know what the weather is going to do for them right now.

BERMAN: FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, we know you're headed out there. Please check in with us when you arrive.

We appreciate your time.

And for more information about how you can help wildfire victims, go to cnn.com/impact -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Still ahead for us, a storm chaser covering the fires is forced to run with seconds to spare.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just let it burn and God protect this house in the name of Jesus. Protect this neighborhood, God, in Jesus name I pray. Amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That man is our guest next. And a new phone call by Donald Trump under serious scrutiny. Why was he on the phone with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito the day -- right around at the same time that Trump's lawyers petitioned the High Court to step in and delay his sentencing. We've got that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:54]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEGAR MAHMOODI, FIRE EVACUEE AND CNN WRITER: I ran downstairs, went to the backyard and saw flames in the canyon facing my backyard and we just went to work. We turned on all of our hoses we, we're trying to spray into the canyon, trying to dampen it as much as we could. Then all of a sudden, the flames just grew exponentially and I turned around and I was yelling at my family. I was like, "We need to go now."

I had never seen anything like it, and I had been living up there since I was eight years old. I have never in my life seen anything like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That was CNN's Negar Mahmoodi, who was among the thousands of fire evacuees forced to leave everything behind as these five major wildfires are burning this morning in the Los Angeles area.

The fire burning around Pacific Palisades has burned more than 17,000 acres. One of the incident commanders who is there told us they are getting relief from the high winds this morning. They had helicopters flying overnight, seven of them, and they were able to get some water and retardant onto those blazes.

BOLDUAN: As we continue to follow that major and still developing story, we have another major story we've been watching as well.

A new phone call by Donald Trump under scrutiny today. On the phone with -- he's on the phone with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito the day the day before Donald Trump's lawyers petitioned Alito and the other justices to step in and delay his upcoming sentencing.

But Justice Alito says the call was about a job reference for a former clerk of his who wanted a position in the Trump administration.

CNN's Steve Contorno picks up the story for us from here.

What are you hearing this morning, Steve?

[08:30:27]