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At Least 2,000 Buildings Destroyed, Unknown Number of People Dead as L.A, Area Wildfires Continue With 0 Percent Containment; Critical Fire Weather Conditions to Last Through Tomorrow. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired January 09, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:02:26]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We begin this hour with some breaking news. Nearly 180,000 residents in Los Angeles County are now under evacuation orders as Florida five wildfires are still raging. Entire communities already in ruins. According to the latest update, the two most destructive fires, the Eaton and the Palisades fires, are 0% contained. Together, they have torched nearly 28,000 acres. They've destroyed thousands of structures.

Look at these homes here. Aerial footage showing just an apocalyptic scene. Entire neighborhoods wiped out. Homes, schools, grocery stores, gas stations, all gone. The L. A Fire chief calling the Palisades -- pardon me, fire, quote, "One of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles". At least five People are dead, but the sheriff warns that number could grow.

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SHERIFF ROBERT LUNA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: At one point we'll be able to do a more thorough search of these impacted areas. Some of them look like a bomb was dropped in them where we will be able to bring in canines and other things to help us hopefully not discover too many fatalities, that's our prayer, but this is a crisis and we don't know what to expect. But we're ready for everything. So be patient with us. When you ask us about death toll numbers right now, frankly, we don't know yet.

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KEILAR: CNN's Julia Vargas is near the Eaton fire in Altadena, California where officials say at least five people have died. Julia, how are things looking there now?

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, that bomb analogy, it's quite right. Look, this is the kind of scene that we're seeing everywhere in Altadena, just a whole block of destroyed homes just leveled. There's gas lines still burning.

That's what we've been seeing over and over here, like 180,000 people displaced. That is huge. What an impact it has in these communities. And like all the way down, I'm not sure how far you can see but these down power lines, this is what people are going to come back to.

We just passed, we've been moving around trying to see more and more of these neighborhoods throughout the day to get you some more reporting. And we've seen residents trying to come back but authorities basically saying look, you can't yet, it's too dangerous, it's too soon. 180,000 people displaced.

We also have 200 and something households -- 215,000 households without power because about half of those been turned off because officials are concerned about what that could mean for sparking further fires.

[14:05:10]

We're hearing from meteorologists that there could be more winds coming tonight and through the weekend and that could spread this fire further, even though for now it has stopped growing. But that is after it has damaged about 1,000 structures and put a lot more at risk. And all those people that are still without a place to go.

Yes, we can think about all of the logistical challenges that are coming in the coming days, Brianna. People are going to want to come home. They're going to want to come back to the Los Angeles area. And the infrastructure is going to be overwhelmed because it is already.

We are hearing from city officials that the power, water, we talked earlier about the water issues that the city's having that's just because there's so much demand. People need to have water to fight this fire. And yet it's just not getting to them at times. So many challenges that these officials are now facing and might face again in the coming days.

KEILAR: All right. Julia Vargas Jones with the latest from Altadena, thank you for that. Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: These fires have been supercharged by some of the strongest Santa Ana winds on record, at times gusting up to 100 miles an hour. CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Brent Pascua says it was like fighting a fire inside a hurricane. He joins us now live.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us. I understand that the winds, at least for the last few hours, have died down somewhat. Do you have an update on how much of the fires have been contained at this point?

BRENT PASCUA, BATTALION CHIEF, CAL FIRE: We don't have any new containment numbers, but this welcomed break in the winds is going to allow us to get that number to come up to at least get some containment on this fire. Because the last two days with those strong winds, 80 mile an hour winds, there was just nowhere to anchor in and start putting this fire out. It was just trying to save lives.

SANCHEZ: And on that work of trying to save lives, I know one of the difficult tasks that firefighters have in situations like this as certain areas that have been inaccessible become accessible is finding folks that maybe did not get out. I wonder if you have any update for us on the death toll?

PASCUA: I don't have any reports right now. Nothing official. Our damage inspection teams have just arrived on scene yesterday to go in and sift through the damage. And nothing official as of now.

SANCHEZ: We are glad to hear that at least the numbers appear to be holding where they are, even though it is anticipated that they may climb. I do wonder, sir, much has been made about this $17 million budget cut to the LA Fire Department last summer. How much of resources been a problem for you? Do you have what you need to fight these fires.

PASCUA: Boris, I'm not sure exactly what the numbers and the budget cut, but I know when we requested resources, we got them. They were en route, they're on the road, they're here now. There's still more coming, so I haven't had any effect as far as we couldn't get anything because of a budget cut. But we're getting what we need. I know that for sure.

SANCHEZ: So what would you say are the biggest challenges that you're facing? Specifically in some of these areas that have zero percent containment?

PASCUA: The number one was the wind, and the wind was just different on the Santa Ana event. We fought fire before during Santa Ana, and we've been able to control those fires. The winds this time were almost double what we're used to or what we've seen in the past.

So again, once the winds stop, like today, this welcome relief, it's been nice. We've been able to get all of our aviation assets up in the air, start dropping water, working with the ground troops. That coordinated effect is really going to make a difference.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, that makes a huge difference. I do wonder, I was speaking with a meteorologist last hour who explained that over the next few days, especially going into the weekend, they do expect the winds to pick up again. How do your teams prepare for something like that?

PASCUA: Yeah, so what we're doing is we're getting as much done as we can right now while the wind is on our side. We do know that they're expected to come back, so it's going to be all hands on deck. Once again, we're prepared to fight this fire, battle this fire. I know a lot of our firefighters are exhausted, but they want to make sure that the buildings and houses that are standing are still standing when they're done.

SANCHEZ: We are so grateful for their work and candidly, just impressed by the kind of motor that some of these crews have to just keep going hour after hour.

There was something that LA Mayor Karen Bass said that caught my attention that I was curious to get your perspective on.

[14:10:04] She was talking about fire hydrants not being constructed to deal with this type of massive devastation. That was after some fire hydrants apparently had run dry in an area of the Palisades. Is that something you may plan to reevaluate once these fires are under control?

PASCUA: There's definitely going to be some learning lessons. Just like every fire, we go back, we figure out what could have been done different, what could have been done better. If we find there was something, an issue with those, we will address it and make it better.

Speaking to the crews that I've spoke to that came in here, they had water pressure. It might have dropped at the height of the fight a little bit, but they said they had water the whole time. So good news on this side.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, that is welcome news. Brent Pascua, we have to leave the conversation there. Thank you so much for everything you do.

PASCUA: Okay. You're welcome. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: We still have much more on the LA wildfires ahead. Stay with CNN.

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OLIVER ALLNAT, PACIFIC PALISADES RESIDENT: Had just come from my family home where my mother lives that was burned to a crisp. So that was the initial shock value. And then I came up to my home and same thing, it's completely dust.

I mean, I was down to my knees when I got up to my parents house with just sheer amazement at what I was looking at which was basically just a chimney stack and a pile of ash. I mean it's something out of a movie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[14:16:17]

SANCHEZ: Imagine trying to extinguish a fire in the middle of a hurricane. That's how firefighters across Southern California are describing the situation right now as they battle five different outbreaks.

I want you to look at this time lapse video that shows you what the Santa Ana winds can do. Whipping up to 80 miles an hour. These gusts then fuel embers and absolutely devour an entire neighborhood in Topanga Canyon in just about three hours.

We have CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers joining us now. And Chad, the National Weather Service just said that strong gusts of wind will soon be picking up again. What are you seeing in the forecast?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right. You know, I could see a 40, maybe a 45 mile per hour gust. And it's still better. I think we've always been talking about better. Yes, better than 80, better than 90 or 100 like we had during the true firestorm. But there will be gusty winds today making it difficult for those air drops to actually hit the location that they're trying to drop.

Here's what we're talking about the first this afternoon. This is about two hours from now. LA proper around 34 mile per hour gusts, not sustained, but gusts. And I don't believe that they'll be high enough that they have to ground the helicopters altogether. They'll still be making drops, but when you see the water come out of the bottom of the helicopter, it just turns to mist. It's not this big dump of water like they really like.

Now, tomorrow's a much better day, without a doubt. Especially tomorrow night. We'll be down into the single digits when it comes to wind speed.

But here's how all of this happens. High pressure up near Utah, low pressure down near Baja. And because they're so close together, the winds funnel. The wind is caused by the difference in pressure between one location and another. And those winds funneled through the valleys, over the mountains and down, fanning the blaze.

Now, there was also something else that was going on to get this many fires in this many places. There's been a drought, a significant drought in Southern California. For the water year, they should have about four inches of rainfall at this point in time. They've had none. The last time they had an inch of rain was in March of 2024.

When you get that type of drought in this type of wind and you get a spark, you're going to get wildfires. Normally we get them in between the wildland urban interface, which there's a house here and there that they can protect. This wasn't a house by house. This was rows and rows of homes right next to each other, each setting each other on fire.

So, yes, the wind dies down tomorrow and humidity comes back a little bit. That's helpful. Doesn't seem helpful, but it is. And because the wind's going to be dying off, we lose the inversion, we're going to lose some of this bad air quality as well. Some of it will mix out and the air will be better to breathe tomorrow as well. Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, I'm sure firefighters are looking forward to that window of time to try to get as much of this contained as possible. Chad Myers, live from Weather Center, thank you so much. Brianna.

KEILAR: Some of California's best defenses in this disaster, really any state's best defenses are those specialized aircraft that can drop this. It's flame retardant. Also water on areas that firefighters on the ground cannot reach.

CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean is here. Also, it's just so much water and you can't haul that in f you're there -- you're there to dig line if you're a wildland firefighter, to be clear here. So this is key. Do we know about the winds and what they're doing to hinder this? PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The winds are subsiding enough for them to get airplanes and helicopters in the air, which is so critical to this. Just check the flight trackers. Aerial firefighting aircraft in the air right now, mostly helicopters working in area near Topanga. That's just northwest of Pacific Palisades. The conditions have been really extreme with howling winds hampering the aerial firefighting work.

But the good news is winds are subsiding enough because the air tankers are critical to attacking out of control wildfires like this.

[14:20:05]

The red retardant they drop is a slurry mostly made of phosphorus. And crews drop it around the edge of a fire to beat it back, giving firefighters on the ground a chance of putting it out.

At the center of all this is the California Department of Forestry and Fire protection, known as CAL FIRE. It is 31 helicopters and six tanks tankers on the case right now. And I want you to listen to Captain Dave Kelly, who Tuesday and Wednesday made eight drops from a C-130 totaling 32,000 gallons of fire retardant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE KELLY, AIR TANKER PILOT, CAL FIRE: Very turbulent, very windy. We were looking at probably 30 to 50 mile an hour winds down in those drainages that we had to contend with while also doing our job, which is difficult in itself.

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MUNTEAN: Really hard to fly an airplane that big down so low to the ground. He flies the C-130, growing part of the CAL FIRE fleet, but the backbone's really the S-2T. Just last night, some of the DC-10 retired airliner tankers arrived in Southern California. One drop of those -- from those is equivalent to a dozen drops from an S-2.

So 9,400 gallons of retardant dropped in a path 300ft wide over the course of a mile. The rub there is it takes some time to refill those plants. Aerial firefighting crews from Quebec and British Columbia and Canada have been on the front lines.

This is some of the new video and some have asked why, with water shortages in L. A, don't firefighters use water from the Pacific Ocean? And these crews actually are. They've been landing their CL-415 sea planes on the ocean, scooping up water, making a drop, and then doing it all over again. These Canadian pilots are very experienced because you bet they have big wildfires in Canada.

KEILAR: That's right. Into the Midwest and the northern states we had so much smoke from those wildfires. It's a good remind of their experience. Pete, thank you so much. You're doing amazing work. It's so important.

There are some more live photos out of Los Angeles where fire crews are battling five wildfires now and nearly 180,000 people are under evacuation orders.

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[14:26:49]

SANCHEZ: We are continuing to follow the raging wildfires in Southern California. I want you to look at this new video from Rustic Canyon because it shows just the extent of the damage. This is an entire neighborhood that appears to be nothing but ash and rubble.

Street after street of homes which were standing on Monday today are nothing but dust. And now some of those residents are returning to what is left of their homes. CNN's Kyung Lah is live for us in Altadena, California. Kyung, what are you seeing where you are?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's probably simply just better, Boris, to show you where we are. This is Altadena. This is a foothill community. If you're familiar with Pasadena, they have the Rose Bowl. This is a neighborhood just nearby.

And the emphasis here needs to be on neighborhood because each one of these piles of rubbish that you're looking at and you can still see that there's, you know, hot spots, fires burning across this region. Each one of these plots is a home and these are some of the larger homes in Altadena.

My knowledge of this place comes because I live close to here. Five minute drive. What you have here are some of the bigger homes, four or five bedroom homes. But this is a neighborhood that's generally middle class. A lot of teachers live here because it's slightly more affordable. A lot of people who bought here many years ago, many retired and older folks. But this is what they have to deal with now.

If you sweep across, I'm going to have Lionel Mendez (ph) just take a sweep across this area. It is completely gone. There are entire sections of Altadena that look like a bomb was dropped on it. That fire that you're looking at, it's what you saw last hour, Boris. It's still smoldering. That was started by an ember. So that homeowner thought, hey, their house made it out. It simply went up in flames today.

What we're seeing is firefighters who are exhausted, who have been working this line for hours upon hours. They are still having to deal with active fire. So here in Altadena, this fire is 10,000 acres -- in between 10,000 to 11,000 acres, it is still burning out of control, 0% containment. The fire really has pushed into those hills over there. But they're also in this community once, and if they can get through to access their homes, they're dealing with.

And I'm sorry, Lionel (ph), to make you do this, but you can see the sun over there. You see how hazy it is. The air quality here is horrendous. It is everything that went up that you're seeing that is now just rubble, all of that, you know, a lot of older homes, asbestos, the chemicals, the plaster that is plastic that is burning unabated in this area. So it's also an air quality emergency. So this entire area is being touched in some way, whether it's a homeowner not having any place to live to, you know, people trying to figure out what to do with this air. Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, that air pollution, just one of many --

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