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Interview With James Woods; California Officials Provide Update on Wildfires. Aired 11:30a-12:00p ET

Aired January 08, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

JIM MCDONNELL, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, POLICE CHIEF: I would say that, if you have an ability to be able to stay out of the West Side today to commute -- or to work from home, as long as your employers are good with that, to take advantage of that.

The air is very tough today for particularly those who are challenged medically. If you can stay home and work from there, I would recommend that.

We will continue to support our partners in the fire service and our other law enforcement partners. But to all in the public who are watching this, a sincere thank you to all of you for your cooperation and your patience as we all get through this together. Thank you.

KATHRYN BARGER, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Now we're going to introduce my colleague Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents the Palisades area.

LINDSEY HORVATH, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Thank you, Madam Chair.

This morning, we woke up to a dark cloud over all of Los Angeles. But it is darkest for those who are most intimately impacted by these fires. It has been an immensely painful 24 hours for communities I represent.

The Palisades, the Hurst, and Woodley fires are all in the Third District. But our strength is in our togetherness, and that will determine how we make it through. We need your partnership in this time of crisis. It is difficult to process the immensity of the destruction and loss. We extend our hearts and every resource we have to all of our impacted residents.

We know, when we talk about these structures, they aren't just structures. They aren't even just houses. They're homes. This is our home. These are places where we built community, where we raised families, where we made memories that we will never forget, even if we can't go back to these structures.

These are our home. Losing home is simply devastating. And I know that we are all here to support you and stand with you in this time of need. Aggressive winds and fire know jurisdictional boundaries, nor does coordination and action across our L.A. County agencies with President Biden and Governor Newsom, as they unlock support through fire assistance management grants for Palisades, Eaton, and Hurst fires so far.

The talent and tenacity of our first responders is nothing short of extraordinary. And I have said it before. These people on the front lines are doing this because this is their calling. This is not simply a job that they came to have an occupation. They are called to this work to keep us safe, to keep our communities safe, and to do all they can in this time of crisis to protect our Los Angeles County.

Overnight winds grounded our vehicles and we have red flag conditions through the end of day tomorrow. But we know that because of these fearless warriors on the front lines, we are doing all that we can to contain this fire.

Thank you for your work to keep Los Angeles County safe, including the Third District communities of Pacific Palisades, Topanga Canyon, Sunset Mesa, Malibu, Santa Monica, Sylmar, Granada Hills, Lake Balboa, and surrounding communities.

Our number one message to everyone in impacted areas is to follow all evacuation orders and warnings and to stay where you are safe as long as the evacuations remain in place. We continue to have shelter capacity for you, as you have heard, for you, for your pets, and we have animal sheltering sites as well.

These orders are not just to keep you safe and to keep your community safe. They are also to keep those on the front lines of this devastating crisis safe. And the longer that you wait to evacuate, the more you are putting people in danger who are putting their lives on the line to protect your homes. Please don't do this. Please evacuate.

There is also an evacuation order in Santa Monica, the northern border of the city to San Vicente. The warning is north of Montana to San Vicente as well. We have an evacuation order as well as a warning there.

Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall is in Sylmar, and that is under evacuation warning because of the Hurst Fire. Our Probation Department has evacuation plans in place should that move to an evacuation order from a warning. And our priority is to keep our youth in our care safe.

[11:35:01]

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has closed its schools today. And as you heard from Superintendent Carvalho, LAUSD has a variety of updates. We have heard from our state insurance commissioner as well.

And while this is still quite early in this emergency, we do have some initial guidance from his office for evacuated households on reimbursable insurance expenses, with information to be found at Insurance.CA.gov. Obtain a complete copy of your insurance policy, take note of additional living expense limits, track additional expenses, document conversations with your insurer or adjuster, and don't rush any decisions.

If you have any questions, call 800-927-4357. Please continue to check Emergency.LACounty.gov for the latest information. And I know we will see brighter skies by working together. Los Angeles County will continue to be unrelenting in our response. And I know we have only the finest on the front lines fighting this fire. It's our duty to see them succeed.

Thank you.

BARGER: All right, now we are going to hear from L.A. City Council President and Mayor Pro Tem Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

MARQUEECE HARRIS-DAWSON, PRESIDENT, LOS ANGELES CITY, CALIFORNIA, COUNCIL: Thank you so much.

Good morning, everybody. On behalf of the city of Los Angeles, I just want to begin by thanking and recognizing and acknowledging the great work of our first responders, especially the men and women of the Los Angeles Fire Department, who last night we all witnessed doing heroic work in the face of grave danger.

It -- last night was one of the most devastating and terrifying nights that we have seen in any part of our city, at any part of our history, fire literally jumping roads, taking out structures. And our public safety professionals created an environment where injuries were kept to a minimum, fatalities were kept to a minimum, and we wake up this morning with a renewed spirit that we can defeat this fire and move on to a brighter day.

I want to also acknowledge the two members of the council that are with us today that represent the areas of the fire, Councilwoman Traci Park of the 11th District, who I think probably has about 90 minutes sleep, by my count, because, every time I looked on the television, you were there knocking on doors in neighborhoods, in community centers, at the shelters, making sure the community was OK.

And then an absolute professional, someone who, since I have been on the council with her, has had to fight a fire almost every year, and so is a pro, from the San Fernando Valley, the council member from the Seventh District, Monica Rodriguez.

And, again, all the men and women, the firefighters are in the front, but our DWP workers are out there making sure we don't have additional fires from power lines.And countless folks, DOT making sure the flow of traffic stays, so that folks who want to evacuate can do so are out there as well.

So there's literally thousands and thousands of people working together to make this work. I want to announce a few more closures to add to the school closures that we heard and the closures that the sheriff and the supervisor read to us.

Griffith Park closed today, including Lake Hollywood. Runyon Canyon closed today. The Los Angeles Zoo closed today. The Hollywood Reservoir closed today. The Hollywood sign closed today, as well as all the roads through the Sepulveda Basin in the San Fernando Valley.

So nobody should be going those places today anyway. I will amend what Chief McDonnell said. Not only if you're on the West Side or in the Valley, anywhere in this city, if you can stay off the roads, please do so. I live in South L.A. a long way away from the fires. Visibility is less than one block because of the smoke.

So if there is not a good reason for you to be on the roads, we ask that you leave the roads open as possibly as you can to the public safety professionals that have to do their work and will lead us out of the crisis that we face here in the city of Los Angeles and the county of Los Angeles today.

Also, lastly, just grateful for the work of the president of the United States kicked in for us late last night, who happens to be in Southern California. The governor was with us in the Pacific Palisades last night and has helped out. And a range of municipalities around the county and outside the county have come in to help where they can.

[11:40:17]

And we're extremely, extremely grateful for their help in this time of prices for our city and our county. And with that, I will ask the director of the Office of Emergency Management for Los Angeles County, Kevin McGowan, to come to the mic.

KEVIN MCGOWAN, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thank you for the introduction.

I'm Kevin McGowan. I'm the director with L.A. County's Office of Emergency Management.

As my partners up here have said before, we're facing a historic natural disaster. And I think that can't be stated strong enough. This is not a normal red flag. We have been in partnership with the National Weather Service for days prior to the arrival of this severe windstorm.

There's been amazing communication by the National Weather Service, and they should be acknowledged for all of the communication that was put out days in advance. What's critical about that is, it partnered all of our public safety and emergency organizations throughout the county to begin preparations for this.

And a lot of the successes we saw over the last 18 to 20 hours is a direct result of painstaking preparations that had gone into place for the last 48 to 72 hours. We saw the long road ahead of us. Our county is known with wildland fires. We just finished working on the Franklin Fire. We have had the Bridge Fire, the Post Fire.

This has been a very destructive fire season. This is just going to add to it. Our eyes are on mitigating the impacts from this emergency, working with our community partners, and then charting the course for what will be a long recovery effort.

With that, I would like to introduce our Department of Public Works for L.A. County Director, Mark Pestrella.

MARK PESTRELLA, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, PUBLIC WORKS: Good morning. Thank you, Kevin.

My name is Mark Pestrella. I'm the director of public works for Los Angeles County, the largest public works department in the United States. We're coordinating across the area with all our partner agencies, including, of course, primarily the city of Los Angeles, in addressing this event today.

I'm going to talk a little bit about what our focus is in terms of infrastructure, and then I will move on. Before I do that, though, I do want to acknowledge all of the residents that have either lost a home or who are being evacuated.

I do personally understand what that is about, and understand what kind of fear that can put into you. One thing I would recommend to you before you leave that home, if you want something to do, is to close that home up tight, close any openings completely tight to the home, and make sure that access is open to the fire department.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: You have been listening to officials there in L.A. talking about these raging wildfires, multiple fires.

And you heard the officials talk about how the emergency services resources are just stretched to the max. In L.A. County, there are four fires, and the winds are making their jobs so difficult, winds up to 100 miles per hour, all aircraft grounded due to the high winds there.

You see on this map where the fires are for the Palisades Fire, no reported fatalities there, but we heard from officials saying that there were a high number of significant injuries from people who did not evacuate. In the Eaton Fire near Pasadena, two dead there, officials say, and they emphasize people need to evacuate.

They are absolutely not out of danger at this hour. It is a very dynamic situation.

One of the people who did evacuate yesterday is actor James Woods, who is in Beverly Hills.

Thank you for joining us. Talk to us. What have you seen?

(CROSSTALK)

JAMES WOODS, ACTOR: Well, we were literally in the exact epicenter of the fire as it started. Well, that's actually a view from my porch.

BROWN: Yes, this is the video you shot, yes.

WOODS: That's the house one below us on fire. Yes.

We -- my neighbor called and he said, a fellow named Robert Trinkkeller (ph) was about five houses up. You have to understand, the Palisades is a very -- almost like an old-fashioned neighborhood, sidewalks. All the neighbors know each other. We all have each other's phone numbers.

And people are very aware that we're in a fire zone. And, in fact, I had said yesterday, well, the day before yesterday, to my wife, Sarah, I said, oh, that guy in the hillside has it cut down his grass. They got it cut down that brush because it's going to be a fire. And that's -- the person who didn't cut that brush was a person -- that fire you're looking at right now. That's my pool right there.

That was the brush below us that was not cut. And so we went out. I had a record of the call. And 17 minutes later, we were evacuated with the clothes on our back. Our garage door wouldn't open because the wind was so bright, it torqued the door, and we finally got out.

[11:45:16]

When we got to the bottom of the Hill, I said, oh, my God. We have a neighbor who's 94 years old, who has dementia. And I said, there were no cars on the driveway and we would go over and help and get in his chair some time if he fell with the caregiver.

But I knew he was in the hospital. And I don't know. God was on his side. I decided to call his son in Massachusetts and said, hey, Francis (ph), just to be sure, your dad's still in the hospital, right? He said: "No, he got home last night."

BROWN: Oh.

WOODS: "And there's a new caregiver and I don't have the number."

And I -- and they wouldn't let us back up. So I finally got through to 911 and said, welfare check, you got to go check on this guy. Well, there was a miscommunication. And I called my neighbor who hadn't evacuated yet. He was fight -- on his roof fighting his fire. He'd been on my roof. He knows my roof now.

I said, go in and check on me. He went. He said: "The door's open. There's nobody here." He went in and yelled. He said, "No, nobody here."

I said, look, just go behind the pantry. There's a little room. We can see him during the day. He likes to sit there because there's a garden. He went in and found him. He'd been left alone, OK? And it turned out the fire department made the new caregiver leave. And she just does what she was told. They said, we're coming back for him.

Well, they hadn't come back from him. I'm hoping that they would have, but there was so much chaos. It was like an inferno. Every house was on fire around us. And he got him out and the house burned down about an hour later. He would have been in there alone.

It was just -- and then Robert called us and told us that that house had gone and the house below that and the house on the other side. And then at 11:49 last night, all the smoke alarms in our house alerted our phones at our house that we had just renovated for three years and had just finally moved into about three months ago, all the smoke alarms are going off.

So, that's hardly -- hardly a good sign, so I'm not sure, but it wouldn't make any difference, because the whole street has burned down. So I mean, even if you go back to your home -- look, I -- we knew what was coming. And when we were out on our driveway, I looked at -- the smoke was so black.

The house across street was on fire. The house next door was on fire. And all the black smoke was down there, and the schools are down there. And I said to Sarah, we can't go down there because they're trying to evacuate the schools and we will just be in the way. And here's the thing that's so important.

People have got to evacuate when they tell you to evacuate, because, if you don't evacuate and you think you're going to be out there with your little garden hose stopping a conflagration with flames 80 feet high in 90 mile-an-hour winds, you're not going to be helping. You're just going to be stopping the firefighters, who do such an amazing job.

And you have got to be out of the way, man. You have just got to get out of the way and let them do their jobs. And, yes, maybe your home is going to burn down. But let me tell you what's more important than your home is your 94-year-old neighbor and your fellow across the street who is trying to help you and all the friends and family who've been calling all day.

And, yes, we're safe. And, yes, I think everybody on our street survived, although I can't get ahold of Robert. And I called a friend of mine who lived in Malibu -- Mandeville Canyon -- or she had called me. "Are you OK?"

And I said: "Yes. You have got to get out of there, girl. So we're miles from you," I said, "but we're packed. We're ready because people living in fire zones are ready."

You have got to be ready to go. And as ready as we were, everything I own is in this room. Every single thing that I own is in this room. We have got a basket of laundry, glasses, pills and the keys to our car. And that's it.

BROWN: I just can't stop also thinking about your neighbor and if you hadn't intervened, what would have happened.

WOODS: Well, I mean, how about Robert, who in the middle of -- the house was on fire next door. Our deck was on fire. And the guy ran into the house and got -- I was just blessed that God said, hey, call his son and just be sure.

BROWN: Yes.

WOODS: And his son didn't know about it, because then the fire -- he's, oh, my God, and he's trying to get out here and there's no flights. And then we couldn't find him because he has dementia.

So they put him in a hospital somewhere. And then he called me at 2:00 this morning, said, I found him, because I said, go to St. John's. He will probably be there. And we were able to track when Robert had texted me, so that we knew.

[11:50:06]

By the way, I'm sure the paramedics were coming back for him. It wasn't like they said, oh, we're going to just leave this guy here. So I want to make that clear. It was just a matter of timing. And the poor caregiver, I'm sure, was doing exactly what she was ordered to do. It was just one of those scary things.

I mean, look, you can't imagine how great the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles Police Department and the Sheriff's Department and the DWP. These people are out there, fighting men. I'm standing in my driveway. See that flame in there?

BROWN: Yes, this is the video you shot.

WOODS: I'm standing in my driveway looking up there. Yes.

BROWN: Yes.

WOODS: And, I mean, the planes were going over. And it was like...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: What were you thinking as you're out there shooting this right outside of your home? I mean, what's going through your mind?

WOODS: You know what I was thinking?

BROWN: What?

WOODS: I will tell you what I was thinking. I'm from Rhode Island and a friend of mine was a guy who did all the remediation for the -- remember the Station Fire where 100 people burned to death in a nightclub fire. And this is true.

There were people in the doorway who had tried to get out and there were people who were literally two feet in the pile of bodies who got out and survived by being buried and the other people next to them died.

And all I remember thinking is, man, when I was a kid, we -- our house burned down when I was 6 years old. It goes up in seconds, not hours, not day.

BROWN: Yes.

WOODS: And let's get that picture that uncle Tina -- aunt Tina sent us of the kid. Get out of the house, get in the car, get out of the way and let them do their job. Your house will go up like a matchbook.

BROWN: Because it sounds like...

(CROSSTALK) WOODS: We were...

BROWN: Go ahead.

WOODS: Yes, I was just going to say, know your neighbors, have a plan. I mean, thank God our neighbors, Hevisa (ph), Robert, Stephanie (ph) across the street, Francis next door, we -- all our neighbors all check in with each other. Are you out? Are you safe? Are your pets out?

Everybody was taking care of everybody. We were on the roof of our house before the fire. We thought it wasn't going to be this big a fire. You always worried about embers. There was a fellow up the street who was working on the house. And I said; "Hey man, would you come on our roof and help us? I will pay you."

He goes: "You don't have to pay me, man."

He was one of the workers. And he did it. And I insisted he take something. And, "No, no, it's just wanted to help, man." It's just people helping people.

BROWN: Yes. Yes. It's...

WOODS: But, I mean, our beautiful little house, it's like -- we have been in a hotel all through COVID, this lovely hotel. People are so great, take care of us yesterday.

And we were fixing our house and we finally had it done and we were swimming every day. And my blood pressure was going down. And if you ever saw the views from that house before this fire, they were just -- it was -- I posted it today on X.

It was paradise. And our neighbors are -- we knew them all. And now it's all...

BROWN: Yes, it's a reminder anything can be just taken away in an instant. So much is out of your control. And as you're there, you were taking that video and you're seeing how quickly it's all happening.

You must have been wondering, how am I going to get out of here safely? I mean, our CNN crews dealt with the same situation.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODS: Well, let me tell you, I'm standing in the driveway and all of a sudden, I said, the planes are going over. They dropped their retardants, but they're like -- you know what it's like.

Those planes aren't 2,000 feet in the air. They're like 40 feet over your house. And I was looking down. The fire was -- the black and you can see the flames, that house on fire, that house on fire. And then over by the hillside, where Robert had shown me where the first -- he said: "Look -- come by my house. Look at this fire."

As soon as I saw that fire, I said, with this wind, we're out of here. We have got to get out of here and make sure everybody's safe. And I was looking. And I said, that smoke is white. This smoke is black. It's moving this way. We have got to go that way, because white smoke means that they got the fire out, at least the major part of it.

And we will be out of the way of the congestion. And as soon as we got down the hill, we finally got into the Sunset congestion. It's nine miles to Beverly Hills. It takes us usually about 25 minutes. Took 2.5 hours. And you have to understand somebody didn't charge their car, their electric car, didn't put gas in their gasoline car. And now they're on Sunset.

Well, I got to abandon my car. And now the fire trucks can't get through. And Now people can't walk. When we couldn't get our garage door open because the wind was blocking what -- because our door goes up like this, I said, oh, my God, we're up in the hills here. Are we going to walk out?

[11:55:01]

I'm 77 years old, man. I can't walk up these hills. It's like Mount Everest here. It's, like, pretty steep. So it's just you -- wait. I posted this on X, but Sarah was on with her 8-year-old niece last night. And she came out -- I'm sorry.

Just one day, you're swimming in the pool and the next day it's all gone. But, yes, she came out with her little Yeti piggy bank for us to rebuild our house.

BROWN: Oh. Oh, my gosh. James Woods, I -- we all hope that you will be able to rebuild your house, maybe starting with that little Yeti piggy bank. And we're just glad that you're OK and your wife is OK. You have your lives.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODS: I'm sorry. I'm usually -- I thought...

BROWN: Yes. No, I mean, this is real and it's raw.

WOODS: I thought I was stronger than this.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: You don't need -- you are -- you know what? It's -- strength is not measured by whether you hold in crying or not. Strength is what you are doing now and helping your neighbors and shining a light on the great, amazing work of all those firefighters and emergency crews out there.

WOODS: They're great. They're great.

BROWN: You have so much strength. And we appreciate you coming on to reflect what so many others just like you are experiencing in that raw emotion right now.

We wish you the best, you and your wife, as you rebuild your lives. So many people are doing that right now and trying to process what's going on. So, James -- and also keep us posted on your 94-year-old neighbor and everything going there. We're going to continue to talk. And we wish you the best.

WOODS: Yes, he's OK.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODS: He's OK. They found him. He's in the hospital.

BROWN: Yes. He's OK, yes.

WOODS: I just worry. If anybody knows where Robert Trinkkeller is, call me, let me know. All right, thank you so much.

BROWN: That's an important message.

And, also, there's this app that's really important called Watch Duty: Wildfire Map. And it helps where the wildfires are, how much acre -- how many acres it's covering and how to evacuate. So I want to put that out there too, as just a resource for people.

James Woods, thank you so much. And we wish you the best.

WOODS: Yes, thank you very much. Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

I'm Pamela Brown.

CNN's coverage of the devastating fires in California continues after a short break.