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The Situation Room

Now, Five Major Fires Raging Across Los Angeles County; Now, Officials Give Update On Historic L.A. County Fires; L.A. Officials Warn Death Toll From Fires Likely To Rise; Nearly 180 Thousand Under Evacuation Orders In L.A. County; Family, Friends & Former Presidents Say Goodbye To Jimmy Carter. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired January 09, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news, the growing wildfire catastrophe in Los Angeles. More than 180,000 people are under evacuation orders tonight as forecasters are warning ferocious winds are returning to L.A, the L.A. County specifically adding fresh fuel to an already dire situation. We're standing by for a news conference from local authorities. They'll update us on the latest. We'll bring that to you live as soon as it begins.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in The Situation Room.

All right, there's breaking news. I want to go right to the news conference. Local authorities are updating us on the latest developments. This is important. Watch this.

KATHRYN BARGER, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERVISOR: We have all expressed concerns over the criminal activity in the fire impacted area. The sheriff announced this morning that 20 people have been arrested by deputies for looting. We cannot, and let me make it clear, we will not allow this to continue to happen.

Those who evacuated have faced imaginable devastation, displacement and loss. We must stand up against opportunists who want to prey on these victims. I will not stand by and allow an already traumatic experience to be further compounded.

I stand here today with the sheriff as he makes an important announcement that will amplify our ability to protect our vulnerable communities in their time of need. My deepest thanks to our first responders who have been battling this blaze and to the law enforcement officers who have been standing up against criminal activity to the best of their ability.

I am confident that these steps we are taking today will give us extra leverage and support needed to really crack down on this important issue.

To our residents, we stand with you and we'll continue to stand up for you. It's frustrating to me when we ask people to evacuate. Their greatest fear is, am I going to come back not only to a home that's standing, but if it is standing, have people come in and burglarize my home. They shouldn't have to make that choice.

So, with that, I would like to introduce our Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.

SHERIFF ROBERT LUNA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Thank you, Supervisor. Just so all of you know, her leadership's amazing, and we've been on the phone consistently with a lot of the challenges that we're facing, but we remind each other we're facing them together and we have a lot of good things going on.

So, as we're working through this, I want everyone to know that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has officially requested the support of the California National Guard for both fires, at least in L.A. County, both the Palisades and Eaton fire. We are in the process and will coordinate deployments for any additional requests through the county.

And just so everybody's aware, in order to request mutual aid, at least for law enforcement, in Los Angeles County, I'm the primary regional coordinator for that. So, the request was made through our department. But we are working in collaboration with the Los Angeles Police Department, Chief Jim McDonald, Chief Gene Harris, who joined here to the left, and then the Chief Ramon Bautista from the Santa Monica Police Department. And then any other chiefs of police who may need additional resources as a result of these fires, we'll make sure that we do that.

So, for the last time, 24 hours or so, we have had approximately 400 National Guard members throughout the state ready to support us. And as I just stated, they will be coming in. We expect that they may be on site as soon as tonight. That may change a little bit, but they will be assisting us with traffic control and critical infrastructure protection. They will be staged throughout the Los Angeles region and our Emergency Operations Bureau is currently working on specific missions that they will fulfill both in these affected county fire areas, the city of Pasadena, the city of Santa Monica and the city of Los Angeles.

[18:05:03]

This wouldn't be possible without the assistance of Governor Newsom, who approved this request. He's been consistently on the phone with our leadership asking what we need, and we're very grateful for that. This effort will allow law enforcement to free up our resources and move personnel to other critical areas throughout the county in a sense becoming a force multiplier.

I'm going to switch gears a little bit now earlier there was a lot of questions, as there should be, about the death toll here in Los Angeles County, as it specifically relates to the fire. Anytime I talk about numbers, whether they are fatalities or we're talking about potential looting arrest, I'm going to tell you something. The number just continuously fluctuates, and it's because we're still in a very chaotic scenario.

And just to give you an idea, and I'm surrounded by a lot of firefighters and the fire chief will come up and talk next, we're still working in a very fluid and active environment, meaning that there are still spot fires going on in areas, there's gas leaks. So, when people are asking us, for numbers of fatalities, we want to give them to you, but we have to wait until it's safe for our personnel to be able to go in there and do this right. Because to some people, the death toll may just be a number to us, on our side of the fence and public safety, each one of those numbers is a family member. And we're going to have to make notifications with our partners at the coroner's office to let them know that they're not going to see their family members anymore.

So just again, it's preliminary and it's absolutely going to change. But as of right now, and we stated this yesterday, we do have confirmed five deaths between Palisades and the Eaton fire. But that number again is going to change as more information comes in and when we start to get into the damaged area. The homicide detectives for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department are trying to get into the locations to process the scenes, but they've been delayed for the dangerous conditions that I just spoke about. But once homicide is able to get in there, they'll do the death investigations and then we'll have more complete information that a lot of people are asking us for.

I also want to mention that our team has been working on a curfew. Our goal is to attempt to implement a curfew within the specific impacted areas in around the two fire areas both for Palisades and Eaton. As we work through the legal process to get that done the goal is to try and implement it tonight. If we're not able to do that, that may happen maybe by tomorrow night.

That curfew looks like it will be from 6:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M. Again, 6:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M. That will be the goal. We will be enforcing that. I think if most of you heard our press conference earlier today, we had a number of looting arrests throughout the entire county region. That is unacceptable behavior. Having additional resources, having the National Guard with us, which will augment those resources, will help send a stronger message, keep people out of the impacted areas so we don't continuously victimize the people who have already been victimized, who have lost their homes.

So, we'll continue to work on the evacuation orders as soon as we can. We'll give you more specific information because a big legal part of that is that we have to notify our community of what it is and how that works.

And just to wrap up for us, we have increased resources for our burglary and looting suppression. Unfortunately, there have been crimes out there that have been reported to us by residents who have evacuated their homes. Our deputies continue to do an amazing job of conducting humanitarian missions, and they've had many rescues, and I do want to stress that the majority of the people they are having to rescue out of homes and vehicles are individuals that chose not to evacuate, not only putting themselves in danger, but putting the first responders in more significant danger. So please, you hear this over and over, when somebody tells you to mandatory evacuate, please evacuate.

[18:10:05]

Preliminarily, I know we're talking about 20 arrests. Preliminarily, we have about 12 arrests related to looting. And, again, that number hasn't been confirmed. We're checking that. We're also getting the number of about 16. And that's at the multiple impacted areas throughout the county of Los Angeles. But we'll continue to collaborate.

And as I stated earlier, I'm in constant contact with the California Office of Emergency Services. That's where we made the official request for the California National Guard. I've been in communication with the commissioner of the California Highway Patrol. He's offered his assistance, and we've deployed, with his partnership or collaboration, multiple CHP officers for traffic control around the area.

My last item is this. If you have any questions about current evacuation orders or warnings, or the many street closures that we have here in Los Angeles County, please visit lacounty.gov/emergency for updated information.

And with that, I am going to now introduce the fire chief for Los Angeles County, best looking fire chief, Tony Marrone.

CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: Thank you. Thank you, Sheriff Luna and Supervisor Barger, chair of the board. So, I'm going to limit my comments to an update for the Eaton fire here in Los Angeles County that's affecting the unincorporated community of Altadena in addition to the cities of Pasadena, Arcadia and Sierra Madre.

We remain in unified command, however we have added one unified command partner, Cal Fire Incident Management Team 3 has been assigned to the incident to assist with recovery operations. Recovery operations consists of trying to coordinate all of our human remain detection teams that will be going house to house make sure that we can account for anybody who's been killed in the fire, also setting up community recovery centers. They're also going to be doing damage inspection coordination for us.

So, the Eaton fire is now estimated to be 13,690 acres. It's grown since our morning press conference because the fire is making a run towards the historic Mount Wilson area. We are still at 0 percent containment, but we now have a better estimation of the number of fire personnel assigned to the incident. We're now at 1,527 personnel assigned, and like this morning, additional mutual aid resources to continue to arrive to assist in the firefight.

This morning, we did have a firefighter suffer a significant injury in a fall. That firefighter is resting comfortably at an area hospital. He's in stable condition and he is expected to make a full recovery. We now have a confirmation that we have a potential for over 4,000 to 5,000 structures damaged or destroyed. The definition of a structure could be a single family residence, a multifamily residence, a commercial occupancy, an outbuilding or a vehicle. So, this morning, I reported 1,000. We are now reporting 4, to 5,000 of those types of structures.

The cause of the fire remains unknown and under investigation by the sheriff's department, along with the L.A. County Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service. The reason that the sheriff is going to be reporting fatality information, because the cause of the fire is unknown at this time, if it turns out that this was an arson fire, any death --

BLITZER: It looks like we've got a problem, a technical problem. We'll continue to monitor this news conference, but we're getting a lot of information, new information from the fire department, from the L.A. County supervisor and others.

We've been listening to this update now for the last 15 minutes or so. They've been addressing the Eaton fire in L.A. County, which has burned more than 10, 000 acres in Northeast Los Angeles County. And among the announcements there, the sheriff confirming he has now officially requested the support of the California National Guard to help fight these fires.

I want to bring in CNN's Bill Weir. He's on the scene for us covering the Palisades fire, which is huge.

[18:15:00]

He's joining us from Malibu right now out in California.

Update our viewers on the very latest you're seeing and hearing, Bill.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, this is the first glimpse really we're getting of what the Palisades fire did when it brought this blizzard of embers over the hillsides. And down to the beach in the east side of Malibu here. We're near Big Rock, Las Tunas Beach, and look at this landscape. This is one of the most iconic -- dream and drives in America, where it's sometimes hard to see the ocean for all the million dollar mansions that are stacked next to each other. But for a five-mile stretch here between Topanga and Carbon Canyons into Eastern Malibu, I would guess maybe 75 percent of the homes have been turned to ash and twisted metal.

You've got cars that are melted, the aluminum, you know, spilling into these puddles on the ground. This particular home, only the fireplace remains here. And we've been watching air crews from Kern County. It's another part of California, as the mutual aid kicks in, throwing water on what's left of these mansions over here. So they are apparently tapped into the water lines. So many questions about the water pressure around L.A. County with so many crews tapping in, but obvious pressure here.

But as we speak, we came down through Topanga Canyon. So much of it looks like a bombscape, a war zone. But the community of Topanga Canyon is up halfway up into the canyon. And there is a long line, a convoy of fire crews. We were there as helicopters were making drops. Locals are so relieved they're seeing these resources now, but we're careful not to blame firefighters, responders, any of the politicians, they told me they're doing the best they can, given insane circumstances that even longtime locals couldn't could not imagine, saying these fire crews are doing heroic work up in these canyons. But it's a matter of resources and shifting around.

And right now, Wolf, we're getting a reprieve from the winds. It's so calm. It's so nice. But there are these Santa Ana's in the forecast for tonight, tomorrow and then the strongest of the three nights on Monday. So, fingers --

BLITZER: All right, we'll continue to check in with Bill Weir, who's monitoring this situation along the Malibu coast over there, which, at one point, was one of the most beautiful areas out there in L.A. County, and look at it right now. Just look at those pictures of devastation and destruction.

I want to turn now to another major fire that's raging out of control in Altadena, California. CNN's Kyung Lah is on the scene for us over there. Kyung, give us the latest details.

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: This is a different community than the one that Bill is in. This is really where a lot of families, working class and middle class families live. And, you know, this is something we're seeing around the area, Wolf.

This is what used to be -- you know, I'm familiar with the street. This is probably a three-bedroom, two-bath home. And that's all that's left, and behind it and around it, all of these homes. This is a community where I know a teacher who lives here, where there are people who moved here decades ago hoping that they would retire here.

But as I walk around here, because you got a sense of the terrain of where Bill is, you can see how flat it is. A lot of folks who move into communities like this one, it is a foothill community, but it's not in the mountains. The belief was, okay, they're moving into places that at one point in time felt safe, felt further away from that wildfire risk. And so what happened was that toxic mix of the strong winds, which is why we're focusing so much on the wind, and the fact that there was a tremendous amount of rain a couple of winters ago, and then this year, I do not remember the last time we had rain here in Los Angeles, and I've lived here just about a decade, and it's one of the drier seasons that we've had. And so you mix all of that together, and you have a wildfire that's simply out of control.

It is much better today. You can actually start to see the sun. The sun is not -- this is the brightest it's been since this whole disaster began. And so things are starting to improve. But what we're seeing here is that people are going to have to come back and figure out how to clean up after this, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, the numbers are really incredible. We heard the fire chief say that 4,000 to 5,000 structures already have either been damaged or completely destroyed. And so many people, of course, have been evacuated and so many people have been injured and now there are reports of looting going on.

[18:20:00]

Kyung Lah on the scene for us, Kyung, thank you very much. Stay safe, as I always say to you.

I want to bring in CNN's Anderson Cooper. He's covering the latest blaze the palisades fire. He's in Topanga. Anderson, give us the latest where you are.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it's such a dynamic situation here, and we're on this vantage point looking over kind of a ridge of -- two ridges of mountains. We've been watching this fire. There have been two separate fires behind me. And you can see this one now has erupted again. They've already dropped over the last hour, hour-and-a-half. They've dropped at least three helicopter -- three helicopters have dropped water on that spot and yet the fire keeps returning. They have not been able to put it out fully yet with water assets from the air. So, that's now erupted.

It also has erupted over here and burned the entire part of that mountainside. You probably can't see. Fire crews were on that road that was created by a bulldozer earlier trying to create kind of a defensive position to stop the fire. It hasn't actually worked. They haven't been able to clear enough of the brush, so some of that brush has just been going up.

This, to me, there's just a microcosm of the difficulty the firefighters are facing in these conditions. The difference between 15 minutes ago here and right now, the only thing that changed was the direction of the wind. The wind shifted and all of a sudden this entire sort of valley area just erupted. It was extraordinary to see. It's now burned back down, but they're going to have to keep putting water out there.

There's another crew, a couple of guys are here who are going to be doing what they can to clear debris to dig to dig some lines. But it's the northern edge of this Palisades fire and it is very, very difficult. And even behind us there's a residential community. That's what they're really trying to protect. That's what they're really trying to protect. And on the other side of that, there's an ongoing fire there as well. So, it's just a sign, Wolf, of how tough the conditions are for firefighters.

BLITZER: All right. Anderson, we're going to stay in close touch with you as well. And as I say to all our reporters on the scene out there, it's a dangerous situation, stay safe.

Anderson will be back later tonight for his show, AC360, 8:00 P.M. Eastern. We'll be watching, of course, to be sure.

I want to get some more right now from California's Democratic Senator Alex Padilla. Senator, thanks so much for joining us on this really awful day with what's going on over there in L.A. County and elsewhere.

Give us a sense, first of all, Senator, of the scale of the damage in your state right now.

SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D-CA): It's unimaginable. And thank you for having me and thank you for panning to the various fires, because as you've seen the images from your reporters in the field, you begin to appreciate the magnitude of the impact. It's not just one fire. It's not just one big fire. It's multiple large scale events with enormous impact on the diverse communities of Southern California.

Having had a chance to tour yesterday with the president and the governor, it's heartbreaking. It's all I can tell you. There may be an occasional home that is left intact amongst the neighborhood that's full of ash and rubble, small businesses, which represent American dreams that have been lost. And for all the viewers, every home or every house that you see is a home and every home represents a family. And we're talking more than 100,000 folks that have been displaced. It's going to be a long road to recovery. But we're praying that the winds continue to subside and help our firefighters really get control of the situation.

BLITZER: I know, Senator, you've been briefed about the effort underway to contain these deadly, awful fires. What can you tell us about that? And can you assure the people of California that authorities will get a handle on this horrible situation before more residents lose their homes or, God forbid, lose their lives?

PADILLA: Yes. So, first and foremost, a big thank you to the so many people in Los Angeles County that abided by the evacuation warnings and the evacuation orders to try to minimize the loss of life. Second, rest assured that, sadly, because of the number of disasters over the years, we've gotten really good at federal officials, state officials and local officials working so well together and coordinating not just firefighters, but other emergency response personnel. I mean, you see even aircraft, local aircraft, state aircraft, federal aircraft, thank you, President Biden, and even Canadian aircraft on the way to help attack the fires that are here.

But the one big complication that we cannot control is the weather. I mean, the reason these fires scaled up so quickly is because of the high winds that we've had over the last couple of days.

[18:25:03]

They seem to be moderating slightly. We're hoping for a respite during the course of the weekend. But the forecast is for winds to pick back up on Monday, maybe not as bad as they were yesterday. But all it takes is one ember being moved in the wrong direction for a significant fire to restart.

So, I know the firefighters are working around the clock, risking their lives and their health to try to tackle this. They're playing whack-a-mole in communities that seem to have already burned, but we're doing anything and everything we can to control the fires, get them out, and begin to lay the foundation for families to rebuild and recover, and entire communities to rebuild and recover.

BLITZER: Senator, we just heard the L.A. County sheriff, Robert Luna, a man I'm sure you know, announce and report, disclose that California National Guard troops have now been activated, thousands of them being deployed to L.A. County to help deal with these issues right now. Governor Newsom, the California governor, approved this specific request. What do you want to see those National Guard troops do?

PADILLA: Again, it's an indicator of we're putting all the resources we can to help here. Whether they can help with some of the evacuations as needed. That's one of the things National Guard has done in the past. They're staffing some of the relocation shelters. Whether it's potentially helping with some of the fire breaks or whatever support that firefighters may need or even just keeping communities safe. There's been concerns that with so many residents evacuated, it may make some specific neighborhoods vulnerable to potential looting and that sort of thing. So, anything and everything we can do to help combat the fires, keep the community safe, we welcome all resources.

So, a big thank you again to President Biden, Governor Newsom communities in Northern California that have sent firefighters and fire crews, crews are in here from out of state. So, thank you to my colleagues in Oregon and Arizona and New Mexico and elsewhere. We're putting all the resources we can on these fires.

BLITZER: And in addition to the National Guard troops coming in, they're now asking for curfews to be imposed in various areas from 6:00 P.M. until 6:00 A.M. curfews. And one of the issues, and you just mentioned it too, we heard it at the news conference, the number of looting incidents that have gone on, burglaries, people rushing into these homes that are being evacuated and stealing stuff, and there's going to be a lot of investigations and presumably criminal indictments coming down the road as well.

PADILLA: Yes. I mean, it's sad to have to consider that, but that's the world that we're living in right now. And that's just one piece. Some of this is also just basic public health and safety. When you have people in areas where there are still homes burning, fires, smoldering and embers potentially floating about, the last thing you want to do is somebody inadvertently contributing to restarting a fire or helping spread a fire into a more significant magnitude. So, anything and everything we can do to help protect property, help protect life, we're going to try to do that.

BLITZER: All right, a good luck over there. Senator Alex Padilla of California, we'll stay in close touch with you. I appreciate it very much, joining us on this hectic day.

And just ahead, we'll continue our special coverage, much more coming up from inside the fire zone.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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[18:30:00]

BLITZER: Back now to the breaking news in Los Angeles and the wildfire disaster unfolding across L.A. County.

I want to go to CNN's Nick Watt. He's on the ground for us covering the Palisades fire. Nick, the fire is now 0 percent contained. Give us a sense of the utter devastation that you're seeing. You've been there all along.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I mean, we can show it to you, Stike (ph), if you just pan it down. You know, we're in this neighborhood, Wolf, and there's just nothing left, absolutely nothing left, an entire neighborhood. And there are neighborhoods like this all over the Palisades where there are just no homes left.

The death toll, we still don't know, but we've had the first confirmed death from this fire, Wolf, but we're going to have to wait, unfortunately for the sheriffs and the cadaver dogs to come in before we can get any handle on that death toll.

Also right now on the ground here in the Palisades, arson investigators, also with dogs, the dogs trying to sniff out accelerants to see if this fire was in fact started intentionally.

And I can tell you, Wolf, also from people who are coming back in, anger is beginning to build. We saw Governor Newsom accosted by a woman who was asking why was there no water in the hydrants? Why was there no water in the hydrants? Will it be different next time? The governor said it will have to be before he jumped quickly into his SUV.

Now, the planes have been flying, because the wind dropped, as Senator Padilla was just talking about, the wind dropped. So, the planes were able to get in the air. We could hear those engines overnight, and it was a welcome sound, because you know that then, that's really the heavy air cavalry, in a sense, coming into douse this from above, because so far, it's just been fought on the ground, and it's very difficult to fight a fire in an urban, hilly environment like this.

So, there's a bit of a respite before the wind is expected to pick up unfortunately once more. Wolf?

BLITZER: I know, Nick, you've spoken with many people who've actually lost their homes. What are they telling you?

WATT: Well, yes, we've spoken to people who've walked in from Santa Monica. That's a few miles to come and check on their homes. I met one guy whose grandparents bought this house just after the Second World War. Successive generations have lived in it, raised their kids in it. He is raising his kid, they're expecting another.

[18:35:01]

Their house now is gone. He was picking through -- I'm not even going to call it rubble -- picking through the sludge, the dust that remains of that house, trying to find any mementos he can find.

I saw -- spoke to another man up here who said, I only built this house two or three years ago. So, I've still got the plans. Hopefully that means that they'll just approve those plans again, because I built this place so, so recently.

Now, the other issue is, Wolf, a lot of people are still on vacation, because Pali High School doesn't go back until Tuesday. So, I've been speaking to people in other parts of the world, FaceTiming with them, unfortunately, showing them, in some cases, that their house is still standing, in other terrible cases, that their house has gone.

And, you know, the reaction from some people is, well, I'm glad I'm not the only house left standing in the entire neighborhood. They're trying to take just whatever solace they can. Wolf?

BLITZER: And I know, Nick, you don't live too far away from there. How are you and your family doing?

WATT: Yes, fine. I mean, we evacuated one night last night. We planned to evacuate. We were going to go to Hollywood. Then, of course, a fire broke out in Hollywood. So, we hunkered down. My sons and I just got hose pipes, garden hoses, and just doused the entire house and just woke up every few hours, checked everything was okay. But, you know, we are at a decent remove from where the active fire is right now. So, my family all good and well, but unfortunately for so many thousands of others, Wolf, it's a very different story.

BLITZER: Yes, the numbers are enormous, indeed. All right, Nick Watt, stay safe over there, we will stay in close touch with you. I appreciate your excellent, excellent coverage.

Coming up, we'll have much more of our live coverage from Los Angeles County's historic wildfire catastrophe. We'll be right back after a very quick break.

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[18:40:00]

BLITZER: More now in the breaking news, the death toll in the L. A. County fire is rising to six, as officials are warning that number could keep climbing and climbing.

Let's bring in Cal Fire Battalion Chief Brent Pascua. Brent, thanks for joining us once again. We spoke yesterday. I want you to update us. Do you have any sense of how many people, first of all, are unaccounted for?

BRENT PASCUA, BATTALION CHIEF, CAL FIRE: I do not have an exact number. I've been speaking to homeowners and people that live in the area, and I have not heard or they have not asked me about where to report missing persons. So, I'm hoping it's not a high number if any at all.

BLITZER: We know winds have made it very difficult, if not impossible, to contain the flames. Specifically yesterday that was the case. What have conditions been like today? How much progress, and we hope there's progress, is being made?

PASCUA: Yes. Well, today was great. We were actually able to catch our breath. We didn't have smoke and ash and the sand off the beach blowing in our face. The winds have been relatively calm today, which is nice. We've hunkered in. Hopefully, we'll get some containment on this fire. We know there's winds coming back, so we're putting as much water resources on this fire as we can.

BLITZER: The winds are indeed expected to pick up tonight potentially dramatically. Are you expecting tonight to be a very difficult firefight?

PASCUA: You know, compared to the last two nights, not really. We're optimistic about tonight that we're not going to see those 80 mile-an- hour winds that are uprooting trees, knocking over power poles before the fire even gets to them.

So, we're very optimistic that we're going to have another good night, be able to get the aircraft in the air and make some differences, make some progress on this fire.

BLITZER: And let's certainly hope that's the case. I want to show our viewers, Brent, some video that you were nice enough to send us of your crews driving down a neighborhood that was just leveled by these fires. Do you have a sense of when people will be actually be able to go back and see what's actually left of their homes?

PASCUA: You know, I was up there again today checking just to see what it's like and there's power lines everywhere, there's broken gas lines. It's a war zone up there. As soon as we can make it safe, and that's going to be our number one priority after we put this fire out, make it safe, get those people access to their homes.

BLITZER: I know that Los Angeles has opened its water reservoirs to try to help with supply issues. Do you have enough water today?

PASCUA: Everyone I've talked to has had enough water today. I keep getting asked about the water situation. I've yet to run into anyone that ran out of water. Some of the crews said some of the pressure dropped a little at the height of the firefight, but they had water the whole time.

BLITZER: That's good to know. We know your crews, Brent, have been working around the clock and we're grateful to them for what they're doing, really risking their lives to help. What can you tell us about the number of firefighters who sadly have been injured?

PASCUA: You know, I don't have a lot of information on the injuries. I just know that seven of them were minor injury, which is good news. That's all I have at this moment. Otherwise, I've talked to other firefighters in good spirits. That break from the wind today really helped. And even though they haven't slept in sometimes 48, 60 hours, you wouldn't know it. These men and women are still engaged in this firefight.

BLITZER: Yes, they are all heroes and we're grateful to them.

Brent Pascua, the Cal Fire battalion chief, thank you very, very much for joining us and thanks for all the important and good work you and your teams are doing.

PASCUA: You're welcome.

BLITZER: And just ahead, we'll go back live to Los Angeles County as our CNN team continues following these deadly wildfires.

[18:45:06]

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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BLITZER: Tonight, nearly 180,000 residents of Los Angeles County are under evacuation orders as fire crews battle to try to gain control of a historic wildfire disaster.

CNN's Natasha Chen is joining us now from an evacuation center in Pasadena.

That's just northeast of downtown L.A.

Natasha, what are you seeing? What are you hearing from people there?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, it's a lot of exasperation here today. A lot of these people are coming from the Altadena fire. A lot of them have lost their homes. There are 1,200 people staying in this shelter right now, and hundreds more coming in just looking for resources. A lot of them wearing the clothes they had on their backs when they left their homes, or borrowing some clothes, looking for a toothbrush, looking for any idea of how they can begin the process of filing claims when their houses have burned to the ground and nothing stands there but a chimney.

[18:50:15]

A lot of people asking questions for why there perhaps weren't more urgent warnings ahead of time, or more timely notices. We talked to one woman who lost her home. She's wearing her nephew's sweatshirt and sweatpants. She said she actually stayed to fight the fire that was on her property, even when all of her neighbors had evacuated.

And she did that because her home is more than 100 years old, she said. It's on the National Historic Register. Firefighters ultimately had to remove her from the area because it was not safe for her.

Here's what she said about everything she lost.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAYA REYNAGA, EVACUEE: Everything I've ever worked for my entire life was there. My work equipment, my brother's ashes, my daughter's momentums, my keepsakes, my deceased mother's photos and belongings that she passed down to me. It's all I have. I have nothing. I can't even teach and I'm a first responder.

I teach people to save lives. And I couldn't even save my house. And I'm just shattered.

I'm broken for my family, the community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I pay my rent, 22 years. My name is Marie Iacullo (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no, no, no, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: We're hearing from a lot of people who are very upset here around the shelter for many reasons. There's anger, there's devastation, and there's a lot of people trying to figure out what to do next, Wolf.

BLITZER: Heartbreaking stories indeed. Awful, awful situation.

Natasha Chen, thank you very much for that report.

And to our viewers, for more information on how you can actually help the Los Angeles area wildfire victims, go to CNN.com/Impact. Or you can text "WILDFIRES", "WILDFIRES" to 707070. Let me repeat that, 707070 to donate.

This is really important. And if you can help, you should.

Coming up, Washington's elite pay their respects to the late Jimmy Carter. We're going to take you inside today's ceremony at the Washington national cathedral, where all five living U.S. presidents were in attendance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:56:40]

BLITZER: Finally tonight, you're looking at live pictures. There they are of former President Jimmy Carter's funeral procession making its way through his hometown of Plains, Georgia. Carter's family walking alongside his casket before he's laid to rest at his residence in Plains later this evening.

Earlier here in Washington, D.C., family, friends and former presidents gathered to say their final goodbyes during a very, very powerful and moving ceremony at the Washington Cathedral.

Brian was inside that cathedral for the ceremony. It was really, really emotional, very powerful, extremely significant, I think. But give us a sense.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Wolf,, some very stirring moments indeed at this funeral, from the heartfelt eulogies for Jimmy Carter, from relatives, friends and even rivals to the unforgettable visuals of all the presidents in attendance.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice-over): President Jimmy Carter's funeral was filled with personal accounts from those who were closest to him.

JASON CARTER, JIMMY CARTER'S GRANDSON: They were regular folks. Yes, they spent four years in the governor's mansion and four years at the White House, but the other 92 years, they spent at home in Plains, Georgia.

TODD: There were also unique touches, eulogies delivered by Steve Ford and Ted Mondale, the sons of President Gerald Ford and Carter's vice president, Walter Mondale.

Eulogies to Jimmy Carter written by their fathers before Gerald Ford and Walter Mondale passed away.

Steve Ford, relating his father's account of a political rivalry, turned friendship.

STEVE FORD, GERALD FORD'S SON: During our 1976 contest, Jimmy knew my political vulnerabilities, and he successfully pointed them out. Now, I didn't like it, but little could I know that the outcome of that 1976 election would bring about one of my deepest and most enduring friendships.

TODD: President Biden eulogized Carter by repeatedly praising his strength of character.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's about asking ourselves, are we striving to do things the right things? What values -- what are the values that animate our spirit? Do we operate from fear or hope, ego or generosity?

TODD: In attendance, dignitaries from around the world, including the so-called Presidents Club, Biden, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Trump and his former Vice President Mike Pence shook hands for the first time since their falling out after January 6th. But as for Pences wife --

KATE ANDERSEN BROWER, AUTHOR, "TEAM OF FIVE: THE PRESIDENTS CLUB IN THE AGE OF TRUMP": Karen Pence sat there very quietly, did not get up when Donald Trump walked in. There was a lot of tension in that room.

TODD: But it was Barack Obama who seemed to be the only one engaging with Trump, chatting and smiling freely with the president-elect.

BROWER: Now that the political dialog has just gotten so vitriolic that Donald Trump can say really terrible things about these men and then sit next to them as though nothing had happened.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (on camera): Author Kate Andersen Brower says we shouldn't forget about the underlying lesson of this so-called Presidents Club, that there is still a mutual respect between these men that has not been completely done away with, and we should celebrate that despite whatever tension there may have been in that cathedral tonight.

BLITZER: And the cathedral was it was very powerful, very moving indeed. I'm glad I was inside.

Brian Todd, thank you very, very much. And let me just add and end this show by saying, may President Carter

rest in peace and may his memory be a blessing.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. Thanks very much for watching.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts tonight live from Pacific Palisades.