L.A. on Fire

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily – "L.A. on Fire"

Episode Information

• Title: L.A. on Fire
• Release Date: January 9, 2025
• Hosts: Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise
• Duration: Approximately 22 minutes

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Overview

In this gripping episode of The Daily, host Natalie Kitroweff delves into the devastating wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles over the past 48 hours. Titled "L.A. on Fire," the episode presents a vivid portrayal of the disaster through personal testimonies, on-the-ground reporting, and expert meteorological analysis. As the flames consume thousands of acres, over 100,000 households face evacuation, with significant loss of property and lives.

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Personal Accounts

Orlie Israel’s Evacuation Experience [00:30 - 03:24]

Orlie Israel shares a harrowing firsthand account of the wildfire's rapid approach towards her home in the Pacific Palisades. Early on Wednesday morning, around 10 a.m., Orlie received a distressing text about the fire. Upon looking outside, she observed a massive plume of smoke enveloping the mountains, signaling an immediate threat.

Orlie describes the scene as "embers were just flying through the sky like a rain of fire" (01:15). Despite attempts to combat the flames using garden hoses, the relentless heat and flying embers made it impossible to contain the fire, forcing her family to evacuate. Reflecting on the ordeal, Orlie remarks, “Any future plans I had are totally out the window” (02:45), highlighting the profound personal loss and uncertainty faced by residents.

Steve Guttenberg’s Intervention [07:10 - 08:08]

Amid the chaos, renowned actor Steve Guttenberg emerges as an unexpected hero. As residents struggle to evacuate, Guttenberg takes an active role in directing traffic to alleviate congestion on Sunset Boulevard, a primary escape route. During a live interview, he pleads with drivers to “leave your keys in the car” (07:33), emphasizing the urgency of clearing roads for the fire department's operations.

Guttenberg’s presence underscores the surreal and desperate nature of the situation: “You're an actor?” (08:03) followed by his confirmation, brings a moment of humanity and relatability amidst the disaster.

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Ground Reporting

Karina Knoll’s On-the-Ground Report [04:17 - 13:14]

Karina Knoll, Los Angeles Bureau Chief, provides an in-depth report on the unfolding wildfire crisis. She begins by contextualizing the environmental conditions that set the stage for the disaster, noting that while high winds are common in the area, this event was unprecedented in its severity.

Key Points:

• Geographical Impact: The Pacific Palisades, a densely populated and affluent neighborhood in the Santa Monica Mountains, faces extreme danger as the fire encroaches on 25,000 acres (05:27).
• Evacuation Challenges: Knoll illustrates the logistical nightmares of mass evacuations in hilly, winding roads with numerous cul-de-sacs and dead ends, leading to traffic jams and stranded residents (06:09).
• Destruction Witnessed: She paints a vivid picture of devastation, describing “the sky is a very deep orange” and “burned-out carcasses of cars” (08:55). Iconic local establishments, including grocery stores, gas stations, and the public library, have been reduced to ashes.

Emotional and Social Impact: Karina emphasizes the psychological toll on residents who are grappling with the loss of their homes and cherished landmarks. She notes a collective sense of vulnerability, stating, “This is something historic for Los Angeles” (12:59), signaling a potential shift in how communities perceive their safety and resilience against natural disasters.

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Meteorological Analysis

Judson Jones on Fire Conditions [14:19 - 20:57]

Meteorologist Judson Jones provides a comprehensive explanation of the climatic and environmental factors contributing to the rapid spread and intensity of the wildfires.

Key Factors:

• Prolonged Drought: An extended period of minimal rainfall has left vegetation extremely dry, effectively turning it into fuel for fires (14:37).
• Santa Ana Winds: Jones details how these powerful, dry winds, reaching speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, exacerbate fire conditions by pushing embers rapidly across large areas (15:48). He analogizes the winds’ impact to “a hurricane of a fire” (18:46), emphasizing their destructive potential.
• Ignition and Spread: The combination of dry conditions and high winds allows even minor sparks to ignite widespread fires. Jones mentions, “The Palisades fire was increasing at a rate of three football fields every minute” (17:52), illustrating the alarming speed at which the fires are expanding.

Current and Future Outlook: Jones warns that the fires will likely persist throughout the winter months due to ongoing dry conditions and the possibility of additional Santa Ana events. He underscores the difficulty in containing the fires, noting, “It's far from over, unfortunately” (20:36).

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Conclusion and Current Status

As of the episode's release on January 9, 2025, Los Angeles remains under severe threat from multiple wildfires. Evacuation zones have expanded to include densely populated areas such as Santa Monica, Pasadena, and Hollywood. With high winds predicted to return, the firefighting efforts face significant challenges, including limited water supplies and grounded helicopters due to unsafe flying conditions.

Karina Knoll encapsulates the city's plight by describing Los Angeles as feeling “like a ring of fire” (10:18), highlighting the pervasive and all-encompassing nature of the disaster. The episode concludes on a somber note, reflecting the immense loss and the uncertain path to recovery for one of America's most iconic cities.

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Notable Quotes

• Orlie Israel: “Any future plans I had are totally out the window.” (02:45)
• Steve Guttenberg: “If anybody has a car and they leave their car, leave the keys in the car.” (07:33)
• Karina Knoll: “This event is really historic for Los Angeles.” (12:59)
• Judson Jones: “When you have winds that are gusting to 50, 60, even 100 miles per hour, homes are no match to this wildfire. In fact, they are like a matchbox.” (18:16)

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Key Takeaways

• Scale of Disaster: Over 25,000 acres burned, more than 100,000 households evacuated, and at least five fatalities.
• Environmental Factors: Prolonged drought and extreme Santa Ana winds significantly contributed to the fire's intensity and spread.
• Community Impact: Residents face immense loss of property and a collective sense of vulnerability, marking a historic event for Los Angeles.
• Ongoing Threat: With high winds expected to continue, the fires remain uncontained, signaling prolonged challenges for firefighting efforts.

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This episode of The Daily offers a comprehensive and emotionally resonant exploration of the wildfires engulfing Los Angeles, combining personal narratives with expert analysis to convey the full scope of the crisis.

Transcript

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[Orlie Israel]

My name is Orlie Israel. I live with my family in the Pacific Balfour States. I found out about the fire about. Must have been like 10am when someone texted me, is everything okay? To which I said, about what? And I said, the fire. And I looked out the window and there's this huge plume of smoke just coming over the mountains and it's big. And you know, living in Los Angeles, there are fires around fairly often and, you know, seeing smoke is not an unusual thing, but this was really close. And we start getting automatic evacuation warning. And the fire was getting closer and closer. And you could see it from the bedroom window. You could see the. The flames, waterfall down this hill towards the town. The embers were just flying through the sky like a rain of fire. And the sound of a fire, I never would have thought the sound, you know, it sounds like an airport busy and blazing. We had these two garden hoses and, you know, a bush would catch on fire and we'd spray the bush and then another bush would catch on fire. And, you know, eventually the fence caught on fire, the wooden fence between our house and the next house. And it was just too hot and too many embers and couldn't get close enough to it to spray it with the hose without getting burned. I went, you know, we fight this. We were wearing swimming, you know, pool goggles and N95 masks. And we just couldn't do it, you know, so we got out of there. You know, I'm thinking about my family, I'm thinking about any future plans I had are totally out the window. You know, it really makes me think about. That's when I packed my valuables. I thought, well, these are the most important things to me. And now I get to live with knowing that I chose those things. And I don't think I'm aware enough of the consequences of this to be heartbroken yet. But I think it's just wait for the bad news that the house is completely gone and then wait until they let us come pick through the rubble.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroweff, and this is the Daily in the last 48 hours, devastating wildfires have consumed more than 25,000 acres in Los Angeles, with more than 100,000 households being told to evacuate. As flames surround the city, thousands of structures have burned to the ground and at least five people have died today. My colleague, LA Bureau Chief Corina Knoll on the fire's path of destruction and our staff, meteorologist Judson Jones on the conditions that have made them so hard to contain.

[Karina Knoll]

Foreign.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

It's Thursday, January 9th. Karina, we're talking to you at 4:30pm Eastern on Wednesday, a day after these extraordinary fires broke out. You're in Los Angeles. Starting at the beginning, can you tell us what the this has all looked like from the ground.

[Karina Knoll]

So we knew that there was going to be really high winds in our area. It's something that we're a little bit used to down here, and it's not something that I think we get too worried about. But we were hearing from forecasters that it was going to be pretty extreme. So Tuesday morning I was just trying to prep a story about the wind and working with reporters in the field who were kind of telling me that, oh, okay, people are at hardware stores prepping, buying candles, generators in case the power goes out. Then everything changed at about 10:30am that's when a fire broke out in this neighborhood called the Pacific Palisades. It just suddenly became a fire story.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Karina, help orient us a little bit. Where is that? Where is this area of the Pacific Palisades? What's it like there?

[Karina Knoll]

So the Pacific Palisades is a neighborhood that's out on the west side. It's partially coastal. It's very hilly. It's in the Santa Monica mountains, has about 24,000 residents. It's considered more affluent. And I think what sort of struck us is that, of course, we're used to wildfires here in Southern California, but it breaking out in the Pacific Palisades because it's such a heavily populated area, that's when we get really nervous about fires here.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Right. It sounds like this is a place where potentially a lot of people. You said 20,000 residents are in danger.

[Karina Knoll]

Yeah. When we started hearing about the evacuation orders, I pulled up a map and looked at the neighborhood. And it's a hillside neighborhood and you have all of these winding roads, and a lot of them are cul de sacs or dead ends. And I remember just thinking, you know, it's going to be really terrible for there to be a mass evacuation right now.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

And can you take us through kind of what it looks like when people start to flee that area?

[Karina Knoll]

People were getting in their cars, but getting trapped on certain streets.

[Steve Guttenberg]

Legendary Sunset Boulevard is a nightmarish scene today. A great.

[Karina Knoll]

And they were trying to make their way down to what's called Pacific coast highway, or pch.

[Steve Guttenberg]

The iconic street was the main route for tens of thousands of residents escaping the fires fueled by lashing.

[Karina Knoll]

So there was only a small section of it that people could get to and that was really clogged. So people had just abandoned their cars.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Yeah. What happened? Why did you. Why did you have to get out and go?

[Orlie Israel]

You know, we thought everything was going to be fine. We were just going to go down Sunset to PCH and just get out of there. But the flames started like palm trees near us started catching on fire. And either a fireman or a policeman started telling everybody, get out of your car if you want to live.

[Karina Knoll]

There's even this moment when a local news anchor is interviewing somebody in the Pacific Palisades.

[Steve Guttenberg]

There's an important announcement. I wonder if I could just make. If anybody has a car and they leave their car, leave the keys in the car.

[Karina Knoll]

And he's sort of pleading with viewers and residents, hey, leave your keys in your car. If you do, abandon it. Because then he and others could help move the cars out of the way for the fire department. And then I think at one point a reporter asks him his name.

[Steve Guttenberg]

My name is Steve Guttenberg.

[Orlie Israel]

Steve.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Steve, do you live in this area?

[Steve Guttenberg]

I live in the area. I live right up the hill.

[Karina Knoll]

He replies, Steve Guttenberg, which is a famous actor.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

You're an actor?

[Steve Guttenberg]

Yeah, I'm an actor.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Okay, now you look familiar. You look familiar to me now.

[Orlie Israel]

Yeah.

[Karina Knoll]

So, Steve, this very LA moment where you have a Hollywood actor trying to help clear the roads.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

That is just so surreal. And it really gives you a sense of how trapped everyone in the path of this fire felt. I mean, what do we know about the scale of the damage at this point?

[Karina Knoll]

Oh, man.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

We just arrived here in what is left of downtown Pacific Palisades, and I am overwhelmed by the scale of loss.

[Karina Knoll]

People are trying to save their homes before they're completely engulfed. And then moments later, the flames have taken it over.

[Steve Guttenberg]

I mean, there's just fire everywhere. You can see flames jumping up above the tree line there.

[Karina Knoll]

Near the fire. The sky is a very deep orange. There are burned out carcasses of cars that have just been Left behind.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

The grocery stores are gone. Both of them. The gas stations are gone. Doctor's offices are gone. The public library where I grew up going as a child and have brought my own children, gone.

[Karina Knoll]

It all feels like dramatic, cinematic scene pieces, but they're real.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Wow.

[Karina Knoll]

That is a Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church or. Or what is left of it.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Those are.

[Karina Knoll]

And from everything we've heard, the Pacific Palisades has just been ravaged, and iconic businesses, places that have been around for decades have just burned to the ground. And it's still spreading. All of these other wildfires keep cropping up, and some of them are very manageable and, you know, not a big deal. But there are two that also start to threaten areas around the city and in the city. One is in Eaton Canyon. It's called Eaton Fire, which I think it's already up to more than 10,000 acres. And then there's one called the. The Hearst Fire, which is in Sylmar, which is still in the city of Los Angeles, but it's in the San Fernando Valley, so it's more up north.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Okay, so now there are multiple fires encroaching on Los Angeles. What does that feel like?

[Karina Knoll]

It's surreal. You look at a map of the fires and you see them kind of dotting all around. Our city feels a bit like a ring of fire, which is kind of terrifying. And the fact that they are sort of encroaching more on the city of Los Angeles makes it feel like this is one of the most major events that people here have ever experienced.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

It honestly sounds incredibly scary. Karina, what can you tell us about the efforts to fight these fires so far?

[Karina Knoll]

The fires are far from being contained, and it's sort of a precarious situation right now. Firefighters are really just facing these terrible conditions, and they need more manpower. They have a lack of water supply, apparently, from hydrants. The federal government is also sending helicopters, but because of the winds, those helicopters that are meant to sort of drop water on the flames from above, they've been grounded. They haven't been able to fly because it's unsafe. So these extreme conditions are just gonna continue. And I think overall, it just means a huge, devastating loss for the city of Los Angeles.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Karina, you kind of mentioned that people in LA and in some of these areas are used to the idea of having wildfires in the area. Climate change has turned it into a kind of a hotbed for. For these kinds of blazes year after year. And yet it seems like the scale of this fire and the location means that people aren't just near a wildfire, they are in a wildfire and an enormous one. And I wonder if that's gonna change how people who live in these communities see their home.

[Karina Knoll]

Yeah, I think this is a kind of a weird wake up call for us. You know, we do get wildfires in Southern California, even ones that are in our county, but I think ones that really encroach upon our city or even devastate portions of our city. That's something new that we're feeling. And what's unique about Los Angeles is how sprawling it is. It's a huge, huge spread out city and we have 4 million people. So I think in a city like LA, which, you know, we're very disconnected from other neighborhoods, usually we live a really localized life and it's really about just kind of your area. But this is something that I feel like the entire city is feeling.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Something about this fire, it sounds like, was just big enough and violent enough, fast enough to make everyone in LA feel like they were living in one place that is threatened by the same forces.

[Karina Knoll]

I mean, this event is really historic for Los Angeles. It's something you can't ignore here, no matter where you live, no matter where your neighborhood is.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Karina, thank you.

[Karina Knoll]

Thank you for having me.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

After the break, Times meteorologist Judson Jones on how these fires started and why they're so hard to control. We'll be right back.

[Astet Herndon]

Hey, everyone, it's Astet Herndon, political reporter for the New York Times. When I became a journalist, I made a promise to my readers, like the way that doctors take an oath to their patients. I committed to make sure I'm getting to the truth, no matter which party, business, organization or person I'm reporting on. That's what the New York Times has been doing for more than a century. We believe the public deserves the right to make up their mind based on the facts. If you want to support this kind of work, you can subscribe to the New york [e-mail] subscribe.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Judson, we just heard from our colleague Karina who's on the ground in LA and who described the devastation caused by these fires encircling Los Angeles. You're our staff meteorologist, so we want to ask you to help us understand how these fires started and why they've spread so quickly.

[Judson Jones]

You know, a lot of this actually begins all the way back in the summer. Usually in this area of the world, the summer months, it's typically drier in Southern California by the fall and into the Winter, you start to kind of get these patterns where you get a little bit more rain, but it's been parched. Like, the vegetation is crisp. And that's because they have seen hardly any rain this winter. We haven't seen this precipitation in Southern California. So it's basically like kindling for a fire. And then you get these Santa Ana winds. These are winds that, you know, Hollywood has romanticized, you know, in movies from the past, and they happen every winter. But when you have these dry conditions and you haven't had that rainfall in the fall, these winds can create havoc.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Judson, I wanna just pause for a minute on the Santa Ana winds. I think generally people may have a vague idea of what these winds are, but help us understand what this actually looks like.

[Judson Jones]

Yeah, the Santa Ana winds are really winds that kind of come out of the north northeast. And it happens because the atmosphere has this thing called high pressure. You've probably all seen the H's and the L's on weather maps. Hist with wind, wind moves towards low pressure. And so you get this higher pressure in the western part of the US and then you have some lower pressure off the ocean. And so that high pressure is sitting there and it's trying to get to the low pressure. And so what it does is it actually pushes through the mountains. And in this case, it was. The pressure difference was so strong. There was actually. The wind is crashing into the mountains. So kind of like how a wave hits a roc and crashes over. We're seeing that wind, you know, 50 miles per hour or even higher, crash into the mountains and come up over the other sides.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Okay, so how does all of this, these parched conditions, the Santa Ana winds, come together over the past 48 hours or so to create these fires?

[Judson Jones]

Well, initially you needed ignition. And that's what we saw Tuesday morning. There was some kind of spark somewhere by somebody or something. Right. Like these things can happen because someone just flicked a cigarette out their window and it caught on fire by grass. You can also get this. Just because someone's chain connected to their trailer going down the highway creates a spark. It doesn't take much with these dry conditions to get a fire going. And then when the winds, as we saw yesterday, started to increase in intensity, these little sparks turned into raging fires. The Eaton fire exploded Wednesday morning in size. And that had a lot to do with because there were wind gusts near that area of 100 miles per hour.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Wow.

[Judson Jones]

At one point in time, the Palisades fire was increasing at a rate of three football fields. Every minute. So that's just really how quickly these fires can expand.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

It's amazing to hear the actual, you know, hundred mile an hour wind figure. What does that do to a spark to an ember?

[Judson Jones]

Right? I mean, just imagine 100 miles per hour is stronger than a category one hurricane. A category one hurricane starts at 74 miles per hour. So you're getting gust near these fires that are reaching 100 miles per hour. So I mean, you can just imagine that already creates destruction and downed trees and power lines, but it also is going to push this wildfire faster and faster.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

We're talking about a hurricane of a fire here, basically.

[Judson Jones]

Yeah. I mean, when you have winds that are gusting to 50, 60, even 100 miles per hour, homes are no match to this wildfire. In fact, they are like a matchbox.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

I have to ask Judson just about how fire prone this area is in general. I mean, there are places across Southern California that we've come to think of as places that just burn based on these recurring conditions. Is that the case here?

[Judson Jones]

I mean, the reason people move to Southern California a lot of times is because of the weather. This is a beautiful area. It's this interface with wild landscape and mountainous terrain down to the beaches. Like it's a beautiful area and there is vegetation, there is stuff that does burn. And when you have this large population in a mountainous terrain against these national forests, the potential for wildfires is there, especially when we're seeing these ebbs and flows from really, really extreme wet years to really, really extreme drought like we're seeing this year.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Finally, Judson, if wind is really at the center of this fire, does that mean the fire only ends when the winds die down? And do we know when that might be?

[Judson Jones]

As the winds ease, the threat isn't over until they get rain. This is going to continue to be a problem through the winter months. And as of right now, another, although weaker, Santa Ana event is likely. And then we're looking at potentially another event next week.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

So it sounds like this fire, which hasn't been contained thus far, is really not over.

[Judson Jones]

It's far from over, unfortunately.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

Judson, thank you so much.

[Judson Jones]

Thanks, Natalie.

[Natalie Kitroweff]

On Wednesday evening, officials continued to expand evacuation warnings further and further throughout the Los Angeles region, including into the densely populated areas of Santa Monica, Pasadena and Hollywood. High winds as fast as 70 miles an hour are expected to return Thursday afternoon and continue into Friday morning. We'll be right back.

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[Natalie Kitroweff]

Here'S what else you need to know today. In an emergency application filed late Tuesday, Donald Trump's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to prevent the sentencing of the president elect for his criminal conviction in New York. The sentencing is scheduled for Friday, just 10 days before the inauguration, and stems from the case against the president elect for a hush money payment made in 2016 to a porn star who was threatening to go public with her story of a sexual encounter with Trump. While the trial judge in the case has indicated that he would spare Trump jail time, his sentence sentencing would be symbolically important because it would formalize his status as a felon. Trump has argued he's entitled to full immunity from sentencing now that he's president elect, based on a Supreme Court ruling last year that gave presidents broad immunity for official acts. Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Shannon Lynn and Rochelle Bond, with help from Alex Stern. It was edited by mark George and M.J. davis. Lynn contains original music by Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, Alicia Ba? Itup, Sophia landman and Pat McCusker and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Isabella Kwai. That's it for the Daily I'm Natalie Kitroweff. See you tomorrow.