01 13 25 ABC Reporter Alex Stone discusses the latest from the Los Angeles wildfires

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Around one hundred and five thousand people still remain under
mandatory evacuation orders. The wildfires in southern California continue to
devastate the state, joining us.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Now in the KWA Comma Spirit of Health Hotline ABC's
Alex Stone. Alex, thanks for coming on with us this morning.
What does it look like at this moment? I guess
we're about a week in now.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yeah, and you know, just you go through the neighborhood
Marty and Gina and just everything is gone and it's
just a huge swath of land on the Eaton fire
in Altadena and then the Palisades fire as well. All
day yesterday on the fire line, things were looking a
whole lot better, and they are this morning as well.
Not a lot of active flames, firefighters. I mean, there's

(00:39):
so many firefighters from Colorado and Canada and Mexico everybody
coming in that they've really been able to hit it
hard over a couple of days. But the problem is
going to be tomorrow and Wednesday. Another serious red flag
Santa Ana wind event coming in where they're calling it
a peace particularly dangerous situation red flag warning where they

(01:04):
don't These are rare red flag warnings of the PDS
ones that they issue, and now this will be the
second one in a week, and every time they issue
and we have massive fires that break out, so there's
concern about this. This is the Fire Chief of La County.

Speaker 4 (01:19):
These winds, combined with low relative humidities and low fulm
moistures will keep the fire threat in Los Angeles County
very high.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
So we're not done with this yet. If we were,
if the weather was going to calm down, you could
kind of say, okay that it seems like they're getting
a handle on this.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
But the issue is going to.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Be if it sparks these fires back up, because there's
still a lot of fire out there that it's not
a raging, flaming front right now, but they're in the
homes and you know, in the tree stumps and everything else.
There's still a lot of fire there that could work
back up, or if there are new fire starts in
This is going to be more of a wind e
vent in Ventura County, in Santa Barbara County, less so

(02:01):
in La County. But so if we get a massive
wildfire in Ventura Santa Barbara, you know, then all these
men and women who are on the fire lines in
Pacific Palisades and in Alt Dina they're gonna have to
be ripped off of those fires and go to the
other one. So just some real worry about the next couple.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
Of days, Alex.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
From what you're seeing in alts Dina, I mean, many
people think about the multi million dollar homes completely gone
and in rubble in these areas. However, a lot of
people don't understand or really see the picture of we're
talking millionaires, but also low level and low income households
that are also completely gone.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
Yeah. I mean, you know, you think about the Dina.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's California, so even a small little bungalow's probably a
million dollars. But still the you know, it reminds me
of like the University neighborhoods around Denver that if you
know that there are smaller, older homes that have brick
fire places in them, and some of them have more
classic appliances that we can see as we look around that.

Speaker 5 (03:01):
Have burned up. That they are not big homes.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
These are neighborhoods where it was street after street of
just regular family homes and you see signs of kids
who lived there. Yesterday there was a football on the
ground that somehow made it through the fire while everything
around it burned. They're on one driveway chalk the children
had written the names of the family before the fire

(03:27):
and it just didn't come off the driveway in the fire. So, yeah,
these are the Pacific Palisades area that is more of
the wealthy enclave. But in Altadena where you know now
so many people have been killed and at least seven
thousand buildings have been destroyed. That that is that's just
everyday suburban life where where people lived.

Speaker 5 (03:49):
Alex.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
A lot of finger pointing, as you know you've reported
on it of what people are saying, what could have
been done, what should have been done, what isn't being
done At this point, I know that Governor Gavin knew
some California's governors come out, so he's going to expedite
this to do that to get things in the rebuilt.
Know any more about the water situation, the lack thereof
lack of pressure, what's the latest with those things.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, So there were a lot of claims that we're
going back and forth about the water situation, and a
lot of it is just how fire hydrant systems are
built and which wasn't understood by a lot of people
in the moment, and it would be the same thing
in Colorado.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
It's the same thing here, It's the same thing everywhere. Fire.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Hydrants are made to build to fight a building fire,
a building fire, not seven thousand building fires, and so
when fire comes through it shears off. Every one of
those homes has a water line going into it and
it melts that off and that opens up the line
to air or water. Ethin shooting uncontrolled out of that line,

(04:47):
which we have seen as well, we're just water all
over the place of shooting. And then many of the
more expensive homes now have and I believe there's a
certain size home that now in California you have to
have a sprinkler system in it. Those begin going off
and the water pressure just goes way. Add to it
that you have like two hundred fire engines all trying
to pull off of the hydrant system and it just

(05:09):
does not work. And firefighters are saying that there wasn't
anything necessarily wrong with the hydrant system. It just is
not designed to have all the seven thousand broken water lines,
all the sprinkler systems running, and two hundred fire engines
trying to hook up and get water out of it.

(05:29):
That the systems are not meant for that, and so
they got a look at that. Is there a better
way to do it? Is there some way that globally
that we can build a water system where the fire
hydrants are separate from it. I mean, it would be
so much money and digging things up. Now, there are
other questions, like a reservoir that was being serviced in

(05:50):
Pacific Palisades Fire Department says they had no idea about
that and maybe that would have helped out as well.
But the hydrant situation on both fires, yeah, a lot
of firefighters say they hooked up, thing came out.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
We'll continue following all of this taking place in southern
California as the wildfires continue to burn. Live from Altadina,
It's ABC News correspondent Alex Stone