A series of wildfires is raging across the Los Angeles suburbs, and firefighters are struggling to get control. The fires that are devastating Pasadena and the Pacific Palisades are threatening to spread further into other areas of southern California.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Curtis inspects the charred remains of the trailer park in Pacific Palisades, California that until Tuesday had been home.
00:09The destruction is total.
00:11All that's left is an eerie hush as the dry winds that drove the wildfire through this neighborhood blow through the rubble.
00:18How much would you say that you've lost?
00:20Everything.
00:22I got my car, whatever's in my car.
00:26So, don't know.
00:32But there's little time for reflection here in the Los Angeles suburbs.
00:36Multiple blazes are racing through the area, with firefighters saying they are 0% contained.
00:42Already over 1,000 buildings have burned.
00:45The consensus among longtime residents seems to be that these are the worst fires anyone can remember.
00:51In another part of Pacific Palisades, Santa Chong is hurriedly hosing down the bamboo hedge outside his home.
01:00I know this looks pretty stupid, but if I can save one ember from burning down my house, I'll take the risk.
01:08He's fed up with what he sees as inaction over the threat of wildfires, and reports of problems with water supplies as firefighters try to rein them in.
01:18We need our governments to be more proactive about these wildfires.
01:21They're happening every single, several times a year.
01:24There must be some things we can do to try to mitigate this.
01:28Please, fire hydrants are empty.
01:31Firefighters are doing everything they can, but we need to do things more proactively before.
01:37Now, in the final days of his presidency, Joe Biden has promised help is on the way,
01:42pledging to do, quote, anything and everything as long as it takes to tame these fires and help reconstruct.
01:49But the scale of the disaster means this won't be easy, and the aftermath will largely fall to the next administration.
01:58For now, over 100,000 evacuees wait for news of their losses.
02:03In the city of Pasadena, the convention center's been turned into a makeshift shelter,
02:07with volunteers handing out Red Cross blankets, food and other essentials.
02:11Just over a week ago, this city welcomed the new year with the celebratory Rose Bowl American Football Championship.
02:18Now, with the so-called Eaton Fire raging just kilometers away, the mood here has turned bleak.
02:24What was interesting for me was the realization as I was choosing things, the things that I didn't choose.
02:32And it wasn't sometimes, you'd look at something, you'd go, you know what, I've had that for almost all my life,
02:38but you know what, I can let that go. I can let it go. I can let it go.
02:42And then I took photographs and things that meant something, a little figurine that my daddy bought for me when I was five,
02:50you know, those kinds of things.
02:52Backup is on the way, with fire crews headed to the scene from as far away as the neighboring state of Arizona.
02:58But while weakening winds have Pasadena's fire chief hopeful of progress in the coming days,
03:03crews have a brutal fight on their hands.
03:06James Lin and John Vantriest for Taiwan Plus.