For three days, fires have turned some of Los Angeles’ most storied neighborhoods into what some national TV reporters have called an “apocalyptic” hellscape. Wildfires continued sweeping the city from the coast to the mountains through to Friday morning, wreaking devastation.
On the ground, those reporters have weathered whipping Santa Ana winds, a lack of water and cell service and the shock of covering blazes that have damaged or destroyed more than 9,000 homes — about 5,300 of those structures decimated by the Palisades fire. By late Thursday, the fires had torched 29,000 acres combined — about twice the area of Manhattan — and killed at least six people.
For Kris Van Cleave, CBS News’ senior transportation correspondent and a Los Angeles-area native, covering the Eaton fire near Altadena and Pasadena cut too close to home. He witnessed a 91-year-old man’s home burn to the ground.
“Covering this fire is coming home — not in the way I want to,” Van Cleave told TheWrap. “These stories are always hard because everyone I meet today will be having one of the worst days of their lives, and that’s the challenge as a reporter.”
Ginger Zee, ABC News’ chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent, witnessed Altadena first responders lose their own homes as they toiled to save others’ in the east side neighborhood. LAFD Capt. Dan Lievense pointed out to her some “homes across the street of one of his buddies who’s a firefighter, and that house is gone,” she said.
And Liz Kreutz, NBC News National Correspondent, recalled encountering a Palisades man who rented a bicycle near Downtown L.A. and desperately rode back to try to save his two dogs. “He wasn’t allowed to get past the fire line, and he was crying and so worried, and a first responder saw him and talked to him, and that first responder went and got his address, drove to the house, checked on the house, checked on the dogs, and brought them back to him,” Kreutz said.
The reporters absorb all this while standing in the path of a real-time catastrophe, with live embers blown in their faces, smoke choking their breathing and the potentially deadly winds whipping the fire unexpectedly in their direction. Local TV reporters also stood outside in dangerous conditions, often lending a hand like one who insisted on giving a ride to a frantic homeowner fleeing on foot.
TheWrap spoke with five television reporters who are covering Los Angeles’ historic fires to get their on-the-ground view of the ongoing crisis. Here are their stories.
Kris Van Cleave, CBS News’ senior transportation correspondent
On “coming home” to cover a devastating wildfire:
I grew up in Pasadena, so coming to cover this fire, in a way, is coming home. It’s coming home to see places that I have known since I was a teenager or in grade school, that are now forever changed.
We had lunch today at one of my favorite spots in Pasadena — Rotisserie Chicken of California, a family-owned business.
I’ve been going there with my one of my best friends since high school. I was greeted by the owner, who told me she and her husband, who makes all the chicken, lost their house in the fire. And they came to work because it was better than sitting there thinking about all the things they’d lost.
On watching a 91-year-old man’s house burn to the ground:
What will stick with me for a long time is yesterday, we were doing the morning show. The house behind us, the firefighters tried to save it, they couldn’t — [it was] fully engulfed in flames when we went on the air. We watched it burn to the ground.
A couple hours later, we met the owner, a 91-year-old man who’d lived in that house for 60 years. And he probably would have died in that house because he was dead set on staying there to defend it with a garden house – had his girlfriend not turned the water off and made him leave.
On the need to “take a breath” before reporting:
I had a moment on the drive in today where I was just thinking about my colleagues and friends who are covering this — our local guys, our local reporters from CBS News Los Angeles and all the stations, who have been on the air around the clock in frightening conditions, in some cases telling people block by block you need to go now. And then just looking at all the things that aren’t here anymore in my hometown — that was hard to take a breath before we started this morning and just sort of put that away for a bit.
These stories are always hard because everyone I meet today will be having one of the worst days of their lives, and that’s the challenge as a reporter.
It’s far different when it’s your community, it’s where you’re from. A woman we met today, who will be in our CBS Evening News piece tonight, she lost her home. Her daughter and I went to the same high school in La Canada — Flintridge Prep.
On the reaction from local residents:
Every person I’ve talked to that has lost their home has started by saying almost the same, which is simply, “I’m in shock. I haven’t processed this yet.”
They’re emotional, they’re sad. One woman told us, “I don’t know if I should be angry or sad or both.” You know, I think it’ll probably be all of those things.
And there are some questions that deserve to be answered about could things have been done better? Could people have been warned sooner?
Those are questions that we’re going to get answers to. They’re not going to bring back homes that were lost, but maybe they save homes the next time.
Robert Ray, Fox Weather correspondent
On the “apocalyptic” fires:
[It’s] the worst wildfire scenario that I’ve ever been on the ground for, for sure. The word “apocalyptic” is tossed around a lot, but it’s pretty darn true to the areas that have been affected by these fires and winds. There’s no doubt. Pacific Palisades, where we’ve been reporting all morning today, and Malibu for that matter, are just out of this world. You can’t believe your eyes, you can’t believe your ears, and you can’t believe your smells, as well. It’s a remarkably devastating scenario, catastrophic. And these are communities that have been around for a long time, that are part of American culture, and they are just wiped off the face of the earth.
On the reaction from L.A. residents:
They are at a loss for words at this point. It’s all emotion, and they’re in shock and really kind of unable to comprehend what has happened over the course of the past three to four days.
These folks, they know how to prepare for fires. Everyone who lives in this part of the country understands it. But how can you prepare for a situation where you get 80 to 100 mile-an-hour wind gusts coming through hills, mountains and valleys, and try to protect your family? You can’t.
What most of the people I’ve been talking to are saying is, “Well, how do we fight this? How do you fight a situation like that?” And so they’re completely torn apart, devastated. Especially in those towns like Malibu and Pacific Palisades — those are tight-knit communities, gorgeous, and people live there for very specific reasons. A lot of [these buildings have] been around for generations, and to lose family homes and businesses — I don’t think people quite know where to start at this point, because the shock has not worn off yet.
Ginger Zee, ABC News’ chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent
On the “sorrow” of seeing a firefighter try to save his own neighborhood:
Meeting Capt. Dan Lievense today from the LAFD, he’s been in fire for a long time. He was fighting the first fire when he got off of that shift and realized he needed to get to his home [in Altadena] — his childhood home and his current home — which are right next door to each other and were being threatened by the Eaton fire. And he even said he’s seen a lot of these disasters, and he was shocked by how far the winds had brought the embers.
I got a chance to talk to him and walk around with him as he relived how he grabbed a fire hose from a nearby fire department — they loaned him one — and was able to just use the pressure out of the fire hydrant by the corner of his home when the entire other side of the street was engulfed already — a wall of flames.
He was able to save his childhood home, which is where his mother lives, his home and then two neighbors. But his sorrow of wanting to do more — because he said, “Listen, I got into this to help people” — it will stick with me. The part where a first responder finds themselves on the other side of fire — that will never leave my brain.
On first responders losing their homes:
This neighborhood [Altadena] has a large concentration of first responders. Every single person we met was either a retired member of the police department or a firefighter. Capt. Lievense was pointing out homes across the street of one of his buddies who’s a firefighter, and that house is gone. So we know that a lot of first responders were doing their job and they lost their homes in the neighborhood that we were standing in for hours this morning.
On the “piecemeal” sleep schedule for her and the firefighters:
We came off [reporting] a snowstorm in Washington, D.C., landed, went and did “World News Tonight,” and then turned around and I got sleep that night. Now I’m forgetting which night that was — but after that, I’ve had a piecemeal, maybe two hours [of sleep].
Thankfully, in news, we’re pretty trained, we’re pretty resilient. And I’m not fighting, right? We have the opportunity to just [get] water, go in and hydrate, and do all those things.
But I would be most focused on those first responders, because they’re the ones doing [the work]. We saw them doing round after round of getting the spot fires out. Because the fires, they still burn, they smolder. And these guys are just having to go back over the same thing. There’s a a magnet school down the road from us, and — I did four hours between promos and “GMA” and all that stuff — and we watched the same spot get treated three times, engine after engine to come through. That’s the type of persistent, hard work these guys are doing, and that’s who I would be focused on — their energy and their lack of sleep.
Liz Kreutz, NBC News national correspondent
On texting her husband about the wreckage:
My husband, Justin Sullivan, is also a news photographer. He works at Getty Images. So we’re both texting each other while I was at the Palisades fire and he’s at the Altadena fire. We’re texting each other, both equally, saying, “Oh my God, this is crazy. Oh my God, this is insane. Oh my goodness, everything’s gone.” And we’re both texting back and forth about it as we’re working nonstop through the night, covering these different fires.
On the “unprecedented” wildfire:
I grew up in Southern California. I’m used to fire, I’ve covered wildfires — I’ve never seen anything like what we’re experiencing right now. The fact that it’s not just one massive destructive fire, but multiple massive destructive fires that ignited during hurricane-force winds, creating these firestorms, it’s just truly been unprecedented and really hard to wrap your head around.
While it was unfolding, you could tell that this was going to be different when the wind started coming.
On seeing a fire spark on the beach:
There was a moment when we were covering the fire the first day, and we were in the gridlock, just like everybody else, trying to get through. And we made it to Pacific Coast Highway, and we’re at the staging area.
Finally, after hours of trying to get through, it seemed like it was maybe going to calm — like the wind kind of died down for a moment. And all of a sudden, my producer points at an ember that sparked a palm tree right on the beach where we were on the coast. And within five minutes, every palm tree right next to it, all five palm trees, were up in flames.
That was the moment we’re like, “OK, this fire crossed the PCH, it’s made it to the coast, this is not good.” And then just hours later, is when the winds pushed it north to Malibu. And within hours, all of Malibu was engulfed in flames. All those homes on the coast, almost every single one destroyed.
On a firefighter saving a man’s two dogs:
There was a moment on Tuesday where a man comes riding up on a bike and he is just hysterical in tears, so stressed, so scared. And I walked up to say, “Are you OK?” And he said that he lived in the Palisades, and he had gone into work that day in Downtown L.A., and then he got wind of these evacuation orders, and he tried to drive back — gridlock, he couldn’t get back.
So he said he rented a bike to ride back to save his two dogs that were in the home, and he could only make it to where we were at the staging round. He wasn’t allowed to get past the fire line, and he was crying and so worried, and a first responder saw him and talked to him, and that first responder went and got his address, drove to the house, checked on the house, checked on the dogs and brought them back to him.
That was just a really cool moment to see, that personal touch that they have and that we take such care of people during these times. But it also shows the fear that so many people had. And the firefighters, they’re heroes.
Brian Entin, NewsNation’s senior national correspondent
On the “block after block after block” carnage:
It’s just awful. We’ve been in Pasadena and Altadena today [Thursday] and the Palisades yesterday — I know everybody says “apocalyptic” and it looks like a movie, but it actually really does. Just entire parts of the city, like here in Altadena, it’s not just one or two blocks, it’s block after block after block of
homes to the ground.
Right now, I’m doing a 360 [turn] and looking around, all you see is the chimneys that are left. The houses have burned totally to the ground. And we met several people who have come out to check on their houses today, and they’re in total shock when they get here and see that there’s nothing left. It’s very, very sad.
On the extraordinary “level of destruction”:
I’ve covered dozens of hurricanes in my career, but I’ve never covered a wildfire like this. I didn’t realize that they can cause this level of destruction so quickly.
The fact that, again, that entire neighborhoods are gone is really jarring. And the emotion side — meeting people who have lost everything, but they don’t know where they’re going to go, people who have lived in these homes in Altadena for 30, 40, 50 years, and now arrive back and everything is gone.
On having no service:
There’s still no cell service. So the only way for us to communicate with our bosses and to do our live shots with our network is with the Starlink.
Just getting the information out, getting the video out, getting the stories out, is really, really challenging, with zero cell service. If we didn’t have the Starlink, there would be no way for us to transmit the stories or to get the information out.
On having no water:
We saw it yesterday in the Palisades. There’s still no water in a lot of the fire trucks … There’s still hot spots, and the fire department just showed up and they can’t get any water out of the hydrant. They started asking people where swimming pools are — they’re still using swimming pools to try and tame the hot spots, which is just shocking.
