Firefighters tirelessly battling deadly Southern California wildfires

AccuWeather

Firefighters, not just from California but also from across the country and even around the world, have been working tirelessly to battle the devastating wildfires scorching the region as of Jan. 14.

Transcript

00:00A glimpse of daylight here. Have you noticed an increase of crews now out at this early hour?

00:07All right. Well, good morning, ladies. We are live from the PCH Command Center. This is really

00:11the heartbeat of the operation here, at least over the last week or so, specifically catering

00:17to the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. This morning, crews started coming out about five

00:22o'clock Pacific Standard Time here, and it has been nonstop ever since. Crews, by the way,

00:27not only coming in from California, but all over the country and the world, for that matter,

00:33many of them working very hard to come up with plans to cater to not only the hardest hit areas

00:39here, but we know that there are a number of other areas that are widely affected, too,

00:44across the Los Angeles region. Take a look at this video on your screen. This was some of the

00:48damage that we were able to survey yesterday when we first got boots on the ground here.

00:53Hundreds of structures, including homes, schools, and businesses, unfortunately,

00:58have been completely destroyed, leaving entire communities really unrecognizable here. Now,

01:04smoke continues to blanket the region. That's a whole other separate issue in and of itself, right?

01:09Air quality, to go along with it, is not ideal at the moment, and crews continue to report those

01:15downed power lines and ruptured gas lines. The other issue is hot spots or flare-ups,

01:21and that is what we noticed constantly yesterday. Crews say it is so important

01:26to monitor those right now due to the red flag warning. Take a listen.

01:32These are large, beautiful homes, and with these homes, because they're so big, you can see some

01:37of them have these subterranean garages or basements, and when they burn, they kind of

01:41pack pancake down, and there's a lot of hot embers and stuff, so even though the fire looks like it's

01:45out, every once in a while, you'll see a hot spot come up. Our job is to go up and down the street,

01:50go from house to house. If we see something, really hit it hard, watch it for a little while,

01:54and go to the next one. Over 150,000 residents remain under mandatory evacuation orders across

02:02Los Angeles County, and a big issue in the coming days will be repopulation. The death toll from

02:08these fires has now climbed to at least 24. Officials caution that that number could potentially

02:13rise further as specialized teams, including cadaver dogs, continue their search through the

02:18rubble. Fire crews and other workers will be back on the ground today tackling a range of critical

02:23tasks. Again, they are focused on extinguishing hot spots, closely monitoring for flare-ups,

02:28and clearing debris from roads and power lines. Again, we bring you back live. We are at the

02:33PCH Command Center. This is one of, by the way, many across the Los Angeles region that many are

02:39dealing with currently this morning. I've also been in communication with the public information

02:43officer for the Los Angeles Fire Department. I mentioned to him this morning, you know,

02:49what is kind of the plan leading into today? Every day really brings a new day here. He did just give

02:54me a layout. Let's see if I could pull it up really quickly. We've been texting back and forth.

02:58Today he tells me there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One of them is that the mayor

03:03is planning to speak in downtown Los Angeles at eight o'clock this morning. That'll be the first

03:07press briefing that we've heard this week. Then another location to one of their other command

03:12centers in Zuma. That's going to happen around three o'clock today. So again, they are trying

03:16to update the media and, more importantly, the residents that are here consistently as much as

03:22possible to give them as many answers, ladies, as they possibly can right now. Ali, excellent

03:27report. We appreciate that new information, hearing the sound bites. Anne and I both looked at each

03:31other as that firefighter was speaking, just learning a lot about what the day-to-day and

03:36hour-to-hour work is like for them. So really important updates. We appreciate you being out

03:40there live for us in Pacific Palisades this morning.

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