LA fire crews extinguish outbreaks as they continue to battle larger fires

ABC NEWS (Australia)

ABC North American correspondent, Barabara Miller is in LA telling us the latest.

Transcript

00:00Well, in terms of this fire, the Eaton fire, authorities now say it is 45 percent contained.

00:09The Palisades fire that's down on the coastline, round to Malibu, is 19 percent contained.

00:16But a very, very different atmosphere here than when I was here five or six days ago.

00:21And, in fact, it's actually kind of quiet in terms of people because the residents are

00:26no longer being allowed in here.

00:28There are a lot of people doing work around.

00:30I don't know if you can hear jackhammers in the background.

00:33There are people doing damage assessments.

00:36There are people trying to repair power lines.

00:39And again, just still hard to take in the extent of the devastation and also how bits

00:45of this community, Altadena, were spared.

00:48So here we've got, you know, this Jeep completely destroyed here.

00:53Behind that, in what must have been the backyard, I guess, of this property or another, you

00:58can still see the barbecue standing.

01:01And then here, you know, the house is, you know, there's something left of the house,

01:06at least.

01:07The roof is destroyed.

01:08I don't know what you would find if you went in there.

01:10In fact, we were just looking and thinking perhaps someone had tried to break into that

01:16house.

01:17There is some damage on the door frame.

01:20But that is one of the few places in this particular street where there's anything left

01:24off at all.

01:25As you can see here, so much is just totally gone.

01:29But the winds were not as strong as had been feared.

01:33It was predicted they could reach more than 110 kilometres an hour overnight.

01:36That didn't happen.

01:38And Barbara, there have been some more warnings about criminal activity in the fire zones.

01:42Talk us through what's happening there.

01:45Well, like I said, there perhaps with this house, there's some indication of perhaps

01:51some attempt at a break in.

01:53We have seen a number of arrests, several dozen now, on people on suspicion of looting.

01:58There have also been a few arrests on suspicion of arson.

02:02And what people are also worried about is scams, insurance scams, donation scams.

02:08And another thing they're really talking about more and more is price gouging.

02:13So authorities in L.A. really trying to hammer home that they will pursue people who are

02:19price gouging.

02:21They say you should only be able to put prices up by about 10 percent.

02:25So if you're charging a lot to rent out an Airbnb or extortion amounts for that kind

02:30of thing, they say they will come after you and you will feel the full extent of the law.

02:36In terms of the residents, that also means because of the threat of crime that they,

02:40as I say, they are kept out of these areas unless they've got in here.

02:45So some people who have some of their house still standing are essentially camping out

02:49here.

02:50We talked to a guy just a few streets down the road who does handovers with his wife

02:55at the police checkpoint because she can't come back in, but he can stay in.

03:00So a lot of worry and fear for people left here, not just about what happens as they

03:05try to pick up their lives and move forward and try and deal with insurance after their

03:10home has gone, but about trying to guard themselves against possible criminal activity.

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