The Current - He was fleeing the L.A. wildfires. Here’s why he turned back

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Orly Israel was stuck in traffic trying to escape the wildfires ripping through Los Angeles, when he decided to turn around. He tells us what it was like trying to save his home from the roaring flames — staying until the last possible second. 

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Orly Israel is one of tens of thousands of people in the Los Angeles area who have had to flee their homes because of several wildfires fueled by hurricane force winds. Those fires have leveled neighborhoods, left at least five people dead. And the fire burning in Orley's neighborhood is now the most destructive in the modern history of Los Angeles. Overnight, a new fire has been threatening iconic sites around Hollywood Boulevard. Orley is on the line with us now in Culver City. Orly, hello. Hey there. Can you tell me about, you got a text message asking you if everything was okay. This was how you learned about these fires, right? Correct. What did, what happened?

Well, I was sent a little message saying, hey, are you okay? And I said, what do you mean? And my friend Steve said, the fire. And then I look out the window and oh yeah, there is a fire. You know, it was before any alerts had come on my phone, which would then start pouring in, evacuate, evacuate, evacuate. But yeah, I mean, it was just in the distance at first. And when did you know that it was time to go? That's a really, well, I mean, from the video you saw,

I knew it was time to go at the last possible moment that I could possibly fight this fire. But I think from right away, when you saw how close the smoke was, it was, it's time to be concerned. You described this as kind of like a rain of fire. What did it sound like when you were there? Well, the sound of a house on fire is loud because things are just catching on fire and exploding

and the amount of fire itself in the neighborhood when I heard the mountain on fire is just, it really puts the words roar, you know, roaring flame into perspective because it's really loud. But it's really hard to describe also. You had evacuated earlier in the day with your parents and then your dogs, and then you went back to the community. Why did you go back?

Well, on the way out of the neighborhood, I happened to run into a person named Tanner Charles, who is a storm chaser that I know and I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic and I said Tanner you know he's walking towards the fire and he says hey do you want to go look at the fire with me and I said I think that's a horrible idea but why not you know it's better than sitting in traffic waiting to get out and yeah, I don't think it was a great idea, but we went to just check it out at first and then we decided to try and fight it

if we could. What have you learned about the state of the neighborhood that you fled? There are three houses that are still standing. It looks like someone's about to plant corn. It's just a completely flattened area. Everything is totally gone. Is your house one of those three that's standing?

My house is not. I'm sorry. Tannin went back afterwards and he picked up a rock that we had in front of our house just to show me Yeah, no no house That's I mean, that's a terrible thing to live through and I just wonder I mean these fires are still raging a lot of them are are uncontained. Have you been able to Have a moment to process what it is that you're going through or is it still kind of a live thing for you as well Yeah, it's a very live thing. I think that there will be a moment where I

Do have to process it and I think that moment's gonna come over time when I try to go back to work and when I You know get invited to do anything. hey Orly, you wanna go surfing? Oh, let me just grab my, oh wait, I don't have any of my stuff that I would need. Wanna go play tennis? Nope, don't have any of that. Oh, you wanna come to a wedding? Gotta buy all new clothes.

So I think that it will just come incrementally as I realize I don't have any of the things. Even from a, you wanna see pictures of my grandparents my great-grandparents my parents wedding, you know, it's a It's that kind of situation what a nightmare Right, but we woke up, you know, we all we all woke up we're all no not a single person died in the palisades fire, so You know, we're mourning things, not people.

And that, I think, is something to be really grateful for. I'm glad to talk to you about this. This is a lot, but thank you for taking time to speak with us, and I wish you the very best. Thank you, Pat. Orly Israel is a resident of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles. He was in Culver City today.

Steve Frotterman has been covering the wildfires. He's in Pacific Palisades this morning as well. Steve, good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. What have you seen overnight? We saw these fires in the Hollywood Hills late last night into early this morning. Tell us the latest from your perspective. Well, as far as that fire goes, and that was a big concern last night, gee, the fire now is threatening the Hollywood sign. Firefighters are encouraged. They have prevented as far as we know,

any homes, any major structures from being burned. And they're not gonna say they have it contained, but they think they have it doing what they want it to do. They had a lot of air assaults last night using helicopters. The best news today is that the winds have diminished. They have not gone away. The winds are still here. The fires are still burning.

But with the winds being diminished even a bit, you can really go after these fires a bit more and I expect fire crews today to really try to, you know, not to begin to take the upper hand, to use a lot more aerosols. The images coming out of LA look apocalyptic. I mean, the fires, initially it looked like a volcano in Pacific Palisades, then you have the fires in these other areas as well. Similarly, you're saying it's as much as 20,000 football fields that have been covered by this fire. Just, I mean, how would you describe what you have seen over the last couple of days?

Well, I mean, there are some neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades. I went there yesterday and had some time to be there. There is block after block after block of nothing. You might have on one block, maybe one home survived, but most of the blocks, it's a total flattened earth, scorched earth situation where you see the chimney up and not much else. Also along the Pacific coast. I mean, I've driven on PCH, Pacific Coast Highway hundreds of times in my life. Always look at those homes. I won't say that every time I look at them, I say, gee,

I would love to have a home like that, but gee, we would like to have a home like that. Now, so many of these beautiful multimillion dollar homes, some of them simple, some of them very, very elegant, these homes, most of them are now destroyed. There are some, there's a section of TCH in Malibu that has survived, but I was shocked yesterday in seeing the number of these beachfront homes right on the Pacific Ocean, maybe some of the most valuable real estate in the world, that there's nothing there anymore. Los Angeles has fire seasons. I mean,

there are those pamphlets that they don't say if the fire comes, they say when the fire comes. But what's different about this? What's different about this is that it's reaching many different areas. It's not just Pacific Palisades, it's Pasadena, it's Altadena, it's Irwindale. It's the winds that have just been so strong. We get Santana winds all the time,

but it's been the convergence of all these things. Some of it very likely has to do with climate change. We have very dry conditions, dry brush, there hasn't been much rain in the last year, and then these are even stronger than usual Santa Ana winds. And the combination of all this just made it a just a horrible combination of events coming together. And that's why you've had this. This was called a particularly dangerous situation. That's actually a term that the Weather Service uses.

They knew that these winds were going to be even more intense than usual. So we had some inkling that this could possibly happen. But to see it happen and to see it happen to this degree, I think has shocked pretty much everyone. Again, some of these images are of water bombers from Canada that are scooping up water from the ocean and then dropping them into those canyons and where the fires are. What are the firefighters up against? Well, they're up against Mother Nature and we know who's in control. Mother Nature, not them.

And when the winds are there, there's not much they can do. Yeah, we love those super scoopers, we call them from Quebec. But when the winds are blowing, are the drops accurate? The winds will make the water drops go astray. And you don't really wanna fly when you have such intense winds. Today, I think you're going to see an all out air assault.

Helicopters, fixed wing aircraft going after these hotspots. But it's not gonna be easy even with that assault. The fires are massive, there are many hotspots, and resources become an issue too. Maybe you wanna focus on Palisades, but how about Pasadena, how about Irwindale? There are other fires. And in addition to the major fires we're talking about,

there are these little fires that seem to break out now and then. And we've had a couple of those, but fire crews have been able to put those out very quickly. Steve, I have to let you go, but what have you heard from firefighters about when they might be able to get some of this under control?

It's been just a brutal couple of days, and it feels like what happened over the last 24 hours, people thought maybe that the worst was over, and then as you mentioned, there's these fires in the Hollywood Hills. So when is the sense of people might be able to get this under control? I think we may hear the term percentage containment by the end of the week, perhaps today, but

maybe by Friday, Saturday, we may hear some containment. It may not be much, it may be 5%, 6%, but once we start to hear the word containment with these fires, that's when you feel maybe things have turned in the direction of the fire crews. It feels like it'll be a different city in some ways when this is all done. with these fires, that's when you feel maybe things have turned in the direction of the fire crews. It feels like it'll be a different city in some ways when this is all done. Oh yes. I mean the Pacific Coast, these houses have been there for decades. And one other issue I'll bring up quickly, there's the insurance issue.

Many of these homeowners have not had full insurance because insurance companies feel they're in a fire risk area. They maybe have had half of their homes insured. I talked to one man yesterday whose home in Pacific Palisades was destroyed. He can't afford the insurance even if he gets offered half insurance on his home now. Steve, thank you very much for this.

Take care of yourself and thanks. Thanks, Ben. Steve Hardiman, freelance reporter who was in Pacific Palisades. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.