Top Story with Tom Llamas - Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Tonight's Top Story has the latest breaking news, political headlines, news from overseas and the best NBC News reporting from across the country and around the world.

Tonight, a catastrophic situation continuing to unfold in Los Angeles as wildfires consume neighborhoods, upending tens of thousands of lives. Officials telling NBC News the death toll is climbing. At least five people are dead as flames ripped through the Pasadena area right now. Homes and businesses consumed by fire in just a matter of minutes. people going about living their lives just 48 hours ago, now dealing with the unimaginable, losing everything. We'll speak with residents forced to quickly evacuate just to find out there's nothing left to return to. Right now, firefighters in the city's water system are being pushed to the brink.

Hydrants are running dry or out completely, and Los Angeles County is being told to conserve water. How did the situation get so bad, so fast? This video showing the dire conditions just north of Pasadena as homeowners with their garden hoses trying to fight those fires. Though the region is no stranger to wildfires, residents are reeling from what is now one of the most destructive wildfires in recent history. This is unbelievable. Never thought it would happen to us. And all you see is this raining hellfire. But so many, you know, neighborhoods houses are burning. It's so upsetting. It's so heartbreaking. It felt like I was catching on fire a little bit.

I do want to go back because I'm hopeful that I will find something in the rubble. Frantic moments as elderly patients were evacuated from the Pasadena Park Healthcare and Wellness Center. Look at this. Hospital workers rushing people into buses and to ambulances just as the flames began to close in. Our affiliate NBC Los Angeles also capturing this unbelievable moment. Take a listen. Is this your house? Which is your house?

Yeah, this is our house. Backyards on fire. I'm out of here. Oh my gosh. So what happened? Is there anything we can do to help you, sir? You can take these paintings, I guess. I can't ride with these. Listen, I'll take them for you. And neighborhoods forever changed as several local landmarks perished in the fire. Look at these before and afters. This is Rosenthal wine tasting in Malibu, drawing customers with their iconic big chairs and wine bottle along the Pacific Coast Highway. Now look at that, completely destroyed.

The Pasadena Jewish temple and center was engulfed in flames. The synagogue was built more than eight decades ago. And the popular community theater, theater palisades, which so many know, founded by a group of TV writers, was also caught in this fire. Here's where the situation stands at this hour.

As we mentioned, at least five people had been killed, and we're told a number of others are suffering from burn injuries. More than 80,000 people are under evacuation orders, More than 1,000 structures destroyed. Many of those are homes, and the fires are burning out of control. Officials saying there is 0% containment, 0%. Right now, more than 1.5 million customers are without power.

I want to show you where these fires are currently burning to give you a better idea because Los Angeles is such a big idea. There are currently four fires right now. You see them highlighted in yellow right here. The Palisades fire just north of Santa Monica has left the Pacific Palisades and parts of Malibu unrecognizable. The Eaton Fire near Altadena and Pasadena exploded to more than 10,000 acres. The Hearst Fire, you see it as well right up here, and that fires force people to flee from their homes. In a moment, you'll hear from NBC's Jacob Soberoff, who goes back to his family home

to find this. All of it completely gone. So many dealing with immense devastation. Right now, there is a press conference where we expect to hear some new information happening in Pasadena. We want to go there live. Let's listen in. Those who have lost their home and even their lives here in Pasadena as well as in Al-Tadena and the Palisades. On behalf of all residents of Pasadena and the leaders that you see behind me, we will certainly have all those individuals and their families and friends in our thoughts and prayers. We have experienced a tremendous tragedy here in our community. To date, we have over 100,000 people under mandatory evacuation. We've had five fatalities, and then we have close to another 100,000 people who have been warned to evacuate because they are in a danger zone.

Hundreds of homes have been lost. I'll let the police chief and the fire chief talk about that. But this is an opportunity for us as a community, as a people, to band together. work to support one another whether you're affected or not please take the opportunity to help a neighbor help a friend check in on friends and neighbors and certainly check in on family members to hear with me today are council member Jason Lyon council member Justin Jones council member Jessica Rivas my colleagues on the Pestic City Council also with us today

is city manager Miguel Marquez, our supervisor, L.A. County supervisor, Catherine Barger, Congress member Chudy Chu, State Senator Sasha Perez, Assembly member John Haribetian, the superintendent of the Pasadena Unified School District, Dr. Blanco, the president of Pasadena City College, Dr. Jose Perez, a representative from the Humane Society. Also with us today are neighboring assembly members, Assembly member Koloza, Assembly member and Assembly member Nick Schultz. You'll also hear from Fire Chief Chad Augustine

and Police Chief Gene Harris. So again, I just want to assure people that Pasadena is working in conjunction with our neighboring jurisdictions, including the County of Los Angeles, particularly the county of Los Angeles we Supervisor Barger and I had the opportunity to sit down with the good up with the governor of California this afternoon not too long ago maybe an hour ago and the governor has assured us

that he will provide whatever assistance that we may request and so I on behalf of Supervisor Barger and I I'd like to thank the governor for for coming seeing for himself the devastation and committing the guard and other resources to Pasadena. And so we will certainly be in touch. With that, let me, and I'll go over these points in Spanish at the end as well. Let me turn it over to city manager Miguel Marquez. Good afternoon.

My name is Miguel Marquez. Excuse me, Miguel spelled MIG. U-E-L, Marquez, M-A-R-Q-U-E-Z. I am the city manager for the city of Pasadena. It's been a brutal 22 hours here in Pasadena. My heart aches for all who lost their homes, their memories, and their sense of security. About 22 hours ago, we first learned of a fire in Eaton Canyon. As they always do, and despite the dangers, our first responders rushed to the scene.

They found darkness. They found fire. mile-per-hour winds. Air support was not possible under those conditions. Our first responders did all they could under those brutal conditions to put out the fire, putting their own lives at risk to save others. They battled through the night with more and more joining the fight as the night wore on. Our police officers went door to door, ensuring as many residents as possible were evacuated to safety, including many seniors and those with mobility limitations. They saved many, many lives in the last 22 hours. Their efforts were

heroic. Our first responders, our public works department who cleared the streets, Pasadena Water and Power who kept the power on and the water flowing throughout the night. Public servants from so many different agencies came together in the last 22 hours to keep as many people safe as possible. Together, many, many lives were saved. The battle continues, as does our resolve, we will put out the fire, and then it will be time to rebuild. In this community, we may get knocked down, but we always pick ourselves up. Many thanks to our first responders, our city staff, our city council, our county, state, and federal partners, our education partners, our profit partners, our business partners, our partners in the media, and most of all, our residents.

Thanks to all for once again stepping up and doing what needed to be done to keep people as safe as possible in the face of danger. We will not relent. We will hill. We will rebuild. These last 22 hours didn't bring us down. They made us Pasadena strong. Thank you. Next, I'll invite L.A. County supervisor and our supervisor, Catherine Barter. As I was standing here, one of our Al-Qaeda residents came up to me, who is very active in the rotary, and he lost his home. I'm hearing this time and time again, and as the mayor told you, we went up and it took a tour, and it is surreal. It is without words that I can even explain to you what is taking place, especially in my district in Al-Tadena, but also. in the bordering area of Pasadena.

My heart is heavy, but I have to say, and the mayor is absolutely correct, we met with the governor, who also met with the president and resources, both financial, but also resources for boots on the ground, are here, and we're going to continue to fight this fight,

but I would ask people, please, please, if you don't need to be in the area, we don't need you in the area. area. Recognize that when we drove up there, these are fires that are actively taking places we speak. And there were many people that don't live in the area that we just wanted to go up and take a look. We have fire personnel that is fighting this blaze, not only in Althina, but also in the Palisades area. We need you all to work with us. And to the most people that want to go up and loot, the full weight of

the county will come down on you and that's going to start with a district attorney who's issuing a press release and is going to make sure the full send of the law is played out if you are caught looting in any area impacted by this fire but i want to thank our first responders who many of which have been on the line for over 24 hours i think it's important for us to know that the chief of la county fire has asked for resources outside the state with the goal, to let them go in and begin to fight the fire so that our firefighters can take a break and then start again. But again, I want to thank our first responders, but I also want to thank our state and federal partners.

Congressmember 2, Congressman White Sides, who represents Santa Crete area. It's very reassuring to know that we have in all hands-on deck both at the state and at the federal level and we will we will rebuild and to my friends out there that have lost their homes we are here for you as we look forward to what we are going to do to help you rebuild your life so with that thank you next uh congress member judy chew Hello, I'm Congress member Judy Chu, and I just got off the plane from Washington, D.C. My heart goes out to those who've lost their homes and their businesses. I've had friends tell me that they've lost their homes, and I can't believe the destruction that this fire is causing. But I want to tell you that this morning I was on the phone with the White House and with FEMA,

and President Biden has declared this a national disaster. now the mechanics are set for people to get assistance for recovery from FEMA. And also, FEMA was asked last night by the state of California to declare this eligible for the fire management grants. And indeed, it is. So all the expenses that we see for fighting this fire will be reimbursed by the federal government. And also I've spoken to Supervisor Torres of the San Gabriel Mountains. He's asked for help from Washington, D.C. to close the forest area. Okay, we have been listening to this Pasadena news conference right now. Not a lot of whole lot of new information coming out of it, but we do know that they're warning against looting happening in the area as well as this has now been declared a national disaster by the president.

I do want to get over to Liz Croyd. She's been reporting live for us since last night covering all the wall. fires that are happening across L.A. right now. Liz, give us an update of what you're seeing tonight and where exactly you are. Hey, Tom. Well, last night, you know, we were a little bit south in the Pacific Palisades, and overnight the winds push the fire up the Pacific Coast Highway into Malibu. And you can see right now it is still a very active firefight here right now with these fire crews working to put the flames out here in this home. They're trying to get the flames out, but it is very likely going to erupt in flames like so many other homes we've seen home after home destroyed here in Malibu and across L.A.

A massive and deadly wildfire emergency is unfolding in Southern California. From the Pacific Palisades to Pasadena, multiple infernos continuing mass destruction of homes and businesses. Tens of thousands forced to evacuate. Last night was one of the most devastating and terrifying nights that we've seen in any part of our city at any part of our history. On the coast, the Palisades fire exploding to more than 15,000 acres, 75 mile per hour winds overnight, pushing the flames up the Pacific Coast Highway, where it overtook the iconic city of Malibu and created this apocalyptic scene stretching for miles on the California coast. We're watching multiple beachfront properties here just go up in flames. First responders trying to get a hold of the fires. All the neighboring properties here destroyed as the winds are picking up. In the Pacific Palisades, officials say at least 1,000 structures lost. Across Southern California, high winds and protective power shutoffs have left more than a million people in the dark.

At the Eton Fire burning in Altadena, 45 minutes from the coast, at least five people have died and more than 100 structures destroyed. As wind-wipped embers expanded the fire's path, it forced the evacuation of this assisted living facility. You'll see the people on stretchers and just the effort, very rapid effort to try to get. these people out of harm's way. For many, the race to get out was by any means necessary. Which is your house? Yeah, this is our house. Backyards on fire. I'm out of here. Some of the most expensive real estate in the world reduced to rubble on Pacific Coast Highway. Here on PCH, home after home after home of beachfront properties are destroyed. Usually you would see the Pacific Ocean there. Now it's just ashes and smoke. As fires still burn,

officials urging residents not to ignore evacuation orders. A high number of significant. significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate in addition to first responders who are on the fire line. Today, President Biden meeting with local officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom, who toured the destruction. Have you ever seen anything like this? The closest approximation was Paradise, California, which is one of the most deadly fires in U.S. history. But at this stage, a little over 24 hours, nothing comes close. Tonight, thousands displaced with the flames still threatening homes. In Malibu, Steve Wiggins says he tried everything to save his. So I kept spraying all the embers, and then the next thing I know, a 30-foot wall of fire was coming

at 60 miles an hour, and I couldn't see it's so smoky, and I said, well, it's time to leave. He came back today to find nothing. We lost everything we owned, but it doesn't even look like a house anymore. It just looks like him. Something. And that sentiment felt by so many across the Los Angeles area. Liz Croix joins us live again. On the left hand of the screen, you can see exactly where Liz is right now in Malibu.

Liz, what is the threat to the communities on the coast going into the night tonight? Well, Tom, as we mentioned, the firefight continues here and all these other fires across the region. And the fact that there could be more if fires ignited as well. We know that red flag warnings are going to continue through Friday. The good news, though, is that the worst, most dangerous winds are supposed to subside tonight, but still any kind of wind can fuel these flames with these dry conditions right now. And I just want to show you to give a sense what we were saying before, where we are.

This is one of these coastal homes, pristine homes on the beautiful Malibu coast, now reduced to rubble. You can see the laundry there, what was probably a beautiful outdoor table, now ashes, but the beautiful coasts there on the coastline. And Liz, you know, some of our viewers, they may have visited the Malibu area, they may be familiar with it. There's destruction all along the Pacific Coast Highway, and there's some landmarks that our viewers may be familiar with.

Do we know what the latest is with the iconic Getty Villa? Earlier, what you can tell us about it? We know there were some flames that were threatening that area and all the priceless pieces of art that are inside. Yeah, well, it was a pretty intense situation for a while with flames coming up to the ridge and then even onto the property. And flames did make it onto the property, but it is such a historic property that firefighters made it a priority. They rushed there and they were able to create defensible space and get it,

you know, taken down before it hit the actual main museum. So thankfully, that is all okay. But we do know here in Malibu that other local favorite spots are destroyed, that winery that you mentioned and also some local restaurants. So it's really actually, Tom, I mean, it's hard. It's hard. hard to even describe right now what it looks like here. This is one of the most beautiful parts of the country, and it's just apocalyptic looking right now. Yeah, and it happened in less than a day. It is wild when you think about it. Okay, Liz Croix, we thank you and your team for being out there. These fires just exploding out of control, leaving a devastating path of destruction in their wake. NBC's Gotti Schwartz has been on the ground in the fire zone all day

driving through a lot of those fires. He filed this report. This area of Altadena has become an absolute wasteland. You've got rows and rows of homes that have burned. You've got some homes that are still standing, but it's just a matter of time. This was the moment the sun rose over the fire raging above Pasadena, but you never know it because the dawn disappeared in the smoke. Again, you hear those explosions. So many of these homes, there is no hope.

Against the odds in Mother Nature, some stayed doing everything they could to fight back. There are people still here trying to fight this fire with garden hoses. There is still water in this area. But with this much destruction, it almost seems, it almost seems futile. You were here fighting by yourself, right? Yes. How long have you been out here? I've been out since 4 a.m. 4 a. trying to protect your home. You now have a full, you know, contingent of firefighters here. Yeah. It seems like it's right in the nick of the time. They saved this home for now. Hey, I'm taking it in. A scene that played out across so many firelands from the foothills of the Angeles Mountains to the Palisades. And they're trying to make entrance. They're smashing down that door. They got to go inside. They got to make sure no one is here. Who else is left in the house? Right, right. Homeowners on rooftops trying to wet down everything.

They're going to help you. It's hard to show the scum. It's hard to show the scum. of what's going on. As we headed down Sunset Boulevard, the loss was worse than any fire we've ever seen. This looks like the apocalypse here. Right here, you've got homes that are burning, homes that are burning. Take a look over here. This is an apartment complex that has gone up. Wow. Wow. That is a Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church, or what is left of it. Those are the remnants of a beautiful church that used to be up on the hill there. The destruction just continues. It is hard to fathom how much has been lost here.

In the chaos, way too often, firefighters left without water as hydrants went dry. They are not designed to fight wildfires. A firefight with multiple fire hydrants, drawing water from the system for several hours is unsustainable. Water! Officials say they weren't able to fill tanks fast enough, which would have helped with the water pressure. Something NBC's Morgan Chesky saw firsthand. Out of every fire hydrant you've seen, what have you found? Right now, we're finding most of them are down or low pressure.

If you had a hydrant for this building. If we had a hydrant for this building, we might have been able to save the back out. Department complex is untouched for now, but you can see how close those flames are. Firefighters are making their way up. Again, they're having to ignore massive structures like this huge. apartment complex. It looks like it's going to go up imminently because they are just overwhelmed. There isn't enough water up here. The wind's also grounding that critical support from the sky for most of the day. And when firefighters were able to make a stand and save a home, there was no

victory. Just a brief reprieve from the helplessness of fighting fire against the wind. That was Gotti Schwartz for us. For some of our NBC News team on the ground in Los Angeles, covering this fire is deeply personal. NBC's Jacob Soberoff, who was born and raised in the Pacific Palisades area, has this look at his childhood neighborhood that no longer exists. I grew up in Pacific Palisades, born and raised here, and I've never seen anything like this. We've had a lot of fires and even evacuated sometimes.

But nothing like this. The whole town is gone as we knew it. This is the Palisades Public Library. It's still on fire. I brought my kids here. This was like the pride of the community when this thing was built. The weight of it all, I think,

is very, very intense to think about. In my 26 years, this could be one of the top, most devastating fires I've seen. What happens in a situation like this where the high school's destroyed? You've got churches destroyed. You've got the two supermarkets

in the community destroyed. How do you come back from something like this? They come back one day at a time. To me, Sunset Boulevard is the heart of my community. There's not a single house left standing here. What do you do? What do they do? There's just never, ever, ever been anything like this.

I mean, I know my house is gone, but I kind of just need to see it firsthand to just let it sit in. I just can't believe it. I thought I was going to wake up this morning and it's going to be a bad dream. This is the first time that I've seen the house that I grew up in, and I don't really know what to say. Mom, look at this.

Zaffrontera? Yeah. Your birth house? Yep. Oh, I'm so sad. Every one of you guys was born in that house. I know, it makes me sad, too. This was a really, really special place for the Sobrough family.

And I'm very sorry to see it go. And I'm very sorry for all of the residents of Pacific Palisades and everyone across the greater L.A. area that's going through this right now. I look around the town, the neighborhood, the place that I grew up in. I talk to my friends who I spent so much time with on these streets. And it's hard to imagine what comes next and what happens next. Jacob Soberuff joins us tonight. And because of the conditions out there, you can see his

His signal is a little spotty, but his reporting never is. So, Jacob, my first question to you is, how are you doing tonight? Thanks for asking, Tom. I think, you know, the question really is, how are the 23,000 people who have lived and worked and played and worshipped? I mean, this is a Methodist church behind me that's on fire right now. How are they all doing? This is a special place, and I think it's really hard to see it go.

And I don't think many of us. certainly people who are not in this line of work, we get to cover stuff like this all the time, but when it hits home, to wrap your head around what it means to lose your entire community is something that's very difficult. And I don't even live here anymore, but my brother does, my sister-in-law does, and a whole heck of a lot of amazing people do. And I think we should just hold all of those people in our thoughts and our prayers tonight and the first responders, you know, working on behalf of all of these people in the greater Los Angeles area under really, really intense circumstances that I don't think any of us ever expected.

You know, Jacob, I've covered stories that have affected people that I loved and communities where I've lived. And every reporter is a little different, right? But most of us sort of go into these situations with a shield, if you will, right? We sort of shield ourselves to make sure we can get the story back to our viewers and to our readers. And I'm sure you had that shield around you, but you never lose that human touch. What was the moment for you or the image maybe that maybe broke that shield for a little bit today? I just figured, Tom, that to walk up to and drive by in the course of covering this for my news organization that I love dearly, the house that I grew up in until I was about 10 years old and look at it, burned to the ground. I don't think there's any other way to approach that than to be honest about how it makes someone feel.

And it's not even my house anymore. There's another family that lives there who really truly suffered a devastating loss today. But I just figured sharing the experience that I had might allow our viewers to have a little bit of insight in what it's like for the folks that are here who are not allowed back home right now because they don't have these yellow vests and media credentials that we do to experience what it's like here in one of the most devastating fires in the history of the second most populous city, the most populous county in the United States of America. What do you want the rest of the country to know and for the government officials watching? What do they need to know? Thanks for asking that. I think that obviously the recovery starts right now, even though that the fires are still burning all around us.

And this is not something that a municipality or a state-level government will be able to tackle on its own. I ran into Governor Gavin Newsom today, who said he was speaking with President Biden about the federal response. And this is going to require potentially billions and billions of dollars to bring a community that was wiped off of the map of Los Angeles back to what it was. once was. And I think for everybody, you know, I think that process starts today. Jacob Soberoff, please stay safe. I've been telling you and your team that for the past two days, but please stay safe, man, and we really appreciate that report. For more on the devastating toll of these wildfires, I want to bring in Marissa Hermor. She's a Pacific Palisades resident who was evacuated to the school that her children attend, and that has burned down. She had to

evacuate the area, I should say. Marissa, I see you're in the car now. I know you were trying to check out your home. What have you learned so far? I haven't been able to get there. The street is blocked off. It looks like it looks like the house next door is on fire from pictures that I'm getting. So I don't know if our home is on fire or not. When you left, what did they tell you, or did you see the fire? Did you just leave? Yeah, I mean, I saw the fire hiking yesterday morning across the next bridge and I had to work out where it was. I saw I saw smoke and a flame and I thought, wait, hang on, that's behind our kids' school. So I raced down the mountain. We all collected the kids, got them out of there. And then I actually had to leave my car in the road because the

traffic was so chocka block that the smoke was coming and the fire was coming and we just, I just had a walk. I walked into my neighborhood then. I wasn't able to drive and got everything I could collect in my hands and walked out. For people that can't understand this that I've never been through a wildfire like this, how fast did it come? Real fast. As faster than you can ever imagine.

How are your kids tonight? Have you talked to them? Can they understand what's going on? Are they old enough? Yeah, we, I drove with the kids and the dogs down to Laguna Beach. I mean, what are the answers? They say, Mommy, where are we going to live? Where are we going to go to school? What are we going to do?

And I don't have answers to those questions right now. I think the only thing that I know is that we are still a community. You know, community is not our local coffee shop. It is not the fence between our neighbor's houses. It is not our library. Our community is us. and we are checking in on each other, and we are doing everything we can, and we are moving in with each other, and we're just holding each other right now, and that's community. So even

though the Palisades is burning down, we are, we're here. So you talked to you about the process of trying to go back to your house. Was it, was it firefighters that stopped you, police? I mean, is it cordoned off? There's police. Yesterday, it was police, and today it's police and firefighters. I can't get in. Yeah, what do you want there, of the country to know, and really the rest of your state, California, because it is such a big state, and this is happening in one of the areas where the most people live in your state. You know, you're not alone. We are really, you know, it's a flashback to the pandemic, and this is a very concentrated area. But you are not alone. We are, this is beyond, beyond

devastating. This is the moment we will all remember. And yet, I have to think, like there is no creation without destruction, you know, like this is, this is, yes, this is the end, but it has to be the beginning again. Like we have to look forward to now what? How can we learn? How can we grow from this? Like, this is not the breaking of us. This is the making of us.

Marissa, do people in your community, do they have insurance on their homes? And does the insurance that you would purchase, would it cover a disaster like this? I have no idea. I have no idea. How can you cover a disaster like this? I mean, what's the price on this? This is generations of love and memories and families. This is like a whole town.

Marissa, we thank you for your time. I really hope that maybe there is something that you can bring back from your house. going to be there for your kids and for your friends and family. We thank you for talking to us. I can promise you we're not going to forget your community and we're going to stay on this. And again, I hope you find some peace at some point. Yeah, we will. We definitely will. Our special coverage of the Los Angeles wildfires continues. Firefighters, struggling with hydrants, running dry, can you believe this? And the major concerns about air quality as smoke blankets the region are reporters on the ground as the fires continue to rage. Stay with us.

We come back about 8 o'clock, and we see that everything has burned up. The house is totally engulfed in flame, have a secondary home behind it. It's gone. The car, it's gone. The trailer, it's gone. Everything is gone. And I didn't take it serious, so I didn't grab anything because I'm like, okay, we're going to be all right. That was an Altadena resident there, one of so many whose homes were destroyed by the deadly eaten fire, burning just north of Pasadena.

At least five people have been killed so far with more than 50,000 forced to evacuate. Our Morgan Chesky is at the heart of that fire in Altadena, where firefighters are struggling with water pressure, fighting this fire. Morgan, we've been reporting on this, and people are going to be at home thinking, how can something like this happen in Los Angeles in 2025? Walk our viewers through why there was a problem with the fire hydrants. Yeah, Tom, let's start with the water pressure here, right? We've heard from officials, they've prepared for one massive fire, two massive fires, maybe three, but to have four essentially generational wildfires happening at the same time, that is what drained these water reserves overnight to the point where we heard in the Palisades fire.

At 3 a.m., they ran out of water. Now, we're about 30 miles to the east for the Eaton fire. What began is a 400-acre blaze this time yesterday, now more than 10,000 acres, killing five people. The city of Altadena that we're standing in right now has been impacted generationally, Tom. I'm standing in front of a junior high, the roof about to cave in, likely because of a single ember landing on top of that roof, gaining enough traction to spread that fire. And we've seen multiple fire trucks pull in, connect to a hydrant behind me. They can spray as best they can from a distance. But again, Tom, a little wind spreading this fire so quickly, even with multiple engines on a blaze like this, there's only so much they can do.

And I think what was so frustrating is when we heard it from not one, not two, but multiple fire crews telling us, when we pull up to a hydrant, we don't expect there to be water pressure. And that's why we witnessed multiple times this afternoon, them kind of standing, taking defensive positions and doing their best to make sure it didn't spread to a nearby building. but then eventually having to fall back and just watch a building burn because there was nothing to fight it with, Tom. I mean, I can't fathom this watching this. I can't imagine if I lived there in that city and this was happening to my fire department. I want to ask you, I know you've been speaking of residents. Talk to me about what you're hearing. A lot of people still don't know if their homestands or not.

I shared a video driving through one of the main thoroughfares in Altadina earlier today, posted it as a social media. Tom, I can't tell you how many people were asking me, what about this cross street? What about this cross street? They still can't get back to their homes because as you can see behind me, fires are still actively burning at this hour. I think there's somewhat of an understanding that typically within about 24 hours or so, we've seen our fire pros be able to contain large blazes, especially in an urban environment. That's not the case here because they don't have the water. They're stretched too thin and the winds keep going. So all of that combined means we're looking at another very long firefight tonight. And that is a real fear for

people. They don't know if their home is still standing or not. I did speak to one family as I stood in front of a burning apartment building. Gentleman and his wife pulled up in a car. They said he wanted to see if his mother's apartment still stood. Hers did. It was next door to this burning building. And I asked them how they've been personally impacted. Tommy said between his family and his wife's family, they have five family members that have lost home. as a result of these fires in the greater Los Angeles area. Five people in really a single family. So that is the scale of what's playing out right here,

and we're not even close to it being done. Yeah, and when we talk about more than a thousand structures, so many of those are homes where people live their lives. They raise their children, as we saw with Jacob Soberoff, where generations live and sleep, and now it's gone. Okay, Morgan Chesky, we thank you for your reporting. I want to get over to Steve Patterson, team that is covering these fires out of Los Angeles tonight. He's also in Altadena.

Steve, we've been very focused on where the fires are burning at this hour, right, and the destruction, but the smoke out there is terrible. I know. It's been a secondary threat. I want to put up this map that we have on the air quality in the area, right? And it shows what's happening in the region. The darker portions that you see on the map now, that's where the more dangerous air is. And this is spreading, really, all over Southern California, into Mexico, southwest U.S., Phoenix, Tucson, you name it. Talk to us about the air conditions where you are right now. So I can give it to you anecdotally and officially.

Anecdotally, it is awful. It is miserable. You can feel it on your skin. You can feel it in your eyes. You can taste it. There's different kinds of smoke billowing all around. You can see the larger smoke plume in the background, in the foreground. This house is on fire.

There are dozens of houses in a mile radius of where I'm standing that are on fire. All of this is spewing. into the air. And again, you can feel it. It's palpable. There are ruins of homes really in every direction that we can see. But officially, we've been talking about the AQI. It's the measurement of the air quality in the area. It goes from zero, which is perfect to 500, which is basically unbreathable. Right now, where we're standing, it's 291. To give you a sense of what that is, at 300, it's considered hazardous, which means it doesn't matter if you have an ailment or not. it's going to affect you in some way. And that's what we're sort of feeling, just standing here,

knowing from experience in covering these fires, the wildfire smoke to people who aren't even affected, who don't even see the plumes of smoke, is the most damaging thing to people after fires like this, especially when they are this widespread. So people need to heed the warnings from officials, which is essentially, if there's not a reason to be outside, you shouldn't be outside. If you are wearing a mask that you wore during COVID, a cloth mask, a surgical mask, it doesn't matter. It doesn't do anything. N95s with filters are the way to go. Air purifiers, if you are in your home, just to clean out some of the air, because it is very dangerous and has potential long-term health impacts. And Steve, our residents, I mean, you know, I can't imagine

you're worried about your house and your family, and you've lost everything if you're even thinking about the air quality. Are residents aware of that? Because They have so much on their mind right now. I mean, you've seen it in your reporting, right, Tom. I mean, no one is thinking about that right now. You can see across the street, if we can pan over there. You know, residents are sort of, they're milling about what they've lost, about saving their homes when we were here earlier and all of these houses were being devastated.

Residents were just rushing to each house trying to put protection and water on the house so the flames don't further spread. I think obviously it's also hard when you're adrenaline, is pumping. It's something that we have to deal with, and firefighters, too, about wearing proper protection while all of this is happening. But you will feel the impacts, maybe not now, but days later. It's some messaging that should come as the sort of cleanup process continues. Steve Patterson for us, Steve, you and your team stay safe as well. For more on the scope of the fires and the conditions firefighters are facing NBC News meteorologist Bill Karens, who's been

on the air for hours, joins us now live here on Top Story. Bill, looking at these fires, How much more could they grow? Are they going to be easier to contain with the winds dying down? Walk us through the next several hours and days if you can. Yeah, we're not going to see explosive growth. But there's so many hot embers that are still out there burning. They could be smoldering on a rooftop. I think we're going to have spot fires through the weekend.

And we may have another Santa Ana Wind event coming on Monday and Tuesday. And can something happen like just did? You know, likely not. But could new fires start up, that will be an issue. And obviously, resources are already taxed. Everyone's exhausted and it's not going to get much better. So the winds have come down. So that's good.

So we're getting the resources up there, you know, the aerial flights to try to help out a little bit. And there's just so many spot fires. That's what's crazy about this, is that it wasn't just like a wave of a fire that going down a mountain. It was just like a hurricane took like a fire through embers up in the air over miles and miles. And remember those embers fell, new fires were forming. And that's what we're seeing. It's a very strange and surreal when you see those aerial pictures. of this fire because there's just little dots and spots all over the place. It's not concentrated.

We are still seeing the air quality issues. The winds have shifted a little bit. During this entire event, the winds were coming out of the northeast. They were blowing the smoke over downtown L.A. Now the winds are shifting a little bit more to the south. So for the first time, the bad air quality is actually moving out of northeast portions and northwest portions of L.A. and heading to the south. We're not going to win. There's so much smoke out there that someone's going to get it, but it is moving for the first time. Other things that we're watching, the area of low pressure and high pressure that was responsible, the squeeze play that was creating this windstorm last night, these are starting to move away from each other. And so that's why the winds are coming down. Though we'll go back up

a little bit tomorrow afternoon, not horrible, but it's still going to be bone dry, hasn't rained in eight months. And so we'll still have some 20 to 30 mile per hour gust, but that's doable. We can at least keep the air assets up in the sky. And then by that time we get to the weekend, we may actually get some what we call onshore flow, and that's more humid air, and that will really help firefighters. But by the time we get to Monday and Tuesday, we can have another Santa Ana wind event. So we really hope that we can get control and containment on a lot of these fires before then. As far as the diminishing winds, this is the peak winds tonight. We can deal with this, some cases only in the teens and 20s in most areas. So we still have fire threat,

a critical risk tomorrow, just because Tom, it's still so bone dry in this area. And red flag warnings, these should be expiring later on this evening. So we're getting over the worst of all the wind part of it. But until it rains in Southern California, we're going to continue talking about the chance for devastating fires. It's the rainy season, Tom, and there's no rain in sight. Okay. That's not good news. But Bill, we got a little bit of hope there in the next, I think, hour, night next day or so before those winds pick up again on Monday. Bill Cairns, we appreciate it. Still to come tonight as our special coverage continues of these devastating wildfires. The Real Inn, an iconic Malibu seafood restaurant,

burned to the ground. We'll talk to the owners about what they've lost and how they plan to rebuild. Stay with us. It's gone. That's what we got. I can't believe it. The tears and anguish from this wildfire in Los Angeles, I want to bring in Teddy and Andy Leonard, the owners of the Real Inn, a beloved seafood restaurant in Malibuble. California, an institution that has stood for decades, which was burned to the ground by the

Palisades Fire. Teddy and Andy, we thank you so much for being with us tonight. I know this is an incredibly difficult time, and I'm so sorry for what's happened to your business, to your livelihood. I want to show our audience what your business looked like before all of this, that thriving, beautiful restaurant. Maybe some of our viewers have stopped by there in Malibu. It's such a beautiful area.

Great indoor and outdoor restaurant. Seating, patrons lighting up to enjoy that great seat. food. TV shows have stopped by there. It's right off the road. We know you had so many, so many fans that loved your restaurants, so many regular customers as well. This is what, this is what we think has happened so far. This is some video that's been sent into us as well of the area. It is horrible. I don't want you to watch this video because I'm sure you've either seen it or you've lived through it. And again, I'm sorry this is this is gone. You had to go through this. How are you guys doing tonight first?

We're doing pretty well, I think, don't you, baby? We had to leave our home, so we are coming to you from an Airbnb in Mar Vista. Our children have been rallying around us and making things available for us like this Airbnb and bringing us food. And when we look at our lives, we feel very blessed. Our employees were worried about. That's our biggest concern at the moment is taking care of. of our employees and making sure they're seeing to.

So we've started a GoFundMe for the employees, which you can find hopefully later on our website. And did you ever think something like this could happen to your restaurant? We've had a couple of close calls through the years. We had a bad one in 93 where the napkins and the cups on the patio burst into flames. But we had no wind, and we got a helicopter dump at 545 in the morning and put everything out. and we ran another 30 years after that. So it's not an unprecedented threat,

but you always kind of hope that it doesn't happen to you like this. You know, everyone we've talked to so far has said there were no warnings, but also how fast this whole thing happened. Is that your experience as well, that it just sort of happened so fast and there was really nothing to do but just get out and survive? We almost got one of our managers caught in the restaurant. I mean, the fire was on the other side, the Topanga Canyon Boulevard, and the wind wasn't doing anything particularly unusual.

And the next thing we know, there was smoke in the restaurant where you couldn't see, and the firegeist with the air breathers came trotting down the street and said, out now. And by the time she was at the other end of the parking lot, there was fire behind the fence. I've never seen it like that. This is all still fresh. This is all still happening right now. Do you guys even have a plan yet of what's next? Well, first plan is to take care of our employees, as I said,

and the second plan is to try and work with the state parks to rebuild the restaurant on site. And thirdly, or maybe this is our next plan, is just to see if we have a home to go back to. Because you don't even know about your home? No, we don't. Okay. Guys, Teddy and Andy, thank you for talking us. I'm sorry you're going through this right now.

I'm sure we're going to check back with you. And I really hope you guys are able to rebuild because we know how much your restaurant means to that community. Thank you. And I'd just like to say thank you to everyone in our community who's reached out to us because it's been an amazing outpouring of love and support from everyone. Teddy and Andy Leonard, we thank you, the owners of the Real Inn there in Malibu. Coming up on our special edition of Top Story tonight, seeing the blaze from above, our NBC Los Angeles affiliate flying over the wildfires, the conditions from a bird's eye view as flamed. race down the mountainside. Stay with us for that. Welcome back. Our Los Angeles station, NBC, Los Angeles, has been up in the ground, up and around on the, around the clock coverage,

excuse me, for more than 24 hours. Dozens of journalists and photographers capturing the toll on the ground and in the sky as entire homes, schools and grocery stores go up in flames. Their helicopter pilot, Julia Deng, has this look at the fires from overhead. Julia? What we're seeing from News Chopper for as we fly closer to the eaten fire burning out of control here in Altadena is unlike anything that I have seen before. Southern California gets fires every year, every fire season, but this is new. Even fire officials, seasoned veterans who have been battling fires for decades, say they have never seen anything quite like this. the scope of devastation. The sense of urgency here cannot be overstated. We just came down from

approximately 11,000 feet over this fire. We could see the top of Mount Wilson starting to be obscured by smoke. Flames were creeping quickly uphill. Now closer to the ground, you can see through some of this dark smoke neighborhoods completely devastated, homes decimated, businesses. And now there's fair about critical infrastructure as well. In fact, one of the microwave towers we are dialed into bringing our live reports and our live pictures to California. It's up here on Mount Wilson. So as I zoom out, you can see this is moving quickly. More than 10,000 acres now, tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate five fatalities.

You can just make out the 210 freeway here, closures along this off ramp, and it's heartening to see. residents heating evacuation warnings and choosing to pack up and get out. Nobody is untouched by what is happening right now in L.A. County with so many fires burning across this region and new fires erupting every couple of hours. We all know somebody touched by this. Somebody who has to evacuate. And I implore our viewers to heed the warnings to get out and to not try and stick it out because it's not just the fire hazards. It's this toxic smoke that you can barely see through here in Eltona.

This is Julia Dang at BC. And we thank Julia for that report. Our live coverage of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires continues after this. We speak with a man who just found out his home is gone. How everything changed for him and so many others in just a matter of hours and what he plans to do next. Stay with us. Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the wildfires. in Los Angeles. Right now, we're joined by Greg Champion. His home in Palisades burned down

after he and his family evacuated. Greg, I'm sorry for talking to. We've spoken to a lot of people, unfortunately, in your area and around Southern California who have lost their homes and businesses. I do want to start by asking how you're doing tonight. Well, Tom, I just found out my home was lost 10 minutes ago. So you're catching me at a very vulnerable time. I'm an optimist by nature. And, you know, I got in a room next door, I had my wife and three daughters, and, you know, all the memories gone. The awards, the pictures, the memorabilia I had, sports memorabilia, ski trips, and going to the ranch. All those memories are gone. And we held out hope for our own personal house.

But we started to see the way this day was going to go because we're on a text chain with about 11 other families that, you know, our kids play soccer and volleyball with them. And those 11 other families all lost their houses. And that's how devastating this is, the Palisades. I'm going to be real frank with you, Tom, there's nothing left in the Palisades. Nothing. And I moved here in 2009, and I run a business in the Palisades. My kids go to three different schools in the Palisades. And then as you alluded in your opening, I lost my house.

And so what a, what a day, what a couple of days. Greg, I'm so sorry for you, man. I want to thank you guys for calling me up and allowing me to talk. my version of the story, and I'm telling my version, which is a thousand people's version of the story. So, Greg, you got, we have about 30 seconds here. What do you want, what's the one thing you want the country to know tonight? I want you to know that the Pacific Palisades is a very special place. And we will, we will rebuild. There are superheroes who don't wear capes, who walk around these streets.

And it's a special place. And I look forward to getting the work on this, now that I know what the score is. And, yeah, I feel for every family. Luckily, there was no deaths, maybe a few injuries. And so, you know, I just want to send everybody some good juju today. And I'll keep every family in my family. my prayers. Greg, champion, we are going to be thinking about you and praying for your family.

We thank you for watching Top Story tonight. Our continuing coverage of the wildfires starts right now.