we have some breaking news, learning president biden is going to receive a briefing from california fire officials while visiting a santa monica fire station. he's on his way now. let's bring in aaron gilchrist at the white house. the fire upended biden's schedule in california and so i understand did the birth of a great-grandchild. tell us what is going on. >> reporter: >> we don't have aaron gilchrist. it is not surprising given what is going on in california. let me tell you what was going on. president biden went to california initially to, among other things, make a declaration of national preserve and that had to be canceled when the fire started. then he was scheduled to go and visit firefighters in santa monica. that had to be stopped because,

we understand that his granddaughter, naomi, hunter biden's daughter, she is 31 years old, had a baby. it is a great-grandchild, another one. i think it is number eight for joe biden. they famously call him pop and he calls every one of his grandchildren, every single day. when we have an opportunity, we will go to nbc, steve patterson is on the ground in altered enough, california, where firefighters have been battling the fire. let's go to steve. what is going on where you are? >> reporter: chris, situation still very dire. the winds have significantly died down, which has given firefighters an opportunity to make more inroads. the sun has risen on what is left of these neighborhoods. i mean, you walk around here, if i were to take you down there, all of this is on. these are all homes.

this home, gone. you can see the records. this home, the car, the garage gone. you can see there is a little firefighting effort back here, these are neighbors trying to put some water down. i believe this is their home right here. where we were last time was a block over. all of this is happening in this area. has not stopped since we have been here this morning. these neighbors apparently putting water down on the ruins of this home. they of what it leaves of this house here to put protection on the home. that is so the fire does not jump or spread. you see the water pressure they are dealing with, very difficult to do this. you can see the pvc piping of some very old homes in this neighborhood, burst open water, dashing out. there is barely any pressure left to fight the fires. that is what officials are telling us to turn the water

off, if they can. you can see discarded fire extensors here. they are doing the best they can to try to bounce this. there has been a real community effort of people trying to do the best they can to stop the spread of some of these claims. i think now with the things that have died down that effort is more successful now. again, one solid wind gust and you have another fire. we just saw one. we want to take you deeper into the neighborhood to my left. you can see and other fully engulfed fire. this is not stopped just because the sun is up. this is not died down whatsoever. this is still all hands on deck, coordinated effort by firefighters, who are doing the best they can with very, very limited means, spread incredibly thin. how are you questioning >> i'm okay. i'm very tired. >>: have you been doing this? >> we got back really really. my neighbor helped save my house. i actually work for him. >> the one right there? >> he helped save my house and his hardware store did go down

up in altadena. we are just trying to get everything we can, hope everyone in the community. >> the fire didn't spread to this home. >> it burned a little bit but on other house is going up over there. we are trying to get everyone safe. >> have you ever seen anything like this? >> i have never seen anything like this. it started yesterday at 6:30. i thought let me grab a bag and i came home and i can see this. i wasn't prepared at all. >> reporter: what is your name? >> i am bryn. >> reporter: that is a story you will hear all over this neighborhood, this community and multiple communities as fires continue. >> it is extremely the way we have been seeing neighbors helping neighbors. steve, thank you so much. steve patterson, we will come back to you. if you get any more of those great interviews, i think it is

important to hear from those folks. one of them is actor and pacific palisades of president steve guttenberg, who jumped in to help crews battling the fire. steve, first of all, how are you? where are you? >> i am okay. right now i am in pacific palisades. i came in to see what i could do to help out. the fire was, yesterday morning everything was fine and now we have this raging fire, the hardest i have ever seen in my life. people are really panicking and really scared right now. most people have evacuated their homes. the fire is really raging, the winds are so hot. last night, i was on the road and i saw a little dog. somebody lost their dog and i couldn't grab it. then i went down toward the temple that i go to, the chabad

and there was a tree on fire. there was another temple i go to, i went to see if that was okay. i couldn't get there and somebody said the grocery store was on fire and i went down and found, it was really hard. we could hardly see, you could hardly see in front of you. both sides were burning. a theater we have was burning, the women's club was burning. the high school was burning. it was like a volcano. both sides felt like a volcano. it took an hour to get back to pch. it is really important to tell people in a crisis, anytime there is a crisis and you abandon your car, leave the keys in the car so guys like me

can move the car so that firefighters can get through with the fire trucks. if you are able, help people and realtors and young people, mothers with anxiety attacks, people that are in trouble, help them. help them get out. we should use this kindness and compassion not only in crisis but all the time. >> we have lost steve but he did a remarkable thing. he jumped in, he was going up, there were people. we talked about this earlier, they were abandoning their cars because it was a parking lot. if you have ever been in palisades, that road, those roads can be very, very narrow. we can see this on video of the fires burning, people trying to get out left their cars and

went and he was trying to get them out of the way. they had to bulldoze some of the cars to fire trucks could get in and help save. it is a remarkable thing to hear the stories. we heard that young woman who said her neighbor, her boss a house. steve guttenberg, we know him from "police academy," "three men and a baby." today and yesterday, he was a neighbor trying to help people. we appreciate him taking the time to tell us his story. i want to bring in nbc's dana griffin. she is on the roof of our bureau in los angeles. big picture, dana, what is the message going out to californians from officials? steve guttenberg had one message, which is if you are effectuating and you find yourself unable to keep going, don't leave your car in the middle of the road, or, leave your keys. what else are we hearing from officials today? >> reporter: officials are saying if you are told to evacuate, do not hesitate. they have seen several --

this is the black and smoke covering the skies. it is made with cerium really dark over the last several hours. this smoke feels a little closer than it was earlier this morning. as we continue to pan across our lot, this is the universal studios lot behind us here. a lot of workers were told to stay home today. as we keep going, you can see to the west of us, this is pacific palisades area. this area we saw a lot of the smoke earlier this morning had cleared out. is white and light gray building smoke in that corner, that popped up recently. that shows there is still an

active fire billing because the wind had cleared all the smoke in that area. we are smack dab in the middle of these major wildfires, about 18 miles in the middle away from both fires. that is how close we are. the air really poor right now. that is why we have several schools closed in the county. about 10% of the schools in los angeles county are closed today. several people have been impacted because they may work in a particular area. we are seeing less cars on the roadway. i don't know if you can see down. i can see the road to just out of our office and there is usually several cars, it's usually packed full of cars and we are seeing a few out there right now. this has really impacted the entire county of los angeles. fire officials made a portent point. they said they were prepared for one or two major wildfires, not four. that was the total number of fire they were fighting at one point.

the fourth fire has been marked up. >> we have president biden with calfire in santa monica. let's listen. >> it was something that we were well-prepared for. based on those predictive conditions of wind gusts up to 100 miles per hour east portion of short, we began increasing staffing, local, state, and federal agencies. hundreds of firefighters began moving on sunday afternoon from northern california into southern california. my local partners began up staffing their own fire stations and helicopters, fire engines, and crews to be prepared for an incident that like this that occurred. those resources were positioned in counties throughout southern california for an event just like this. on tuesday morning, the palisades fire again. i would like to introduce you to chief crowley, who can touch on the palisades fire. chief. >> thank you.

thank you so much, mr. president. we are here to provide you a brief on three significant fires that have occurred in the city of los angeles. with that, i'm going to be focusing on the palisades fire. that fire broke out yesterday morning around 10:30. we did redeploying a number of resources. we knew there was a potential for significant threat to our constituents due to the weather event. high, high wind, i have never seen the wind in my 25 year career like this. we lean forward as much as possible and redeployed. with that, we had a significant amount of fire that occurred. we had an aggressive fire attack. the fire has grown from originally 10 acres to 10,802 acres as we speak. it is an active, active firefight with our firefighters doing their very best to protect our people within this area. interesting enough, because of the wind and low humidity, we had a second fire also break out and that was just north of that area.

this was close to 11,000 acres. this is close to 500 acres, the hurst fire . the information i wanted to share with you is also the significance of multiple fires in the area within the city but also the county. that is the second fire that actually came out and we are actively engaged in that firefight. the third fire, that broke out this morning at 4:00 in the morning, which we have an active firefight there as well. we are working with our local jurisdictions, our state, regional, as well as federal. we are doing everything we can to protect life first and property next. we will go ahead and pass this off to police chief mcdonald. thank you. >> mr. president, it is an honor to be able to be here and be part of this and percent of the men and women of lapd and policing to support our

partners in the fire service. what was on in the last 24 hours is unprecedented. the fire is driven by the type of windsor we saw, up to 100 miles per hour. our rollout is strictly subordinate to be there for evacuations, to get people out of the affected area, to be able to provide for traffic control and crime suppression as the fire is what and some may come in and try to take the opportunity to go into these homes and steal from them. we are going to be on top of that. i want to say the relationship we enjoy here, in my case, the leadership of mayor bass but all the elected officials is unlike anywhere else in the country. we are blessed to have the relationship between police and fire. we do this kind of thing frequently, never to this level. i can't say enough about how important that is. as we go into the next five years with the super bowl and the world cup and the olympics coming up, it is critical we maintain these partnerships. thank you for the opportunity, sir. let me introduce my partner

from the fire department, chief tony maloney. >> mr. president, i will be giving you an update on the eaton fire, the county starts all the way up in lancaster and goes all the way down to the long beach border. we go from the county line at ventura all the way up to pomona. 4300 acres. we have a fire east of the palisades fire that began last night. it is called the eaton fire, it is complete and thousand 600 acres . 0% containment. we have over 750 firefighters on the line. unfortunately, two people have lost their lives, residents have lost their lives at the eaton fire. it is impacting tens of thousands of homes not only in the city of pasadena but also the county area of altadena . we are doing our very best. we just had our out of state resources arrived from arizona

at the eaton fire to assist us. last night as the region one coordinator, i contacted the governor's office of emergency services. we requested 250 additional engines into l.a. county with 1000 personnel. we also are using our compacts with other states like arizona, nevada, oregon, and washington. firefighters from those regions are on their way down to los angeles county right now to assist us. thank you for your interest, thank you for your attention. >> folks, the fact is that i'm working with dod to rapidly

supply the firefighters, the california national guard with firefighting systems and two morbid dates of national guard. four more are coming from northern command, 10 navy helicopters with water deliveries. we are prepared with anything and everything, as long as it takes to take these fires and hope reconstruct and make sure we get back to normal. it's going to be a long way. it will take time. we will provide everything you need. >> mr. president, first of all, that major disaster declaration, next level appreciation on behalf of all the residents in southern california.

as the chief said, we have pre- positioned assets this weekend in anticipation of these weather events and of the complexity of multiple fires, the likelihood of this wind event will continue and worsen the next many days, the impacts of over 1000 structures already that have been destroyed, the thousand people that have been evacuated, lives lost, traditions and lifestyles. it means the world to us. i think this is important, the president happened to be in the region in town. it is impossible for me to express the level of appreciation and cooperation we received from the white house and this administration. on behalf of all of us, mr. president, thank you for being here. not just today, thank you for being here since the beginning of this incident and attending. >> it is astounding what is

happening. my son lives out here, we flew out here yesterday. the good news is, i'm great- grandfather as of today. so i'm going to stay for a while longer. >> there you saw the president governor newsom, they're easy to his left, alex padilla, the u.s. senator from california. all of them and some of the latest information about what has been happening with these

four fires going simultaneously in the l.a. area. i want to bring in other of "both sides of the fire line" more of a transgender firefighter. she joins us now, you spent 45 years fighting fires and some of those years were spent in telephone. when you hear the police chief say this is unprecedented, these winds that are fueling these fires, when you hear the fire chief who says she has been around for 25 years, she's never seen anything like this, based on your experience, talk about the challenges facing those firefighters right now. >> when the wind started blowing the way they have been, there's nothing the firefighters can do, other than trying to get people out and try to protect some homes, if they can. it is a deadly serious when those conditions exist. there is nothing they can do

really to stop the forward momentum of the fire until the winds died down. then you can go back to normal firefighting once the wind gets down below those extreme rates. >> we had one of the president who was talking about his concern about the way we see so many more natural disasters, and in this case, experts who have been there in california say that part of the issue here is this has been fueled by the changes brought about by climate change. given the fact that we do seem to be seeing more and more of this, there was another fire in malibu one month ago to the day and with firefighting resources then, even though they are bringing folks in from other states, pending federal resources in, is there a big picture that needs to be looked at? do things need to change? >> well, that is a great

question. everything needs to change. when i started fighting fires in 1974, a big fire might have been 12,000 acres. now a 12,000 acre fire is nothing. we have, we used to talk about fire season. now, we have a fire year. there is no season. arizona has a fire in the high country that has been burning for several weeks. totally out of character for them natural fire regime. the claimant has gotten drier. the fire seasons of gotten longer. i had a discussion with an agency head 10 years ago and things had already been progressing to what we see now.

and, i told him, he said this is not normal. we are way outside the normal range of variability. of the indices and the measures that we have used for many years don't apply anymore. his answer was that is just the new normal and you should get used to to it and i said we are doing the new normal but the old normal budget and old normal training and all normal organizations and old normal strategies. we've got to come up with something better than what we've been doing because this is, this is the new normal and we have to adjust to. >> there is a little bit of good news and we got it from the mayor of los angeles, who says now the winds have died down at least enough to the extent we are able to get some l.a. fire department helicopters back to drop water. much of a difference could that be? >> anytime we have the opportunity to use aviation assets, it is a blessing for the firefighters on the ground.

the caretakers and the helicopters don't put out the fire. but, the helicopters and caretakers can slow things down, cool things off enough so the firefighters have a chance to come in. they are important. and, it makes life a lot harder are mounting an aggressive attack against an aggressive fire. we are going to keep following it. bobbie scopa, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. much appreciated. coming up, we will get the latest from a los angeles city councilman who represent pacific palisades, one of the areas hardest hit by the fire is now raging in the l.a. area. l.a. area. and a high-risk factor for it becoming severe. it does not prevent covid-19. my symptoms are mild now, but i'm not risking it. if it's covid, paxlovid. paxlovid must be taken

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right now, the eaton fire

in northern l.a. is 0% contained and it is a wild scene on the ground. flames jumping from house to house. this is from our local station k nbc. it is the scene just hours ago in a pasadena neighborhood. >> they have two water hoses as they try to water down the roof and the edges of the home and the rafters. it is very scary here. we have seen it people standing behind to save their homes. there's no services here. it is every man for themselves. we did have a little just minutes ago. this is just how scary and unpredictable the situation is. you are just helpless as you watch these people doing probably you know, you put yourself in their situation. >> meanwhile, this is the scene on the other side of los angeles, where the palisades fire has jumped to more than 11,000 acres, burning through homes. just of the foundations and the driveways remain. joining me now, los angeles

city councilman tracy park. the district includes pacific palisades. thank you for being with us. the sun is up. i know some people have been able to observe what is going on in pacific palisades. what is the situation as you know it? >> as you can see, as we are getting our first collapses into the absolute devastation in the pacific palisades, i am absolutely heartbroken for my community here on the west side of los angeles. i am actually at our city unified emergency operations center, where we have all of our city departments, as well as automated emergency efforts with our state and federal partners, our entire city is on level one emergency response right now. it is just devastating to see what is going on in the palisades. we have several hundred firefighters on scene, actively fighting this blaze, which is not yet contained. we are still contending with

the high wind conditions and the dry vegetation. this fire is on the move. as you have mentioned, we have unfortunately seen fire incidents break out in other parts of the city of los angeles. i want to be sure there is no need to panic. we have ample resources. an infusion of additional resources coming from all over the country. it is very, very important that people remember this is an active public safety emergency. we are not out of the woods on any of this. it is imperative that people follow the direction that they are being given from our firefighters and our law enforcement professionals. >> let me ask you about what we know and the fact and we just got an update, we were told the palisades fire is an thousand 800 acres, 0% containment, which is the same for the eaton fire and the hurst fire. we had a president on in our

last hour who talked about his kids at schools burning. he has gone up to ventura to get away from the danger zone. it was his observation that he believed that big chunks of his neighborhood, as well as much of the commercial downtown area was one. what can you tell us about what is left standing so far in pacific palisades or is that a good handle on that right now? >> so, there is not a good handle on it. we are only now beginning to get into the area was on the ground and with air assets to begin conducting the assessment of the scope of these losses. we already know just from what we can see and what we watched happen yesterday and overnight that the extent of the damage and loss in pacific palisades is going to be absolutely devastating. we just don't know yet how much, if anything, is left in

pacific palisades. >> are you in the palisades? >> i am at our cities unified emergency operations center in downtown los angeles, which is downstairs from our metropolitan fire communications center, where i have been briefing with our fire coming and staff here at city of l.a. and all of our first responder partners that have been activated across the city of los angeles. i am headed back out to the district in a few minutes and i am going to be back on the ground in pacific palisades, walking and viewing the area with our public safety partners in just a few minutes. >> do you know if your house is okay? >> it is, thank you for asking. i live a little bit south of the palisades in venice. as the sun came up in los angeles today, it was dark everywhere, as black smoke are choking out of the sunlight into these raging fires continue to pour through our hillsides and neighborhoods.

it looks like a volcano explosion in the middle of los angeles right now. >> you have work to do and obviously you are doing it. if you take a moment to think about the scope of what is happening to your constituents, to your talons, potentially to the future of those towns, how are you doing? and, what is your level of confidence that there are the resources to help people stay, rebuild, get their lives back together? >> this is going to be an all hands on deck effort to recover and rebuild. it is going to require assistance from every level of government. i want to reassure people in pacific palisades and all over the city of los angeles that we are here to help. we have resources addressing all of these issues. we urge people to just remain calm, to follow all directions that are being given but also

to remain patient. it is going to take our fire resources time to get these figures out and under control and it is going to take additional time to conduct these loss assessments and ensure that these communities are safe before people can return. we are standing up emergency evacuation shelters. we have red cross staff on hand who can help people with the process of getting new documents, beginning claims with their insurance form. this is going to take a long time to begin that process to get it underway but i am confident the city of los angeles has the resources and the leadership that are going to be necessary to begin this process. right now, our main focus is on protecting lives and as much property as we can and safely getting people out of harm's way. >> i want to ask you finally. i know you have a lot to do. do you have a high level of

confidence that people who needed to evacuate to evacuate? i have heard no reports there were concerns of people who wanted to stay behind. i wonder if you are hearing that people did indeed get out. >> i will say that my team and i were on the ground in the pacific palisades all day yesterday and well into the night. my own team members were walking neighborhoods, knocking on doors, and personally escorting people out of those communities as they were burning . so, unfortunately, we did hear from a few people throughout the course of the day and the evening yesterday they wanted to remain where they are. it is a miracle that we don't already have more fatalities reported, only two at this point. as these suppression and recovery efforts begin, those numbers may change and we will certainly push that information out when it becomes available to us, if it does. >> let's hope those folks did indeed have a change of heart and got out.

tracy park, good luck and thank you so much for taking the time. appreciate it. coming up on chris jansing reports, we will speak to a man who evacuated the palisades fire by walking for miles to safety. more on our continuing coverage, next. coverage, next. ♪ ♪ every now and then i rinse it out! ♪ fights odor in just one wash. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis,

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the chief of the l.a. fire department now says 32,500 people are under evacuation orders. more than 13,000 structures have been deemed at risk.

l.a. county fire is calling on fire departments from other parts of california as well as nevada, oregon, washington state to come and help fight the flames. joining me now is someone forced to evacuate his home yesterday, kristen reed. it is good to see you safe. where are you and where did you come from? what happened to you yesterday? >> i am currently in west hollywood in a hotel safe and sound with my fiance and on the. yesterday was a little scary and still is. >> when you say a little scary, how did you know that something was wrong? we heard somebody say he didn't realize it until he saw some of the reports on television. other people started to smell smoke. when did you know something was wrong and when did you know it was time to evacuate? >> by people texting me and the citizen app and i was like i've got to get home. what is typically a 35 minute

drive took me an hour and 20. >> what was that like? were you seeing flames, were you worried about whether you would get out of there? >> as soon as i got on the pacific coast highway, i saw smoke in my area where i live and it worried me and i was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. i was able to get into the grocery store parking lot on sunset and pch and started walking up to get the dog. >> obviously all life is important and one of the things we talked about in our newsroom today was the reaction of animals. i wonder how your dog reacted to this. >> he was fine when i got in the house. there were the helicopters, the sirens. that may be spooked him a bit. he is doing pretty well. on our way out, we hitched a ride with a nice neighbor who was heading out.

>> we have been hearing a lot of stories about how neighbors have been helping each other and you were able to get to a hotel safe and sound. do you have any idea what is next for you, how long you might be there, when you might be able to know anything about your house? >> everything is minute by minute. we are hearing different things from one minute to the next. it is possibly a week, not really too sure. that is all a guessing game. the fire has to get controlled first. right now we are at 0% containment. then go from there and assess the damage. >> my understanding is, chris, that you actually moved it to the palisades after you were displaced because of a mudslide a year ago. these kinds of natural disasters , we were just talking about this, seem like they are becoming more of the norm for

californians. how do you even grapple with that? >> it is, it takes time, it is a process. california is my home and it is the reality. >> and, what would you say to folks, as we were just talking to the city councilman, city councilwoman, who was sitting there were people who didn't want to leave, did you hesitate for even a minute? and, when you did leave, i'm curious if you took anything with you, where they are valuable things, personal items you didn't want to leave behind? >> it is crazy because once i got through the smoke and halfway up my block, a truck was cutting back the other way so i hitched a ride with them. once i got to my hla neighborhood, it was clear, the sky was clear, the sun was shining. i thought i think i'm going to be okay here.

got some intelligence that the fires were jumping and we needed to leave asap. >> did you take anything with you besides a quick duffel bag of clothes? >> passport, watches, the important stuff. most importantly, my dog. >> there you go. chris reed, we are glad you are safe. we hope you get home soon. thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. >> appreciate it, thank you, chris. coming up next, we will speak with a calfire battalion chief about the aggressive efforts to get the devastating fires under control as powerful winds the flames. our continuing coverage of the region wildfires burning through l.a. county will continue, after the break. the break. and it was even affecting my health. i trusted you because you specialize in dental implants. you created a permanent solution and customized my teeth so it still felt like me. my new teeth have improved my life and changed my future.

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1 prilosec a day... beats taking up to 10 antacids a day. it's that simple, for 24 hour heartburn relief... one beats ten. prilosec otc. we are starting to get a better sense of the damage from the four wildfires raging in l.a. a video like this of grim, surreal scenes on the ground. this is malibu, by the way. all of this along the beachfront. homes chart to a crisp, flames blazing. the wind still whipping. joining us now on the phone is calfire's public information officer, david acuna. thank you for joining us. i know you have four fires, or all four at 0% containment? >> thank you for having us on. the majority are. when we have an opportunity to get a handle on a fire, we

certainly do try to. the four fires you are referring to, the palisades in pacific palisades, the eaton fire in altadena, hurst fire, and the woodley fire are at 0% containment family because of the heavy strength of the winds blowing through there. >> the mayor of los angeles did say in the last hours the fire department helicopters are able to get up, which i assume means the wins are not quite as dusty. they are back to dropping water. i am here, can you hear me? >> not really, you are picking up. >> david, i'm going to try one more time, we will see if we can get a little more clarity. we've had a lot of communications problems not surprisingly with folks in california today. what are the major challenges of fighting multiple fires at once? >> well, fortunately, calfire made the decision early on on

monday to move resources from northern california down to southern california, particularly because we have this red flag warning as well as an upgrade to a particularly dangerous situation by the national weather service, which gave us the ability to move those resources so they were pre-positioned and ready to go. like anything else, we are going to throw all our resources at the first fire and when another one comes up, the backfield resources will then respond and we keep adding on resources as the incident commander determines as necessary. >> i know there are folks coming in from other states as well as other parts of california. we wish you a lot of luck as well as all of your colleagues. david acuna, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. we did hear from governor gavin newsom in the past hour. he is describing the dire situation in california very directly, saying "there is no fire season, it is better year. it is year-round." joining me is daniel swain,

climate scientist at ucla. thank you for joining us. help us understand the relationship between climate change and what we are seeing, the situation that we are seeing in california right now. >> thanks for having me. we know the winter into the autumn are the kind of year when southern california does tend to see the strong, dry offshore winds like we are experiencing now. this is a particularly extreme episode. the underlying precondition that relates most to climate and climate change is the level of vegetation and landscape scale dryness heading into this wind event, which was highly anomalous, even record-breaking levels. this has been an unusually warm and record dry stretch for southern california in the weeks and months leading up to this fire, which comes on the heels of two very wet years. the sequence of events, from what to extremely trying allowed a lot of additional

grass and brush to grow in the fire zones during the wet time and the record want and dryness since that point has to write it out to levels that we are seeing reflected in the intensity of the fires right now. >> you are talking about record levels of occurrences. we have heard from official after official after official, president after president after president, some of whom have lived there for many decades the second they have never seen anything like this before , in particular, this combination. but the winds that are driving the spiders. when people call it a perfect storm, is that what we are seeing here, that these things are coming together? we had a fire expert saying when you have wins like this, there is very little firefighters can do but hope the winds died down so they can get it under control. >> that is correct. under such extreme wind and vegetation dryness conditions, it is very difficult, if not impossible to get ahead of a

fire being driven by these kind of the winds. i will note, the critical piece here is just how dry it has been. southern california does tend to see strong offshore winds in winter but often they occur after the first rings of the season have arrived. this year, there has been virtually no rainfall at all in the l.a. region, even as we headed toward mid-january. that is extremely unusual. if you add the extreme heat waves that we saw in the same region this past autumn, with that record-breaking dryness that is really what has set the stage for this wind event, which was extreme in its own right, to cause these kinds of destructive wildfires. had we seen a typical amount of rain or more typical temperatures in the past several months, the outcome of this wind event would have been significantly less destructive. >> i don't know if you had a chance to hear chris a short time ago, he first had mudslides, then he relocated, now he's in a hotel because of the spiders. he did say california is his home. i wonder, as we look at the action or many people would say, lack of action to address

climate change, and people are looking at the future of their state, as we see more and more disastrous wildfires and other destructive natural occurrences, including mudslides, what does the future hold for california if these issues are addressed? >> as you suggest, there's a lot of moving parts. california has long been a land of natural hazards intersecting with highly populated areas to create disasters. california is famous or infamous for that. and, we know climate change is a factor and why many of these sorts of hazards are worsening and the outcomes we are seeing in subsequent disasters like we are seeing with these catastrophic fires right now is worsening, partly as a result of climate change and partly as a result of other factors. the reality is that we are

working from behind here. it is clear that we are seeing events that are testing and even exceeding our ability to respond to them in the moment with the systems we have in place. this is one of the best prepared and wealthiest places on earth for something like wildfire. yet, this is an example of an event that is so extreme that it is beyond the capacity of california to address fully in the moment. that is going to be something that california and other regions globally are increasingly going to have to reckon with in a warming climate. >> do you and your friends who are scientists sometimes talk about the fact like what is it going to take for folks to look and say we just can't keep allowing this to happen, we have to take very proactive measures to mitigate this at least as much as we can? >> i think we have had that moment repeatedly over and over and over again so many times now, many of us question what it would take, given the

dramatic visual, visceral, and personal examples that we keep seeing in front of us, with increasing frequency. it is not only a climate change question. there are other factors at play that we still haven't addressed at the regional scale in terms of wildfire risk. it doesn't really appear to be addressed either, the underlying climate crisis, nor any of the other challenges in places like california, increasing wildfire exposure and risk to the level that we would need to to really stem the tide. this keeps getting worse and i think that this event in particular occurring in such a densely populated and wealthy area likely to produce record- breaking losses from the palisades fire in particular, i think, i hope will trigger this conversation. but, i think this is a stark illustration that we

are not there yet still. >> you have provided me with an opening for one more fact, which is that j.p. morgan has just shared with nbc news their very first estimate of the cost of the damage from the fires. they see at least 10 billion but that is only so far. daniel swaim, your expertise is much appreciated, thank you so much for being with us. >> thanks again. that will do it for us this hour. our coverage continues with teddy to her reports, next. re if you're living with diabetes, i'll tell you the same thing i tell my patients. getting on dexcom g7 is one of the easiest ways to take better control of your diabetes and help protect yourself from the long-term health problems it can cause. this small wearable... replaces fingersticks, lowers a1c, and it's covered by medicare. not managing your diabetes really affects... your health for the future. the older you get,

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