breaking just in the last hour, there is a new and fast-moving fire that has started in the hollywood hills. right now it's being referred to as the sunset fire and the los angeles fire department has issued a mandatory evacuation for parts of that area. msnbc will of course continue to follow this very kinetic and destructive situation as we have more information throughout the evening so please stay with our coverage. but as for now, that is our show for tonight. now it is time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> that evening, and with this new report tonight, this means that the entire city of los angeles, the entire region has fire spreading through it, from the western edge that we knew about last night, the pacific palisades, now to what you just reported, the hollywood hills. that's just about dead center. and then we've already had fire out on the eastern edge of los angeles. this means that really everyone in the region now, people who, an hour ago, in the middle of

town, who were in the hollywood area, west hollywood, thinking they were completely safe, are now in their cars, not knowing where they're going. this is -- this really is something we have never, ever seen before. >> and i believe that sunset fire in the hollywood hills is now presently at 20 acres of flame so i mean it's a catastrophic situation. >> there is a lot. we're going to try to bring in as much simulcasting from our k nbc in los angeles as we can, to show these images that are just stunning. >> thank you. >> as this fire now spreads literarily all the way across the los angeles region, this is the night when my house might burn down. it is being threatened by fire now, in a way that wasn't

possible even yesterday, or earlier today, that we did not know about. so many friends of mine have already lost their homes in los angeles. patrick maroon, someone who i've known since college, a former president of the writers guild, with his family, in a house his family grew up in, in pacific palisades. that house has been lost. he's not the only one. another writer, a friend of mine who i have known since college, reports that as many as half of the writers on the very popular tv show that he has written for for many years, half of them have lost their homes. this situation really is happening in a way that we have never seen before. i just got a text from an

intrepid and award-winning journalist, daniel wall, who is also a screenwriter who lives in the region, who has press credentials and has been allowed into areas that other people have not been -- could not get into at this hour, which means he is literally the last person who has seen my house standing, which the last time he looked at it, it was standing. but we don't know where it is now and by the way, that's the way it is for everyone who has evacuated, is we do not know, once we're out of the area, what's happened to our house. we usually have no idea what's happened to our house, unless people see images of the complete burning down of the houses in that area. daniel varela, when he was in that area, reporting directly to me, via text, about what he was seeing, described it as something, again, he's never seen before in all of his

reporting around the world, at various hotspots and difficult situations. he said this was just that sunset when he said, it's very surreal, as the wind starts kicking up right now, and this smoke just funnels directly out over the ocean like a sideways diabolical tornado, sucking the smoke out into the coming night. and then there was the text today from my dear friend michael dinner, just a brilliant director, one of the greatest directors in the history of television, whose work you have seen, from the wonder years, two justified, and beyond. michael lost his home in the pacific palisades yesterday, and everything in it. it's the home where his two sons grow up the home where the family just celebrated the holidays together, and everything around them, where they were sitting when they were celebrating the holidays, has been lost. michael texted me today, with the simplest expression of what happened to him and his family

and has been happening to thousands of families in los angeles, and he said the loss of the house that they loved isn't the most difficult part. he said it's the stuff, the evidence of four lives gone. that kind of pain is being felt throughout los angeles. there have been, so far, i'm going to get the exact number but it's about five deaths, which is of course the ultimate horror in this situation. there probably will be more, the way this fire is spreading. but the biggest, most widespread kind of loss is going to be that loss of the stuff, the evidence of four lives lived for the last 20 years in a house. that is going to be happening to so many people. i have the luxury of watching the possibility of my house

burning down, 2500 so miles away, in new york, in a second home. this will not be a difficult experience for me compared to anything else any of my friends of already gone through, if my house isn't there tomorrow. but this is the way we, los angeles residents, are now all living in los angeles, no matter where we are. if you have a home in los angeles, if you have an apartment, if you have anything in los angeles now, you do not know anymore whether you're going to see it again. nbc news correspondent gadi schwartz has just arrived from the pacific palisades, which was the biggest problem before now, to the hollywood hills, where the new fire has erupted there, just about an hour ago. we've been watching it on these helicopters, which have been allowed to fly tonight because the wind has dropped to the point where the helicopters can fly. what is the latest there? >> lawrence, we see those helicopters above us.

they are such a sign of relief, especially in the last few days. we haven't been able to see them flying but we've got them flying over the hollywood hills right now. we just pulled up. i'm not sure if this is going to work because i'm on my phone right here. we're going to take a walk to see what we can see. again, we are starting to see hollywood point these are all cars making their way down the hill and we've got the first tanker that we've seen down here on hollywood boulevard. that was the last factory over there. this is volcanoes, cvs pharmacy. right here on crescent heights, so crescent heights going up. so far we haven't seen any flames up on the ridge that we have seen flames over on the other side of the laugh factory. still quite a ways away but you see the helicopters working up there. we are going to wait and hold on real fast here. let's see if we can wait for this traffic to come through. again, difficult to access this. there are now roadblocks going up throughout this area. the wind is not as bad as it

was yesterday. here is a quick shot of what the wind is doing down here on hollywood. looks like we might be able to cross here. give us a second. so again, you've got fire department is staging down here and then these are the hills that are now being evacuated. we are told the evacuation zone is up there on mulholland drive. it goes all the way down to laurel canyon, which means that this whole area, chateau marmont and all of these homes are most likely under evacuation at this moment. you see -- let me see if i can zoom in here. you can see the choppers that are flying through the smoke

point they're coming in. they're making those drops. those drops are so crucial right now. we are going to cross over here and we'll see what the fire engines are doing. i believe they are here, construction protection, people walking down the street. not everybody knows about what's going on is it's just up the ridge and things are happening so quickly. but again, so many people in los angeles have been preparing for this. they saw what happened in the pacific palisades before it happened last night. there was a warning that the winds were going to continue throughout the night. we are seeing some of those wind gusts pick up but so many go bags across los angeles are ready. you were just talking about your home and lawrence, i hope your home is okay. my home is on the other side of these hills. i've been on the phone with my wife. she's with the two kids at home and they've got the go bags ready because we are probably about maybe a quarter of a mile outside of that evacuation zone. right now the wind is blowing towards hollywood. that's really important here, because what's going to happen is as that fire works its way up runyon canyon, it's going to go up, because of the

topography, but the wind is blowing this way. it is blowing down towards hollywood, so the main concern right now is hollywood boulevard, is this area, sunset boulevard, and everything that is down below for a couple of blocks. that's why that evacuation order has been given. you see behind us we've got fire crews, we've got the police now staging and this is one of the areas where you should be able to see up on the hill. it's very difficult to see but it's still a ways away. but people are hopefully heeding those warnings, evacuating because the winds are strong enough. comparatively speaking, yesterday the winds are very, very light. but if this was any other day and there was a fire burning in the hills, we would say that these winds are extremely, extremely concerning. so it's not a time to let your guard down. fire continues. choppers are working this fire. that is a good sign.

hopefully those continue tonight but so many people now in hollywood, hollywood boulevard, sunset rivard, heeding those warnings and we are seeing people starting to evacuate out of this area. >> one thing that daniel ball and other reporters that have been on the ground today are telling me, is when you see the fire trucks, -- >> i think i lost you so i'm going to head back and try to reconnect here. >> okay. i was just going to exchange with godey there is that the fire trucks generally mean that's the line where the fire department wants to prevent a fire from crossing, where you see the trucks, they are on hollywood boulevard because of the gigantic fear of that fire crossing hollywood boulevard. if it does that, that fire is now raging in the center of a major urban area per go it's both residential and very

urban, very business-oriented area. it would be the equivalent of that fire breaking out in manhattan. that's the kind of area that is in los angeles, and as we continue through this coverage tonight, one of the situations that's a challenge for people is that they literally now, on evacuation, after the hollywood hills fire has broken out, there is now confusion in los angeles about which way to go. people have felt, prior to this time, had been feeling more confident heading away from the ocean inland but that's where the hollywood hills fire is now. there has been a lot of evacuation southward from los angeles. that's the direction my loved ones talk today when they were ordered to evacuate. they've gone south, toward the airport. a lot people are going south, toward the airport and beyond that. the trouble is, some people trying to find a place beyond

the airport have discovered that there are fires breaking out randomly now in other areas that they were intending to drive to. and so that issue of what direction to go is something that really needs as much government guidance as can possibly be provided right now, to people who have literally, especially in the hollywood hills area, in the center of town, there are people jumping into cars, not knowing which direction to drive. and that's one of the issues that their car radios, of course they can pick up information about that. people struggling, who can afford it, to find hotel rooms to go to. others trying, others who are lucky enough to have friends, are far outside of the fire zone, driving in that direction. but this is a kind of mass evacuation from all areas of los angeles, that we really have not seen before in a situation like this per go the helicopter pilots have been

doing an amazing job of delivering to us exactly where these fires are breaking out. yesterday we didn't have that because the winds were way too strong for the helicopters to get up in the air. so we couldn't see this kind of coverage, so there's a lot more available knowledge tonight at this hour than there was last night at this hour. this is a disruption to a community that is thought of as the show business capital of the world, but there is so much more that goes on there, occupationally, then that. it is, i can report to you, that the studios didn't close down today. warner bros., paramount, the fox lot, sequentially decided we must close down production. a friend of mine working on the fox lot, on the west side of los angeles, that was possibly the last lot to close down,

about halfway through the day. production was shut down. people were sent home. that's when you know, in the workings of los angeles, that's when you know something is very serious. the amount of costs involved in shutting down production on what's going on in those studios is astronomical, and no one wants to do it. it takes something really serious to shut down production there. i'm not saying what goes on in the studios is necessarily serious, but just to understand, when the studios shut down, that's a much bigger event than schools being shut down. that's the message that says to the town, this is really something that's now getting beyond anyone's control and anyone's ability to predict what happens next. that's the situation there. tonight at this hour. this is going to be a changed situation in certain places by the end of the hour, and across the coverage overnight.

people living in los angeles have been hanging on the local television coverage, which has been just excellent across every local channel. shots like this available to people so they can know exactly what's happening, how close it is to them, how far it is from them, how much time they have. people have been making careful calculations about how much time they have to leave their homes, based on just the excellent delivery of information from both the fire department, government, the governor, the mayor, mayor's staff when the mayor was out of town, and most importantly, though, more than anything, with these images you are seeing right now from k nbc, our affiliates in los angeles, and from the other network affiliates in los angeles, those local news channels and those local news teams, many of whom i know on the k nbc side, and the technicians i know on the k nbc side, have just been heroic and going without sleep. and you see one correspondent out there on the camera, but there are many people involved

in supporting that correspondent and getting that correspondent on camera. none of them are sleeping. they are working around the clock. their own homes are in danger, as they are doing this work. their own families can be in danger while they do this work. this is as challenging a -- an event to cover as los angeles media has really ever had to cover, given the geographic scope of it. this is just now an enormous area of fire that they are trying to cover tonight and trying to deliver people the information they need about how long they can stay in their homes, if they can stay in their homes, and exactly when they have to get out of their homes. this has been one of the most difficult things that i've personally had to cover here, as i, at the same time in the field texts from people who are

telling me what's happening to them and how they are trying to get out, and where they need to go. but we are going to stay with it. we are going to take a break here. were going to come back, try to get in some of the news of the day involving donald trump's appealed to the united states of record. were going to keep an eye on exactly what's happening there, as this hour proceeds. we'll have more from los angeles. we'll be right back. right bac. . no hose. just sleep. inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com at university of phoenix, learn more and view important safety information we're earning career-relevant skills with every 5-to-6 week course. and updating our professional profiles in weeks, not years as we pursue our bachelor's and master's degrees. earn career-relevant skills in weeks, not years.

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fire now, from the pacific palisades area of los angeles, is cal fire battalion chief brent pascua. brent, what is the situation there as of this hour? >> right now, as of this hour, the winds have died down substantially, which is making conditions a lot more achievable for firefighters to actually get the upper hand on this fire. so let's hope it stays that way. >> brent, going forward, how do you distribute resources when you have a geographic area now that is so spread out? these fires from end to end are about 30 miles apart, with fires right in the middle. >> right. you start to prioritize. you look to see, where is the most life safety threat at. that's where you want to get your resources.

that's our number one priority. then after that you are looking at structures, buildings. where can we do our best good with our resources and we'll put them there. >> i've been speaking to people tonight in the middle of town, mid-wilshire and west hollywood, hollywood, in that area. now that there is a threat there, they are wondering which direction to go for evacuation. >> right. i was looking at the map myself and it was like, you know, there's a fire to the east, to the northeast of them. it looked like the best way was just to get on a freeway and start heading out, and get going. you don't want to be caught on surface streets like we saw here at the palisades fire. you want to do it early. that way it's more controlled than if everyone tries to go at the last minute and it turns into a parking lot. >> i know most people in the palisades area, when this began, were generally heading south, the people that i was talking to individually per go is south just as a general direction the safest way to aim right now? >> you know, looking at the

wind gusts, south, it's actually pushing to the south point of the wind is kind of out of the east northeast so if you're above it and you can get higher and go north more, that's even better. >> what is the prospects for tomorrow? when we wake up tomorrow, where do you expect to learn the most of what has happened? >> we are being cautiously optimistic right now with his winds. last night we kind of saw the same thing but all of a sudden we were having 70 mile-per-hour sustained winds, starting at 10:00 p.m. so we are hoping that's not the case tonight. we can get in there, do some good work, so when the sun comes up tomorrow, we can have our damage assessment teams, and take a look, and find out exactly what's been damaged and destroyed. and report on some factual numbers. >> the city of santa monica, which is technically its own city, but very much a part of

the life and spirit of the city of los angeles, and indistinguishable as you are driving along there, it's just south of where you are now, brent, as we both know. and i know there's huge concern in santa monica, with the palisades fire going down rustic canyon, working its way down the canyon, and then climbing up the hill into santa monica. what do we know about that progress now? >> i know that remains a high priority on our part, is to button that side up. we know that's over there right now. these wins are in our favor, so we've moved resources over there. we are taking full advantage of this, if you could call it a sort of break in the wind. >> is the idea that you set up the trucks in the spot which is going to be your line of defense? you don't want the fire moving past this point? >> right. well what we'll do is we'll try to get bulldozers actually out there and cut fire line way out

ahead of this fire, and say that's going to be our standing point. we don't want it going past there. we are going to try and do that. that way we can stand our ground. once we have that fire line, then we can get engines in their with water and hoses and stand our ground that way. >> and chief, what about the personnel? i'm sure you've got people out there who haven't slept in a day. how do you manage that? >> i do, and they look exhausted. i ask them the stories and they talk about losing a house here or there, or a house being destroyed, but then saving the rest on the street and they say that's what keeps them going. whether it's, you know, just the excitement of it all, but knowing they did some good. they want to go back out there. they say there's no way they can go in and sleep when the fire is still burning actively like this. >> chief, everyone working to fight this fire lives in the

region. they are all, i assume, also getting calls and texts from their family and loved ones about their own situations. >> right. everyone here knows someone that has a house in the area. we've been checking on houses for friends and friends of the family. so yes, very well known area and everyone is trying to look out for everyone out here. >> cal fire battalion chief brent pascua, thank you very much for joining us tonight and much more importantly, thank you for everything you and your teams are doing out there to save us all. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> coming up, today donald trump appealed directly to the supreme court to try and get out of his criminal sentencing in manhattan on friday. harvard constitutional law professor laurence tribe is going to join us. we are going to stay with the fire coverage but we're going to get a few words in from professor tribe about what we need to know about that trump appeal. we'll be right back. right bac. my symptoms are mild now, but i'm not risking it.

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>> breaking news, president biden has canceled his planned trip to rome to meet with the pope because of the california fires. president biden has just issued a major disaster declaration for southern california because of the fires. we're going to continue to keep our eye on the fires, and when we have the images, the local feed of, like that helicopter shot from ktla in los angeles, when we are able to just put that on the screen, that, without any words of description from most los angeles residents, when they see the streets that are

superimposed by computer on some of these images, it tells them exactly what's going on, very clearly. they know what they are dealing with and that's why we have tried to keep up those images as much as possible. that's what local news has been delivering to viewers in los angeles. k nbc, our affiliate there, has been doing an extra ordinary job with some remarkable people who i know working there, continuing to do that. i'm going to turn to attorneys for a moment here because this morning, donald trump did what no other criminal defendant in history has ever done. he appealed directly to the united states supreme court to block his criminal sentencing in the new york state case scheduled for friday at 9:30 a.m. in manhattan. donald trump made that appeal directly to the supreme court before exhausting all of his appeals within the state of new york, which is the normal sequence for anyone not named trump. the trump criminal defense

lawyers offered the united states supreme court what they called an appeal raising claims of presidential immunity. that's right. the man who is not president of the united states and who was convicted of 34 felonies in manhattan this year, when he was not president of the united states, is claiming that the new doctrine of presidential immunity created by the supreme court this year for donald trump should also apply to donald trump when he is not present. two new york judges have reject that claim this week. emergency petitions to the supreme court of the united states, like the trump petition, are directed at the individual member of the supreme court who is assigned to hear emergency petitions from that particular geographic region of the federal court system, called a circuit. and the supreme court justice assigned to this circuit that includes new york city is new york city native justice sonia sotomayor. justice sotomayor your ordered

this attorney alvin bragg, manhattan district attorney alvin bragg, to respond to the trump petition by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, which is almost exactly 24 hours before donald trump is scheduled to be sentenced. justice samuel alito did not say that he would recuse himself from the new trump appeal, even after it was revealed today that he asked donald trump for a favor yesterday. justice alito explained the situation this way. william leavy, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from president-elect trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position. i agreed to discuss this matter with president-elect trump and he called me yesterday afternoon. so yesterday afternoon, samuel alito is on the phone with donald trump, recommending that he hire one of his former law clerks from the trump administration. that is a call that could have

waited. samuel alito knew that donald trump was appealing his sentencing schedule and would very likely be appealing directly to the supreme court, any minute now, but the supreme court justice got on the phone with donald trump and asked donald trump for the favor of five hiring his former law clerk. there's absolutely no doubt that donald trump was going to hire samuel alito's former law clerk, with or without the call. the call accomplished nothing in that direction. it was purely donald trump's attempt to make samuel alito subservient and indebted to him by hiring his former law clerk after alito asked him to do that. alito should have never participated in such a phone call, but if he was going to do it, he could have done it next week, easily. there is no hiring dead line for any job in the trump administration, and it is impossible for donald trump to hire anyone before january 20th. justice alito's statement said

we did not discuss the emergency application he filed today and indeed, i was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed point we also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might be in future come before the supreme court, or any past supreme court decisions involving the president-elect. samuel alito knows that donald trump will take any legal steps possible to try to block the release of special prosecutor jack smith's report and samuel alito knows it is possible those attempts could end up in the supreme court. alito has never had a telephone conversation with a more active litigant before the supreme court them donald trump, or a more predictable litigant before the supreme court than donald trump. i knew yesterday donald trump was going to appeal his sentencing to the united states supreme court. we discussed it on this program last night with andrew wiseman. there is no reason to believe samuel alito yesterday wasn't smart enough to anticipate that donald trump would come to the supreme court today, at the

latest, very latest, with the emergency petition he filed. samuel alito is claiming, i couldn't possibly have figured out yesterday was lawrence o'donnell figured out yesterday. that's what he's saying. but samuel alito, one of the most politically compromised supreme court justices in history, on a par only with clarence thomas, decided sure, i'll get on the phone with donald trump yesterday afternoon, two days before he's supposed to be sentenced, knowing he's fighting desperately to stop that sentencing, and i'm going to ask donald trump in favor of hiring a friend of mine who used to work for me. joining our discussion tonight is professor laurence tribe, who has taught constitutional law at harvard law school for 5 decades. professor drive, you have the floor on what happens next with the supreme court. >> it's hard to focus on things as absurd as justice alito's claim that he had no idea that

this was coming, when everybody in the legal world knew it was coming. it's hard to focus on that while los angeles burns. i'm sorry about your house. i have children and grandchildren who have evacuated, who live in los angeles. i'm grateful for the firefighters there. that's not what you need me to discuss. what you need me to discuss is the absurd attempt by president trump's lawyers to claim not just an absolute privilege of extraordinary scope for a sitting president, but for a president-elect, there is no president-elect privilege. leapfrogging the state courts in this way is absolutely unprecedented. it's a defiance of principles of federalism. it's also a ridiculous appeal,

because of the claim that the supreme court's immunity opinion protect donald trump from being sentenced, by the way, sentenced without any custodial judgment, sentenced without even a fine. we are told it's almost certain to be a sentencing name only. but the idea that it's so urgent for him to prevent sentencing on friday, simply because some of the evidence that was admitted in the case involved testimony by hope hicks and madalyn wester help, people who work in the white house. that stretches an already extraordinary privilege beyond the breaking point. there is no sense in which they were discussing official matters. the supreme court itself, in its immunity decision, said that there is no privilege when

the president is engaged in activity of a political kind, as opposed to his official duties. and the entire case involving the 34 state felonies, which donald trump has been convicted of committing and ordered to prevent people from learning about his affair with stormy daniels, all involves activities engaged in before he was president. so we now have the bizarre phenomenon of a not yet president claiming that what he did before he ever became president, in order to commit state crimes, to become president in the first place, shouldn't be the subject of sentencing. and in this case, the sentence is simply part of the verdict. what is he afraid of? that he will virtually appear

in court? he's been told he doesn't even have to show up, and hear the judge explain how serious his crimes were. he's obviously trying to cover up history, just as he's trying to prevent the publication of the report. this man may never be required to spend a minute in prison or pay a dollar in fines, but he also says, in remarkable language in his brief, that merely publishing and publicizing critical information about him will do irreparable harm to the national security of this country. it's like the old english law in which imagining bad things about a king or queen was a form of treason. so he's now not only a king, but he's a king in waiting who

says that the onus of having to prepare -- and he doesn't have to prepare anything -- having to get ready to hear a recitation of what he did, the day after tomorrow, so terrible that he is entitled now to leapfrog the state courts and get special treatment. it would be ludicrous if it weren't so tragic. >> professor tribe, let's go back to the tragic that you mentioned at the beginning, because you've made me widen my frame of concern about this. i've been kind of tunnel focused on my house and my family, who i have left behind in los angeles. by the way, coming back to new york before there was a fire, not knowing that i was, in effect, evacuating before it was necessary. but i'm thinking of my brother in boston whose son lives in los angeles and has a gang of

kids in the house, grandchildren, my brothers grandchildren in the house in los angeles, thinking of you people on the other side of the country, where i am now, too, safely here, worrying about grandchildren and children in los angeles. what is that like for you? >> it's scary as hell. i trust my daughter. she's left her place. she has a couple of pet cats and 10 pet chickens. she was only able to evacuate two of them. two grandchildren. and the husband. and they were all huddled in her husband's art studio in downtown, of the little town where they live. and they think they are safe because there is little vegetation around their. but just like the peep hole you've described, they don't know where to drive. if they were to try to drive anywhere, they wouldn't be less safe. i suggested they fly here but of course the airports are closed because of the wind and the smoke.

so you know, i almost didn't come on the show because i'm so worried about them, but i thought that, you know, i have a few points to make that you might find useful. people might find useful. we have to go on with our lives but i pray for all the people in los angeles and that they all be safe. >> your mind is working just like mine tonight. professor laurence tribe, get back on the phone with your daughter right now. thank you very much for joining us. when we come back we'll have much more live coverage of the fires now burning across los angeles. los angeles. sensodyne clinical white provides two shades whiter teeth as well as providing 24/7 sensitivity protection. patients are going to love to see sensodyne on the shelf. when you really need to sleep. as well as providing 24/7 sensitivity protection. you reach for the really good stuff. zzzquil ultra helps you sleep better and longer when you need it most. its non-habit forming and powered by the makers of nyquil.

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>> k nbc's amber frias spoke to a resident of the hollywood hills about the fire that has erupted there tonight. >> i want to walk this way. we saw this man who was hosing down some of the sidewalk and some of the tree. sir, hi, sorry to interrupt you. my name is amber with nbc. do you live in this complex? >> yeah, i live right here. >> what's your name? >> lawrence. >> okay. what's going through your mind right now? >> oh my gosh. this is my whole life right here. i spent my whole life savings to get a condo here so i lost a

year during covid, so nobody has anything to call or anything. so it feels a little bit scary, yet. >> are people still in the complex? >> a lot of people have left but a lot of people are staying, too, you know? i think we are going to be okay. i hope so. all these fires are starting up there but you never know. you've got all these mansions right here. they catch on fire, we're in real trouble. >> what's your plan? are you staying? >> and going to stay right until, if it catches on fire i leave. i have my cats in here and they are freaking out so i have to take them with me but i don't know where i would go. just in my car, i guess. >> get ready to go, at least. >> i am ready to go. i've wanted to be in this condo, since i bought it, every piece of it, every, you know -- >> so sorry. >> it's okay. it's going to be okay. it's going to be okay. >> it's going to be okay. >> the most important fire in l.a. happened to me. we're right here, hollywood highlands, you know what i mean? yeah. >> all right, sir. thank you very much, i really

appreciate it. >> our conversation makes so many of the important and painful points that we've been raising in our coverage. that man named lawrence, his last name we didn't get, plans to get in the car when he has to but doesn't know which way to go. that is a very common reaction to what is happening in los angeles tonight. he would be leaving behind that home that he built, that home that he's worked on, that home that he's tried to perfect. and he raised something and what he just said there that i haven't thought about today, when he said, i don't have anybody to call. my phone has been going nonstop since the fire started, with texts, with phone calls. it's been next to impossible to keep up with them but i want to keep up with every single call and every single text i get from someone there, from someone who is worried about someone who is there. but i don't have anybody to call. that's the worst possible thing that could be happening with your phone tonight. we'll be right back. right bac. which is why we make the best socks and slippers

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the front page of tomorrow's los angeles times, which i think we will be able to show you in a moment, carries the headline like 1000 fires. and that is it, that captures what is really happening in los angeles tonight across the space of at least 30 miles where fire is raging. the sub headline is wind driven blazes destroy homes. at least five dead. you should think of this as a

windstorm. a very violent windstorm on par with the hurricane, but with no rain. rain would be heaven sent at this point in los angeles. rain could help solve this problem much more quickly. the problem has been not enough rainfall in los angeles this year, making everything very dry, very combustible, ready to burn. that is what you are seeing. you are seeing a violent windstorm at wind levels never seen before in los angeles, and wind finds flame, wherever it is. no matter how tiny it is. wind will find that flame, and wind will increase that flame and move that flame. and everyone in los angeles tonight is living with the question of is the wind coming my way? the future of your home in los angeles tonight, whether it will be there tomorrow, is up to the wind now.

that is what is going to decide what happens next in your neighborhood, on your street, to your house. that is a situation that is, in some ways, not unique to california, but california is the state where you can lose your house every single day of the year to a natural event. hurricanes are seasonal. blizzards are seasonal. earthquakes are not. fires are not. these things can happen any time. this intense wind increases the possibility of this fire and has fueled the fire. that is what you're watching there tonight. and there will be more of it. that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. tonight, wildfires scorched southern california. whole communities destroyed as hurricane force winds fueled the deadly blazes. our reporters live on