public information officer, captain adam van gerpen. adam, thank you for being here. you give us an update on this evacuation order and the areas that are at risk? >> yes. so right now we did issue new evacuation orders. and it's the fire is in the mandeville canyon area. so it's moving closer to the 405 freeway. this is on the east end of our fire here. so we just finished getting over our red flag conditions around 6:00. but that just goes to show people that even though we're not in these red flag extreme wind conditions, the fire can still change direction quickly. and right now it is moving fast towards the east direction of this fire. >> so how are you determining where to give the evacuation orders? what are the factors that are involved in trying to decide that. so people have an understanding of where they might be in these zones? >> well, we have a very large footprint here. we're talking to the boots on the ground. we're talking to our, uh, incident. they're relaying that back to our incident commanders. so as we see the fire progressing and moving in towar

so, my god, it's going to be it's going to be some time before we have 100% containment. >> adam van gerpen, please stay safe. thank you for what you're doing. thank you. still ahead tonight, widespread destruction across los angeles county. as local officials warn evacuees that it's still too dangerous to return home. cnn's natasha chen, standing by live in hard hit altadena with what she has been seeing. plus, l.a. mayor karen bass under heavy scrutiny tonight as residents question the city's preparedness and the current response. one of the members of the l.a. city council joins us ahead. >> kobe believed in himself at the. youngest possible age. >> people who may never even know what a basketball looks like felt his presence. >> he wants the opportunity to make his own mistakes. he's going to end up making them. >> that's when the black mamba was born. >> it's one of the most remarkable stories in sports history. >> i don't want to be remembered as just the basketball player. >> kobe. the making of a legend premieres january 25th on cnn. it. are you ready for this? >> are you ready for

. >> reporter: we joined los angeles fire captain adam van gerpen in the pacific palisades. >> this hydrant has no water in it. >> reporter: where lack of water, critical to battling a still active wildfire, frustrated crews. this one from san francisco. >> what should the water pressure be right now ideally? >> i mean, you want 50 to 80 is your ideal hydrant pressure. >> and what have you got? >> i'm bouncing between zero, 50. it's not a consistent pressure. >> reporter: as nearby hydrants failed and water pressure fell, firefighters above switching from offense to defense. >> when you run out of water in that engine -- >> not much we can do then. we came out, this is our first job for the day. >> reporter: flames burning for precious minutes before any reinforcements cld arrive. >> had we had water earlier on in the firefight we probably could have stopped it from getting this big. >> reporter: this is something we have not seen often, but when the hydrants are dry crews have to rely on these tanker trucks because the fire waits for no one. the situation a familiar one for the captain, a

i joined captain adam van gerpen of los angeles fire department, and i want you to hear some of the exchangecrews are dealing with. take a listen. what's the water situation here? >> you know. yeah, it looks like looks like they're probably on a hydrant and they're supplying two lines. so what's that? oh, your tank hydrant. okay, so you don't you don't have water supply there. >> okay, so we have menlo park to supply us. okay. >> okay. so they so yeah, they don't have a water supply here. so. so because they don't have a water supply they're doing a relay. so they have a fire coming. a fire engine coming from the bottom of the hill is bringing them supply. so they have 500 gallons. so they're basically fighting this fire. 500 gallons at a time. there are no hydrants here. this hydrant has no no water in it. >> we're looking at something that is not helping in this firefight at all. >> right now. this is doing nothing for them. >> right now. that hydrant issue has been a question raised to officials. they've simply said that when you have 4 or 5 fires happening simultaneously, their system or

derek van dam, thanks with us, captain adam vangerpen of the los angeles city fire department. captain van gerpen, thanks for joining us last week when the palisades fire broke out amid a wind storm, many fire hydrants went dry as the water system was overloaded due to the unprecedented demand for water. our fire hydrants still at risk of running dry, so they're always at risk of running dry. >> whenever we have a large scale brush fire, large scale wind event like this, our fire, they're always at risk of that happening. so our fire fighters have to learn how to improvise, adapt, overcome. if they can't find water in a hydrant, then they get it from a pool. they get it from water tenders. or sometimes we have to do a relay, what we call a shuttle operation to get water. >> a board member at a southern california water supplier for parts of altadena told cnn that when the eaton fire broke out, problems with dry fire hydrants were traced back to a lack of electricity. obviously, sometimes officials deliberately shut off power to lessen the risk of fire spreading, and the city warned it might do so