. >> so, our friend and alumni from this morning show, amanda starrantino is joining us from altadena . we know you and your crews have worked overtime, i don't even know if you are taking a break, this has got to be taking a toll on the storytellers as well, i have to say, bravo for bringing this story and giving a voice to the people who are suffering right now. >> reporter: good morning, everyone in san francisco, this is an absolutely heartbreaking story to cover, a lot of us personally impacted because of these fires and how widespread they are. we are in altadena this morning, where the fire really hit hard, you can see some light this morning, but outside of that, that is the only beauty we are seeing here, other than moments of kindness of people working together to start this rebuild. i want to give you a look at how devastating this is, if we can light up a little bit more, there we go. okay, so we are on a city corner here, just look at this, how devastating. these are all homes just days ago, you can see that pole over there is still smoldering, you can see the powerlines

former kpix reporter and anchor amanda starrantino has been covering the fire since it started, and surveyed some of the damage this morning. >>>>a lot of people have nothing, so this weekend, i don't even think they can come back to their properties and even start the rebuild process. it's going to be a very, very long time until then. but i want to show you this picture here. just look at this street. it's beautiful, these trees. you can only imagine what a beautiful neighborhood this was. but then the reality is, every single direction you look at this intersection here in altadena is destroyed. all these homes are down. this was just lined with homes. and so homes, yes, they can be replaced. those memories though, hopefully people were able to get some photos. anything keepsakes before they had to quickly evacuate here. but there are some things that you just can't replace. and this property really just caught our eye here. all these classic old cars. and i looked at the google images of what this street looked like. this was a beautiful green car parked right in front. so this is a 1940

amanda starrantino caught up with a couple in altadena that just learned they lost everything in that fire. >> reporter: are you trying to get over to your house right now? >> i just wanted to see if anything's left. we had everything like the sentimental things like my mom passed away. i had only a few things of hers left, my wedding dress, our wedding album. we left everything, our albums. we have just whatever we're wearing. we're wearing the same thing the last two days. i'm trying to figure out how to tell my 3-year-old that we don't have a home. we don't have a school. we don't even know where to go, what to do next. we're staying at a friend's house, you know, but that's all short term. >> a reporter from cbs sacramento, ashley sharp, joining us now from los angeles. thanks for being with us. we know the weather is a big factor for firefighters to be able to get a handle on this. what other conditions are you seeing now? >> reporter: anne, over the past few days the winds have calmed which has been a massive help to this firefight. they were able to continue the attack by air w

like everybody there knows someone who lost their home and that includes former kpix reporter amanda starrantino who is now living and working in l.a. she had to make a difficult phone call to one of her friends to tell her friend that her childhood home burned down. >> you don't know what's going to happen. there were embers flying over our heads, so we just started loading boxes and boxes of videos and photos and rescuing all that. we put on hard hats while loading up the car because embers were flying and then police were going all around the neighborhood saying evacuate. this is before we even got the alerts. so it was word of mouth. that's how quickly all of this happened and my mom is so angry and so sad and she wishes we had more time. i think everybody wishes they had more time to have taken more stuff and as the days go on, we're processing more. we're finding more. we're realizing we're never going to see this again. you're never going to see your grandmother's crocheted knit stuff again. >>> first alert weather powered by kia. learn more at kia.com. kia, movement that inspires. >> obv

. >> reporter: cbs los angeles reporter amanda starrantino was on the balcony of a million-dollar mansion the smoke is billowing. >> you can see this fire burning behind us right now. >> reporter: my colleague, carter evans, lives in one neighborhood under threat. >> i'm in the back of this home, trying to help a firefighter, so they asked me for help because he couldn't get over the gate, so i am trying to get the flames out. oh, i'm at the end of the hose. oh! >> looks like we got most of the hillside. >> reporter: southern california has seen back-to-back impacted back-to-back fires. this one just 10 miles away from last month's fire in malibu. in november, fire destroyed more than 200 structures 30 miles north of here in ventura county. large planes are now using the pacific ocean to scoop up water, a valiant attempt to fight this fast-moving and ever-worsening flames. and we've retreated to a safer location, but tonight this neighborhood is still on fire, and the worst is yet to come. wind gusts expected to exceed 100 miles per hour overnight. that's the equivalent of a category 2 hu