California Wildfires Erupt In Los Angeles, Burn In Wine Country

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Getty fire started in the early morning hours along the four Oh five freeway near the Getty center and Santa Ana winds quickly fanned it into a raging blaze. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for 10,000 homes. East of the four Oh five, a southbound section of that freeway was shut down. Evacuation centers are open. All Santa Monica and Malibu schools are closed along with almost 20 LA unified schools and classes have been canceled at UCLA, but an aggressive response by firefighters and weaker wins seems to have improved the situation from this morning. Joining us now as KPCC reporter Robert garoba in Los Angeles and Robert, welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:44 Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:45 What do you know about the latest on the Getty fire? About how many acres has it burned? Any homes or structures burned or threatened now? Speaker 2: 00:54 Um, right now it's at 500 acres. Um, it's Euro percent, uh, contained, um, at the moment. As far as structures, the, you know, LA mayor Eric Garcetti came out of, with the press conference this morning and said that there were, I think it was about five a hand panful of homes. On one particular streets that were lost so far. And so that's the only structures we know definitely lost so far. Speaker 1: 01:16 Now, despite the name of this fire, the Getty center, the museum was not burned at, isn't that right? Speaker 2: 01:22 Yes, the museum, um, seems to have just made it, um, the fired it did not reach the museum, which would have been, you know, for people who have been to the Getty, that would've been an insane tragedy with all the artwork and, and antiquities there. Speaker 1: 01:36 And some of Ellie's most expensive neighborhoods have been threatened by this fire. Speaker 2: 01:40 It's true. Um, and you know, you can kind of feel that at, at the evacuation center that I'm at right now, a lot of the people that are bringing, being brought here or are showing up are elderly or have pets. You know, there are a lot of people that have means in the area and a lot of times might go to a hotel or, or a country club, that sort of thing. Speaker 1: 02:01 The images from the fire overnight, they were extremely terrifying, eh, one, have you heard from people who were forced to evacuate in the early morning hours? Speaker 2: 02:10 Interestingly enough, some people that did bring themselves here, um, saw, you know, flames from their house and, uh, we're, we're almost in the evacuation zone. Um, and you know, out of, out of caution, um, I talked with one couple who just, you know, they decided to go just because it looked so bad from their house and they didn't want to get stuck in traffic. You know, a lot of the, the homes in, in the canyons, um, in this area of Los Angeles, they're called the sacks and twisty winding roads and they just get completely gridlocked. If there's any sort of, um, you know, traffic incidents. Speaker 1: 02:45 You've been at an evacuation center now for hours and you've been speaking with the people there and hearing their stories. Tell us a little bit more about what the evacuation center is like and what the red cross is doing. Speaker 2: 02:58 Yeah. So the red cross Speaker 1: 03:00 has set up here at a rec center, um, as a Westwood rec center in West Los Angeles. Um, I spoke with someone here who's, you know, signing people in as, as they, as they trickle in throughout the morning and early afternoon. Um, and so far they've got about a hundred people signed in. Um, you know, there's, uh, places where people can get coffee, get a snack. Um, there's a lot of people out walking their pets, uh, w you know, walking their dogs, um, in the, the, uh, park that's right out front of the rec center. Um, you know, it's, it's not, it's not a whole lot of people. Um, it's people kind of trickling in and coming and going. But definitely, you know, as I, as I may have mentioned before, there's a quite a few older folks, um, who are here, who have been either transported by police or firefighters. Now with the freeway disruption and the evacuations on the schools closed, how would you describe the atmosphere up in ally today? Speaker 2: 04:01 Well I'll tell you, you know, for one thing, it took me three hours to get from, you know, one side of LA to, uh, to where I am now in West LA this morning. So it's definitely affecting the roads. You know, Les, kind of funny. I mean we're, we're so, um, pocketed and there's so many come compartmentalize neighborhoods, you know, if, if you're on the West side of LA, this is definitely something that's affecting you today. And if you're not, um, I feel like, um, you know, people are, yes, you have, you know, feel for their friends and family who may be on this side of town, but it just doesn't affect them quite, quite as much. Speaker 1: 04:35 This is the type of fire that L LA has been dreading, a wildfire that really threatens downtown, threatens a real center of the community. Uh, did you get the feeling that, uh, officials have been responding to this correctly with the right amount of urgency? Speaker 2: 04:52 Anecdotally, from, from everyone I've talked to, you know, it's pretty amazing how individualized some of the emergency response was. Um, especially in the early morning. Um, I talked with, you know, a, an 85 year old woman who was, uh, you know, struggling to, to get around the park, uh, with her Walker. And um, she told me that, uh, firefighters came directly to her door, uh, early in the morning and um, transported her, you're here to this rec center. Uh, I talked with another, um, a woman here who, uh, her car was blocked in, um, and she could not, uh, leave her parking garage. And again, she had a firefighter at her door that took, um, took her and her dog, uh, to this, to this rec center. Sorry. It was actually a policeman in that case. But both policemen and um, and firefighters, uh, has have been responding individually. Speaker 1: 05:46 And you say at this time, even though winds have died down and firefighters have been throwing a lot of resources on it, there is no containment, no indication of containment at this time. Speaker 2: 05:56 I checked just before Speaker 1: 05:58 we get on the phone and it was at 0% containment. So yeah, I mean, this is in press conference. We heard, you know, from officials this morning, did they don't expect it to be going away for the next, at least the next couple of days. You know, you had one Councilman go so far as to say that if you're in the evacuation zone and you don't get out, he his words, you're an idiot. So people are taking the fire very seriously, especially officials. I've been speaking with KPCC reporter, Robert Corova and Robert. Thank you. Thank you.