STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Just before I went to bed last night, Renee Montagne, the longtime former host of MORNING EDITION, sent over photos from her neighborhood, showing orange-tinted smoke on the horizon in her part of Southern California. Several wildfires are burning out of control in metro Los Angeles. This morning, one of my colleagues sent me a photo that someone took out of an airplane that was coming in to land at LAX, and there is fire all across the ground. Just this morning, we called a spokesperson for LA Fire who talked about winds exceeding 80 miles per hour in Southern California, embers carrying on those winds. So the fire can spread at more than 80 miles per hour, which is why people in evacuation areas are being told to park in the driveway with the car facing out - so they can flee instantly if they have to.
NPR's Liz Baker is in Southern California, in a neighborhood where there have been some little fires. Liz, what have you been seeing?
LIZ BAKER, BYLINE: Hey, Steve. Well, I've been seeing that same eerie, orange glow on the horizon that you mentioned Renee can see. I think a lot of people in Los Angeles can see that 'cause there's now these two really big fires that are very visible from LA. There's another one a little further out. There's two in Riverside now, so we are seeing these fires blow up really quickly overnight, and, you know, no area is spared. This is really just hitting all over the place here in Southern California.
Yesterday evening, I went out along the evacuation zone in Santa Monica, where you could look out and really get a very clear view of the fire there, and it was just this, like, bright orange zigzag running straight up the mountain like a lightning bolt. And every time the wind had a big gust, you could just see the fire flare right up into the sky. So yeah, Steve, things are not great here, and the National Weather Service says we are only now just entering the worst part of this wind event, so buckle up.
INSKEEP: When you say wind event, I'm sure it's no surprise to you, but it hadn't quite occurred to me - 80-mile-an-hour-or-more winds mean that this fire can go 80 miles an hour to some place that - in seconds, it can be a mile away from where it is now.
BAKER: Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure the fire itself is running along at 80 miles per hour, but, yes, those winds are fueling it really, really fast. I mean, people really only have a couple moments to get out of their houses, just like you mentioned, when they come up for evacuation orders. I spoke to a colleague who is in Altadena, where there's a fire up there in the foothills that really just exploded overnight. And he says they only got about 40 minutes. Like, it went from nothing to being apocalyptic in just under an hour.
And so those are the fires that we know of, and then there continue to be these little spot fires. As you mentioned, a lot of them are fueled by embers that are being picked up and carried by the wind and dropped, in some cases, up to a mile away from the actual fire line. So it's just a very volatile and dangerous situation, and firefighters are just stuck in this constant game of whack-a-mole.
INSKEEP: As we're talking, I guess the sun is about to come up in Southern California. Do you have any sense of the extent of the damage here?
BAKER: No, not yet. And I'm guessing, from some areas, you wouldn't know that the sun is coming up 'cause it's so smoky. But, yeah, we're still in the midst of these fires, and there's no telling exactly the damage. We have heard that potentially up to 20,000 structures have burned so far.
INSKEEP: Liz Baker of NPR News in Southern California - thanks very much for your reporting all morning. I really appreciate it.
BAKER: Thanks, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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