Natalie Kitroff
Appearances
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
It's amazing to hear the actual, you know, 100 mile an hour wind figure. What does that do to a spark, to an ember?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
I have to ask Judson just about how fire-prone this area is in general. I mean, there are places across Southern California that we've come to think of as places that just burn based on these recurring conditions. Is that the case here?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Finally, Judson, if wind is really at the center of this fire, does that mean the fire only ends when the winds die down? And do we know when that might be?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
So it sounds like this fire, which hasn't been contained thus far, is really not over.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
On Wednesday evening, officials continued to expand evacuation warnings further and further throughout the Los Angeles region, including into the densely populated areas of Santa Monica, Pasadena, and Hollywood. High winds as fast as 70 miles an hour are expected to return Thursday afternoon and continue into Friday morning.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
In an emergency application filed late Tuesday, Donald Trump's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to prevent the sentencing of the president-elect for his criminal conviction in New York.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
The sentencing is scheduled for Friday, just 10 days before the inauguration, and stems from the case against the president-elect for a hush money payment made in 2016 to a porn star who was threatening to go public with her story of a sexual encounter with Trump.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
While the trial judge in the case has indicated that he would spare Trump jail time, his sentencing would be symbolically important because it would formalize his status as a felon. Trump has argued he's entitled to full immunity from sentencing now that he's president-elect, based on a Supreme Court ruling last year that gave presidents broad immunity for official acts.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Shannon Lin, and Rochelle Bonja, with help from Alex Stern. It was edited by Mark George and M.J. Davis-Lynn. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Alicia Baitube, Sophia Landman, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Isabella Kwai.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroff, and this is The Daily. In the last 48 hours, devastating wildfires have consumed more than 25,000 acres in Los Angeles, with more than 100,000 households being told to evacuate. As flames surround the city, thousands of structures have burned to the ground, and at least five people have died. Today, my colleague L.A.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Bureau Chief Karina Knoll on the fire's path of destruction. And our staff meteorologist Judson Jones on the conditions that have made them so hard to contain. It's Thursday, January 9th. Karina, we're talking to you at 4.30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, a day after these extraordinary fires broke out. You're in Los Angeles.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Starting at the beginning, can you tell us what this has all looked like from the ground?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Karina, help orient us a little bit. Where is that? Where is this area of the Pacific Palisades? What's it like there?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Right. It sounds like this is a place where potentially a lot of people are in danger.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
And can you take us through kind of what it looks like when people start to flee that area?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
That is just so surreal, and it really gives you a sense of how trapped everyone in the path of this fire felt. I mean, what do we know about the scale of the damage at this point?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Okay, so now there are multiple fires encroaching on Los Angeles. What does that feel like?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
It honestly sounds incredibly scary. Karina, what can you tell us about the efforts to fight these fires so far?
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Karina, you kind of mentioned that people in L.A. and in some of these areas are used to the idea of having wildfires in the area. Climate change has turned it into a kind of a hotbed for these kinds of blazes year after year. And yet it seems like the scale of this fire and the location means that people aren't just near a wildfire. They are in a wildfire and an enormous one. And
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
I wonder if that's going to change how people who live in these communities see their home.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
This fire, it sounds like, was just big enough and violent enough, fast enough to make everyone in L.A. feel like they were living in one place that is threatened by the same forces.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
After the break, Time's meteorologist Judson Jones on how these fires started and why they're so hard to control.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Judson, we just heard from our colleague Karina, who's on the ground in L.A. and who described the devastation caused by these fires encircling Los Angeles. You're our staff meteorologist. So we want to ask you to help us understand how these fires started and why they've spread so quickly.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
These winds can create havoc. Judson, I want to just pause for a minute on the Santa Ana winds. I think generally people may have a vague idea of what these winds are, but help us understand what this actually looks like.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
Okay, so how does all of this, these parched conditions, the Santa Ana winds, come together over the past 48 hours or so to create these fires? Yeah.