Natalie Kittroff

Mike, we've talked about two real issues in terms of preparedness. One is the number of firefighting resources available, and the other is the amount of water available. Both came up short. There's now been a pretty robust debate about whether the city government did enough to get ready for these fires. What are the firefighters themselves saying?

So you have the fire chief saying this was a real issue, the funding, and you have the mayor saying this wouldn't have made a difference. What's the truth here?

Thank you, Mike.

could have used more water and more firefighters, but that even if it had those things, controlling these fires would have been really, really hard. You're a climate reporter for The Times. Help me understand what that means about our ability to respond to wildfires just across the U.S. ?

He was laying dead in his front yard, clutching a garden hose.

Okay, tell me why California, at least in theory, is the state that should be most prepared for fires like this.

Throughout the week, intense winds fueled new fires. There were more and more haunting images. There were roads full of charred cars, embers falling from the sky onto scorched palm trees, hollowed-out houses. And even though the fires were still burning, residents who had evacuated to safety began to return to survey what was lost. Oh, shit.

Right. I mean, these are conditions that are just kind of baked into the place. It's been this way forever. We've talked about this on the show. These things make fires like this almost foreseeable. So how has California prepared given that?

Yeah, it sounds like California is particularly vulnerable, but it also has a bunch of things working in its favor. And yet all of those things obviously were not enough to contain these fires. So what does that tell you, Chris?

It's kind of like you're asking, is the pace of climate change just faster than the pace of possible adaptation?

You're saying the more your house can look like an isolated concrete box surrounded by rocks, the better. And even then, it wouldn't totally solve it.

Right. I mean, for affordability to tackle, you know, the crisis of people living on the streets, California and L.A. in particular needs more homes, not fewer.

What you're describing is a situation in which you are really weighing these two crises against one another. And to solve one of them, you need a pretty radical shift in this city. What are the odds, do you think, of that actually happening?

And I ask this because even though the fires are still raging, we're seeing the beginning of discussions about what recovery and rebuilding will actually look like.

Chris, part of what you're talking about, building fewer houses in the most vulnerable areas in L.A., that would mean a lot of people would need to move. And I have to say, these kinds of conversations where we're talking about people relocating things to climate change because of sea level rise and storm surge, it's something we've talked about with you on the show.

My colleague, Emily Baumgartner Nunn, was driving up a street in the Palisades when she saw a woman named Naz Sykes hiking up a canyon with her husband, Steve.

This is really the first time that I've seen it come up in this way in the context of wildfire.

And it seems important to just say, Chris, that in this case, we're not talking about moving a relatively small coastal community from a barrier island. Here we're talking about L.A., the second largest city in America, 10 million people in a state that is just an economic engine for the whole country, has the biggest port in America. I mean, what we're envisioning is reshaping a major metropolis.

From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroweth, and this is The Daily. As wildfires ravage Southern California for a seventh straight day, residents are seeking answers about why so much has been lost and whether their government could have done more to protect them.

And That's not just a huge investment of money, right? It's also a massive emotional investment in just a new identity.

That may be a question we need to grapple with, but it's also a really difficult thing to ask when people are in a lot of pain and just reeling from all this loss.

Chris, thank you so much.

Over the weekend, firefighters slowed the progress of the Palisades and Eaton fires, which are now partly contained. But winds in Los Angeles are expected to pick back up again, prompting officials to issue a rare fire danger alert for Tuesday until Wednesday afternoon. The National Weather Service warned that the gusts could lead to, quote, explosive fire growth.

At least 24 people have been killed in the fires, and officials say that the fatalities are likely to rise.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, a federal judge in Florida ruled that the Justice Department could release half of the report by the special counsel, Jack Smith, detailing the decisions he made in charging Donald Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

After Trump won the 2024 election, the special counsel dropped the two criminal cases he brought against the president-elect. But the Justice Department rules required him to write a final report detailing his findings in the interests of public understanding.

The Justice Department has been fighting to get the report into the public eye, even though Jack Smith formally stepped down from his post on Friday. Trump's legal team has fought to stop any part of the report from coming out. calling it a, quote, one-sided attack on the president-elect. Just after midnight on Tuesday, the Justice Department delivered the 137-page volume to Congress.

According to a copy of the report obtained by The Times, Jack Smith said he thought there was enough evidence to convict Trump in a trial if his victory in the 2024 election hadn't made it impossible for the prosecution to continue. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin, Alex Stern, and Sydney Harper, with help from Lindsay Garrison and Olivia Knatt.

Today, my colleagues Mike Baker and Chris Flavell on the response so far and whether some of the devastation could have been avoided. It's Tuesday, January 14th.

It was edited by Lizzo Balin and Paige Cowett. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Sophia Landman, Dan Powell, Alicia Betitube, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lancer of Wonderly. Special thanks to Ryan Mack and Ken Bensinger. That's it for The Daily. I'm Natalie Kittroff. See you tomorrow.

Mike, we've seen this outburst among residents in L.A. of frustration and anger over the government's response to these fires. And there's been a lot of speculation about whether more could have been done. Take me through what happened with the efforts to contain the fires.

So they're actively trying to guess, it sounds like, where the most vulnerable places are, and they're surging firefighters, water, resources to those areas.

At this point, do we know how the Palisades fire started?

Like what, for example?

It sounds like there's a lot of theories, but as of now, we don't really know the origin of this thing. But once it gets going, what happens?

In the days since the fire started, a bleak picture has emerged of the extent of the damage they caused.

The Eden Fire.

Wow.

So they depleted three million gallons of water, which to me sounds like a lot. But was there more that they could have or should have had access to?

So critical reserves unavailable at perhaps the most critical moment. How big of a deal do you think that is?

These fires are on pace to be the most destructive in California's history. In the Palisades, on the west side of Los Angeles, an out-of-control fire ripped through homes and historic landmarks. Near the eastern edge of the city, entire neighborhoods in Altadena were reduced to ashes. As rescuers combed through the rubble, they found the body of a man named Victor Shaw.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like there is a fair question to ask about why it was offline for maintenance when the fire risk was so high.