First deaths as wildfires wreak havoc in LA
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Thursday 9th January, these are our main stories. President Biden promises extra help from the Department of Defence to tackle the wildfires threatening Los Angeles as 70,000 people flee their homes. European nations warn that borders must not be altered by force after Donald Trump refused to rule out military action to seize Greenland. And a deadly Russian glide bomb attack on Ukraine kills at least 13 people in the southeastern city of Zaporizhia. Also in this podcast, Prime Minister Giorgia Maloney successfully negotiates the release of an Italian journalist from jail in Iran. What could be the most important archaeological find from the days of ancient Egypt since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and...
We hypothesized that people who are very disgusted by body order, that they would also have this kind of authoritarian disposition. And that's what we've found.
The link between your sense of smell and your political leanings. Los Angeles and the surrounding areas have often experienced wildfires, but not ones that spread so quickly with so little warning at this time of year. The speed with which they took hold on Tuesday night stunned Californians. As we record this podcast, at least two people are dead and a thousand buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people are without power. To give you a sense of the terror spreading across this part of California over the past 24 hours, have a listen to these residents and reporters.
All of these homes, just home after home after home after home, side by side, completely all burned to the ground. It's hard to tell from the outside just how much of this building is lost, but certainly it's whipping it. The conditions out here are just absolutely miserable for firefighters. I was getting more frantic as, you know, the lights were getting darker and the sky was getting more red. It was scary. At the bottom of the canyon, there was cars piled on top of each other. There was boulders and debris that fell off of the canyon that was on fire that was in the middle of the road where people had to abandon their cars. I know people that live in that gated community right there on Sunset and Palisade Circle. That was on fire. The hillside was on fire.
And it's actually the hillside behind my house. I said, I'm just going to jump in the pool. I can barely swim, but that's our only way out because the canyon is literally on fire on both sides. You see so many embers. We see engines just shooting down this way, and it's because of this. More structures on fire. We are talking big buildings, and a lot of them burned to the ground.
The fires, fuelled by hurricane-force winds, have turned the skies red and orange. They couldn't have happened at a worse time for California, which is being battered by the seasonal Santa Ana winds, winds which could yet develop into the worst windstorm in a decade. The largest fire is in the sought-after Pacific Balisades neighbourhood, which is east of LA and home to Hollywood celebrities who've had to abandon their homes like so many others. President Biden has been in the area and has told the US military to assist firefighters overstretched by the disaster. He's also approved a major disaster declaration for California to help survivors. Just before we came into the studio, I spoke to our correspondent, David Willis.
I'm on the coast road in Pacific Palisades, Alex, and the ridge in front of me... is completely burnt out. And to my right, where a mobile home park once stood, there is now nothing really but charred brush. And beyond that ridge are hundreds of multi-million dollar homes that have been completely destroyed. And the fire is still raging here.
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