Restaurant owner Andrew Gruel and his community are coming together to help residents who have been affected by the wildfires in Southern California.
Gruel said people “showed up in droves” to donate clothing, food and other products after he put out a call for help.
“Amidst all this tragedy, the goodness in people has come out,” he said.
The Palisades Fire has burned through more than 19,900 acres, and is 6% contained while the Eaton Fire has grown to 13,600 acres, and is the only fire with zero containment, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in an early morning update.
The Kenneth fire has burned through 1000 acres and is 35% contained while the Lidia Fire has burnt through 390 acres, with 75% containment.
Meanwhile the Hurst Fire has reduced to 771 acres with 37% containment.
Reporting from LOS ANGELES
Jim Cragg, commander of American Legion Post 283 in the Pacific Palisades has seen unpleasant things around the world over 30 years in Army special operations.
But he said the devastation left in his neighborhood is startling and will be hard to comprehend.
“I’ve seen what the world has to offer in its worst case,” Cragg told NBC Los Angeles on Thursday. “But my neighbors are not ready for this.”
“My family’s not ready for this, my 10-year-old daughter, asking me, ‘where am I going to go to school, dad?’” Cragg said. “At first, she thought, ‘Oh great, the school’s shut down — she has no idea. There’s nothing. Every place where she grew up here, is gone.”
His daughter’s school, other schools, other homes are destroyed.
Cragg’s home was saved: A few years ago, after another nearby fire, he bought sprinklers that wave back and forth, and this time placed those on the roof, sprayed his home with fire retardant, and left.
On Thursday, he returned to find his home and the homes of neighbors below him intact. The street above him and up the hill was less fortunate, he said.
“I was just up — and it’s devastating” Cragg said. “All my neighbors across the top, their houses are gone.”
He and another man, a Marine, returned to the area and used buckets to gather pool water and dump them on the roof of his house and his neighbors’ homes.
“Our house, I’m thrilled that our house is standing, we have something to come back to,” Cragg said. “But this is a devastated neighborhood.”
The American Legion Post 283, which has around 700 members, also survived. Cragg said he wants to use the space to help first responders, and also the community rebuild their neighborhood and lives.
More than 267,000 homes and businesses are without power in California amid the wildfires as of early this morning, according to online outage tracker PowerOutage.us.
Over 100,000 homes are out in Los Angeles County alone, according to the outage tracking site.
The website also said, however, that it was experiencing a problem collecting data from Southern California Edison, which serves 5 million customers, so the overall totals it displays may not be fully up to date.
NBC Los Angeles’ Alex Vasquez spoke with Army National Guard members at the base in Ontario, California. Vasquez said they will be assisting law enforcement and firefighters in areas impacted by the deadly wildfires around Los Angeles.
Reporting from LOS ANGELES
Johnnie Burman, an evacuee from Santa Monica, at Westwood Recreation Center.Brandon Tauszik for NBC News
Ash trickled down from a gray sky and the smell of smoke lingered in the air today as Angelenos made phone calls to loved ones.
The common refrain: We’re OK. We’re safe. We’re at a shelter.
The evacuees paced outside the grounds of the Westwood Recreation Center in West Los Angeles today. It is one of four makeshift spaces for wildfire evacuees run by the Red Cross in the affected areas.
“The devastation, the destruction, I never thought this would happen,” said Johnnie Burman, 64, an evacuee from Santa Monica who went to the shelter in hope of finding his elderly neighbor and friend.
Mario Tama / Getty Images
Mario Tama / Getty Images
Images reveal the extent of destroyed homes in the Pacific Palisades yesterday as multiple wildfires, fueled by intense Santa Ana winds, continue to burn across Los Angeles County.
For the Los Angeles area, the recent string of wildfires represents a worst-case scenario — unusually powerful and prolonged Santa Ana winds struck after months without significant rain. But the steep consequences of the blazes are not a surprise, according to an NBC News review of after-action reports following previous fires, wildfire risk maps, public meetings about wildfire risk and interviews with fire experts.
“Entirely foreseeable,” said Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis and history at Pomona College.
“We have been building homes deep into the fire zones. We know they’re fire zones, we know they’re dangerous, and yet City Hall and county government has constantly greenlit development in places of greater and greater risks,” Miller said. “All of the factors you don’t want to see combined combined.”
Reporting from Pacific Palisades
Amid the wide destruction of the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, there were symbols of hope. One of them was a temple still standing amid the destruction. It’s a place I know well.
