MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
We begin this hour in Los Angeles, where close to 200,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders as out-of-control wildfires continue to threaten homes and lives. Kirk Siegler is one of our many NPR colleagues on the ground in LA, moving around the city to give us as full a sense of what is unfolding there as we can bring you. Right now, he's in Pacific Palisades by the Pacific Coast Highway. Hey, Kirk.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So we're now three days into this. Are conditions getting any better?
SIEGLER: Well, I do have some good news report. And the big thing here is that the wind has died down. And in fact, you can feel a little bit of humidity, and that's a sense that the wind patterns have shifted back coming off the Pacific. And humidity is key, as is the fact that there's no wind. And in fact - or very little wind - and in fact, that's allowing air attack of the fire. And as I've been standing here on the PCH, scoopers have been dipping into the Pacific Ocean - just an extraordinary sight - two at a time, and flying up onto the Santa Monica Mountains, which you can see now for the first time in two days...
KELLY: Wow.
SIEGLER: ...And dropping saltwater on the flames. So conditions are getting a little bit better - certainly not the wind we've had in recent days.
KELLY: I'm glad to hear conditions are maybe starting to improve a little bit, but give us a sense of the scale of destruction that you have seen or from people you've been talking to.
SIEGLER: Well, this is - you know, it's huge. And I'm just in Pacific Palisades. There is a lot of homes that have been burned. I've been looking at a hotel down the highway here that's completely leveled. You know, there has been a lot of attention, on cable news in particular, showing images of high-dollar homes burning along the coastline here. You certainly see that. But good opportunity to really stress - Los Angeles is a huge city, Mary Louise. There is a lot of need here. You can hear, actually, the air tanker come over me right now - the scooper, that is. But there's a lot of need here, and it's an economically diverse place. Even here on the more affluent west side, a lot of people in crisis.
I met Lisa Frantz. She was - she had just gotten a cellphone alert that we all did in the northern part of Santa Monica, saying it was now a mandatory evacuation. She lives in a second-floor walkup in a 70-year-old apartment building in Santa Monica. You're about to hear her. She's on crutches 'cause she's recovering from a surgery. And she told me, you know, she just had already packed her essentials. Let's hear a little now.
LISA FRANTZ: But, you know, you can't take everything. You just can't. But it teaches you a lesson. It's like, the things that you absolutely have to have - you look around and you think, well, I guess I don't need the rest of this.
SIEGLER: So we're right in the middle of the city here, Santa Monica.
FRANTZ: Yes, right in the middle.
SIEGLER: Are these your neighbors?
FRANTZ: These are neighbors. Yeah. He's my neighbor. And he and his wife live right in the building.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRUTCHES CLACKING)
FRANTZ: I've seen what they do. You know, there's just not enough resources. And they just can't fight everything. So if it catches here - if something - an ember or something catches here, that's it.
SIEGLER: Mary Louise, as you can hear, people are very nervous and on edge.
KELLY: And just very briefly, Kirk, does the LA Fire Department - do they have the resources they need now?
SIEGLER: I think it's safe to say resources are pouring in. I mean, even as I've been talking to you right now on this turnout here in the burn zone, lots of fire trucks have come in, and they're staging right above me. I can see - it looks like trees on fire from embers. There's still homes on fire above us from spot fires, and it's still a very active situation. But there are more resources on the ground. But, you know, in the end, with 100-mile-an-hour winds this week, like, there's just not a lot that can be done to...
KELLY: Right.
SIEGLER: ...Try to stop a fire or fires like these.
KELLY: NPR's Kirk Siegler, as you heard, right in the thick of it there in LA. Thank you, Kirk.
SIEGLER: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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