‘You could put it in an urn,’ Mel Gibson says of what’s left of his LA home
Mel Gibson is the latest celebrity to speak out after losing his home to the wildfires in Los Angeles.
Gibson, 69, was in Austin, Texas, recording a podcast with Joe Rogan when the fires started.
In an interview with NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” on Thursday, the Oscar award-winning actor and director said he felt “ill at ease” during the recording session because he knew his neighborhood was on fire.
“When I got home, sure enough, (the house) wasn’t there,” he told Vargas. “I have never seen a place so perfectly burnt. … You could put it in an urn.”
Other celebrities, including Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges, Paris Hilton and Ricki Lake, have also opened up about losing their homes.
Before and after: See the destruction caused by the LA fires
Multiple fires raging across Los Angeles County have caused untold damage and killed at least 10 people. Whole neighborhoods have been devastated, with as many as 10,000 structures destroyed.
Satellite images capture the destruction from above, showing entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble. 
They moved into her home just before Christmas. Now, all that’s left is ashes.
Florence Kerns-Wilson and her wife moved into their home in the Altadena community of Los Angeles County just before Christmas. As the family unpacked and got settled with their 2-year-old daughter, they met neighbors who Kerns-Wilson said were “welcoming and kind.”
They were looking forward to building a life in Altadena. And then this week’s Eaton Fire came.
Palisades and Eaton fires now rank among the 5 most destructive in California history
The sun rises behind destruction from the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles on January 9.Damian Dovarganes/AP
Two of the fires raging in the Los Angeles area are now among the 5 most destructive in California state history, according to preliminary data from CalFire.
The Palisades Fire has destroyed more than 5,300 structures, the third-most in state history. The Eaton Fire has destroyed 4,000-plus structures, the fourth-most in state history. These figures could climb as more damage assessments are completed by officials.
Fifteen out of the 20 most destructive fires in state history have now occurred since 2015 as a world warming due to fossil fuel pollution more frequently creates larger and more severe fires in the Southwestern US.
The two fires are also the only ones out of the 20 most destructive in state history to have happened in January – a development possible because of an extreme swing from wet to dry conditions over the last two winters that first buoyed vegetation growth and then dried it all out, turning it to tinder. This so-called weather whiplash is also becoming more frequent due to climate change, scientists have found.
The state of play with the Kenneth Fire, the newest blaze to threaten the city
Fire crews battle the Kenneth Fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles, on Thursday, January 9.Ethan Swope/AP
The newest blaze to break out in the wider Los Angeles area, the Kenneth Fire, is now burning across 960 acres northeast of the city of Calabasas.
None of the fire is contained, and its perimeters are threatening residential communities on the outskirts of Calabasas, a city about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in the early hours of Friday that 900 additional firefighters were being deployed to battle the blaze.
Authorities earlier arrested a man near the vicinity of the fire on suspicion of arson, after receiving a call from a witness who saw the man “attempting to light a fire,” the Los Angeles Police Department told CNN over email.
The arrest was made in the 21700 block of Ybarra Road in Woodland Hills at 4:32 p.m. Thursday, police said, adding that they cannot confirm whether the detainee had any connection to the Kenneth Fire at this time.
“I was just in hell,” Altadena wildfire evacuee says
Raya Reynaga, a CPR instructor for first responders, recounted the terrifying experience of being trapped at her home in the Altadena community of Los Angeles County during the Eaton Fire, before losing the house she lived in for 28 years. “I lost everything you can imagine,” she told CNN’s Sara Sidner on Friday.
“I woke up and it was just pitch black. We had no power, and I was just in hell,” Reynaga said. “I was just surrounded by flames all around me, and all I could do is just hold my water hose, and just I dropped to my knees, and I just started praying, ‘Please, God, please, just save my house! Just save my house! This is, this is all I have.’”
Reynaga described the devastation of witnessing her garage, a neighboring house, and backyard fence engulfed in flames before being rescued by the fire department and escorted out of her engulfed neighborhood.
“The fire department had to come get me, and I begged them to let me drive my car, because I had my cats in there. And I had to follow behind them, and there was just ambers and pieces of houses just falling on top of my car, just smoke everywhere. I wasn’t even sure we were going to be able to drive out,” Reynaga recounted.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly spelled the last name of Raya Reynaga.
Pacific Palisades is largely destroyed, exclusive satellite imagery shows
Houses near Palisades Charter High School on January 9, 2025.Pléiades Neo © Airbus DS 2025
The overwhelming majority of homes and businesses in Pacific Palisades have been destroyed by the Palisades Fire, new exclusive satellite imagery from Airbus shows.
The fire that began just north of the community tore through the area on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving significant destruction across the neighborhood. Nearly every single building, on nearly every single street is now cinders.
Inexplicably, some homes along El Medio Ave, were spared. The roofs of homes apparently untouched by the flames stick out among the black and grey remains of the hundreds of others.
Most homes in this community, though, were not so lucky.
The tide is turning in the battle against the Palisades Fire, official says
The Palisades Fire burns in Topanga, California, on January 9.David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images
Firefighters hope calmer winds Friday will help them gain the upper hand in battling the Palisades Fire, which has torched about 20,000 acres in Southern California.
“Yesterday we were very hopeful that we could turn a corner on this fire, and we did,” said Brent Pascua, battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection – also known as Cal Fire.
“It’s going to take a lot more work to see that (containment) grow,” he said. “But we’re headed in the right direction.”
As of early Friday morning, the Palisades Fire was about 6% contained. Pascua said he hopes that number will reach the double digits by the end of the day.
Wildfires pose a threat to mental health that can linger even years later
Dr. Jyoti Mishra personally knows how much stress can come with a wildfire. The associate director of the UC Climate Change and Mental Health Council and associate professor of psychiatry works at the University of California, San Diego. Her city isn’t currently experiencing wildfires, but her LA-based family has fled to her home.
“All our family from LA is here with us, and we’re happy they’ve made it,” Mishra said Thursday. “We’re hoping their home is safe up there, but we don’t know yet.”
Uncertainty about losing a home or a neighborhood is one factor, studies have showed, that can contribute to an increase in mental health problems among people who experience wildfires.
Mishra’s research on the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California showed that people who were personally affected by wildfires were significantly more likely to have anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress than members of communities that had not been exposed to a fire.
“It can also make you feel cognitively impacted, as well,” Mishra said. “Our work has shown that it’s hard to pay attention to a singular thing when everything around you feels like it’s threatening you.”
That means the hundreds of thousands of people who are under evacuation orders or warnings amid some of the worst wildfires in the history of the Los Angeles area face threats not just to their physical safety but also to their mental health – and not just immediately after the fire passes. Mishra’s studies have also shown that some people experienced problems months, or even years, after wildfires
“Hot embers were raining down”: US swimmer Gary Hall Jr. tells CNN he lost 10 Olympic medals in wildfire
Former US Olympian Gary Hall Jr. won 10 Olympic medals and six world championship medals in his swimming career. He believes he’s lost them all in the Palisades wildfire, he told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
“I thought I had more time,” Hall said. “I saw the fire charging down the hill and knew that I had to get out of there. I opened up the back of my SUV, I loaded a painting, one other object.
Fire crews brace for more gusty winds Friday
The wind whips embers while a firefighter battles flames in the Angeles National Forest in Altadena, California, on January 9.Ringo Chiu/Reuters
Firefighters are bracing for more winds Friday after a windstorm that whipped flames and embers across Los Angeles made containing the wildfires so complex.
Winds are expected to remain gusty into Friday afternoon in the fire zone. “At least when we start off the day today, the winds will be coming from a more northerly direction. But as we go through the day, it will shift,” CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar said Friday morning.
“Sometimes it will come from the east and sometimes from the west. That’s a concern for firefighters,” she added.
Chinchar predicted a “tremendous improvement in the winds on Saturday,” which would bring relief to fire crews in the skies; strong winds have at times grounded aircraft that were trying to dump water on the fires.
But the National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned Thursday night that “the threat doesn’t end after Friday,” noting offshore winds will continue into next week, peaking Sunday, then again Tuesday or Wednesday.
And “maybe even more robust winds” are possible as far out as next Tuesday, California Interagency Management Team 5’s operations section chief, Don Fregulia, said Thursday.
We need to put the partisan aside and look at the science, forest and fire ecologist says
Fire crews battle the Kenneth Fire on Thursday in the West Hills section of Los Angeles.Ethan Swope/AP
The “infrastructure with the fire hydrants” in place now to put out fires across Los Angeles is not sufficient to handle hundreds of homes engulfed in flames at once, said Chad Hanson, a forest and fire ecologist with the John Muir Project.
While the area has the assets to safely put out a fire in a single home and “maybe an apartment building or commercial structure,” the design cannot address a situation in which whole neighborhoods are on fire, he told CNN.
Meanwhile, most of the areas at serious risk of fires are not in forests but rather in communities that lack home hardening, defensible space pruning and evacuation planning, he said, addressing critics who say more tree removal is the solution to combatting wildfires.
“These are community safety issues not wildland management issues,” Hanson said.
“Instead of political opportunism,” he added, “we need to promote logging policies from certain members of Congress, put the partisan aside.”
Las Vegas expects fuel supply to restart Friday after wildfires shut down key pipelines
People in Las Vegas have been urged not to panic buy fuel, after the wildfires in California temporarily forced the shutdown of two major pipelines that deliver gasoline and diesel to Nevada and other parts of the western United States.
Pipeline operator Kinder Morgan Inc. said two of its fuel pipelines — the SFPP West and CALNEV systems — have been closed since Wednesday in response to the fires.
But Nevada’s Clark County said late on Thursday that a solution has been found to power the line into southern Nevada, adding they expect fuel to start to flow on Friday.
“The public is encouraged not to panic buy at the pump,” their statement added.
The city of Las Vegas had earlier warned of possible disruption to its supply, and asked residents Thursday to “reconsider heavy driving while the pipeline is potentially disrupted.”
CALNEV pipes fuel to Las Vegas from its terminal in Colton, California, while the SFPP West pipeline transports fuel from the Los Angeles Basin to Phoenix, Arizona.5 hr 12 min ago
Prince Harry and Meghan urge donations and community support for wildfire victims
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are understood to have donated clothing, children’s items and other essential supplies to people affected by the wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles in recent days.
The couple are also believed to have offered their home to friends and loved ones who have been forced to evacuate.
Prince Harry and Meghan relocated to the United States in 2020, where they have since settled in Montecito, California, with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
They also noted that some “have been left with nothing” and asked people to “consider donating clothing, children’s toys & clothing, and other essentials. The American Red Cross is on the ground helping those in need.”
The pair also provided a list of resources of groups and initiatives operating in the area
Canadian “Super Scooper” plane grounded after hitting civilian drone
A Canadian Super Scooper drops ocean water on a hillside as the Palisades fire rages on January 7, in Pacific Palisades.Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
A Canadian “Super Scooper” aircraft fighting the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles had to be grounded after it hit a drone flying in restricted airspace over the devastating blaze on Thursday, the local fire department said.
The specifically designed CL-415 firefighting planes are used to scoop up more than 1,500 gallons of ocean water to drop on active fires.
The plane in question, Quebec 1, “sustained wing damage and remains grounded and out of service,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Erik Scott said, adding that there were no reported injuries.
The collision caused the temporary grounding of all aircraft responding to the Palisades Fire, The War Zone reported, citing Cal Fire. It was one of the two such planes deployed to the site, The War Zone said.
The LAFD released photos of the plane – bearing the tail number C-GQBG – showing a hole in the front of one its wings. C-GQBG is listed on multiple flight tracking websites as a Canadair CL-415.
Two CL-415 planes are sent annually to California from the Canadian province of Quebec, under a 31-year-old agreement between their respective governments, CNN newsgathering partner CBC reported.
Sarah Bensadoun, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Transport Ministry, told CBC the province sends a firefighting team of 25 pilots and 20 technicians.
Paris Hilton returns to charred home in Malibu
Celebrity Paris Hilton revealed the charred remains of her Malibu home in a video posted to X on Thursday.
“I’m standing here in what used to be our home, and the heartbreak is truly indescribable,” she wrote in the post.
Hilton said she learned her Malibu home was lost while watching it burn live on TV, writing on her Instagram page the image is something “no one should ever have to experience.”5 hr 37 min ago
Satellite imagery reveals scale of Palisades Fire devastation
A wildfire has razed much of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles, new satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies shows.
Structures visible in satellite images taken in October are largely destroyed in images taken Thursday.
A satellite image shows houses in Pacific Palisades in the aftermath of a wildfire on Thursday.Maxar Technologies/Reuters5 hr 12 min ago
Overwhelmed water systems hindered firefighting in Pacific Palisades, officials says
As wildfires rage through California’s hillside communities, firefighters grappled with water supply systems that could not meet the soaring demands of their efforts.
In Pacific Palisades – which is at the far end of the municipal water system and experiences reduced water flow due to decreasing pipe sizes extending from the main line – hydrants temporarily ran dry early Wednesday, raising concerns among residents and officials due to conflicting explanations about water availability.
Despite reports of ample water from local water officials, logistical challenges in delivering water supplies far from the main supply system persisted.
To bolster supply, three massive storage tanks, each with a capacity of one million gallons, were installed to support neighborhood hydrants, according to city officials. Tanks went dry sporadically throughout Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, leading water pressure in hydrants to drop.
Erik Scott, spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said Wednesday that the storage tanks in the Palisades area had been filled in advance of the fires, but this preparation fell short of meeting “extreme demand.”
No other location has had problems getting water where it needs to go, said Michelle Figueroa, a spokesperson for the city water department. “The issue is unique to the Palisades because of the demand from the firefighting efforts.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass dismissed criticism regarding the depletion of fire hydrants, asserting that the scale of destruction was not solely due to water supply issues.
Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley spoke to residents concerned about the hydrant system on Thursday, explaining that firefighters are trained to manage water shortages. “We’ll figure out a way to draft water from pools, ponds and use water tenders carrying thousands of gallons,” Crowley said in a news conference.
“The whole drawdown on the system is really — when you have millions of gallons of water being used, that takes its toll on the whole system at large,” Mike Lopez, an executive board member of California Professional Firefighters, told CNN.
Officials told CNN the situation regarding hydrants in the Palisades area began to stabilize Thursday.6 hr 3 min ago
Los Angeles school system is still providing meals for children who rely on them
Los Angeles Unified School District officials will provide two free meals to the community as schools remain shut on Friday due to hazardous air quality, said Alberto Carvalho, chief of the public school group.
Eighty percent of the district’s students depend on free breakfast and lunch to survive, he told CNN’s Polo Sandoval.
“That is why, notwithstanding the fact that our schools are shut down, we continue to provide free food to our community.”
Carvalho said that eight distribution sites had opened, and that number would double today.
CNN
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