ARSON? FIRE DEATH TOLL RISING, LOOTERS ROAM, POLITICOS POINT FINGERS
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline
4.2 • 8.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
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Summary
At least 24 people are dead, and dozens remain unaccounted for as fires fueled by severe drought conditions and strong Santa Ana winds continue to burn across Southern California. Thousands of firefighters are still battling blazes across 45 square miles in Los Angeles County.
The Palisades Fire in Pacific Palisades is the largest, spanning 24,000 acres. Thousands of homes and buildings have been destroyed, and the fire is only 11% contained. The Eaton Fire in Altadena has burned more than 14,000 acres and is 27% contained, while the Hurst Fire near Sylmar is 89% contained after burning nearly 800 acres. The Kenneth Fire has burned 1,025 acres and is fully contained.
More than 105,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders, and another 87,000 are under evacuation warnings. The cause of the fires remains under investigation.
Joining Nancy Grace today:
- Allison Agsten - Witnessed looters as she was evacuating; Inaugural Director of USC’s Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communications Center;
- Bill Walker - Fire Chief, City of Bedford, TX; Former Fire Chief in Santa Monica, CA
- Dr. Bethany Marshall – Author: “Deal Breaker,” featured in hit show: “Paris in Love” on Peacock https://www.drbethanymarshall.com/ , Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall, X: @DrBethanyLive
- Nicolle Brock – Firefighter, EMT, and Arson Expert
- Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth) and Lecturer: University of Texas Austin and Texas Christian University Medical School
- Courtney Friel - Anchor / Reporter at KTLA in Los Angeles; X & Instagram: @courtneyfriel
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. |
| 0:07.0 | Arson with the fire, death toll rising, looters, roaming, |
| 0:13.0 | politicians pointing the fingers. |
| 0:16.0 | How do the wildfires start? |
| 0:20.0 | If this was arson, that equals murder charges. |
| 0:24.8 | I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. Thank you for being with us. |
| 0:29.4 | At least 80,000 people displaced by raging fires as evacuees learned their homes burned to the ground. |
| 0:37.0 | 80,000 and rising. |
| 0:40.2 | You can't turn on the TV or look at your iPad without seeing more people suffering. |
| 0:46.4 | And we're hearing a lot about AILA celebrities hold up at Chatea, Mont, and beyond, ordering wine, champagne, expensive gourmet food, and even OZMPIC? |
| 1:00.9 | What about the other 79,000 evacuated that have nowhere to go, nowhere to go. All of their possessions gone, much less the fatalities. |
| 1:16.6 | Take a listen to L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna. |
| 1:18.6 | We started a search and rescue operation out in the Eaton area, where in the first day of this operation grid searching we searched approximately |
| 1:30.4 | 364 properties in the Altadena area we have confirmed 14 deaths and that is in our |
| 1:38.2 | specific LA County jurisdiction 11 at the Eaton fire and 3 in our portion or our jurisdiction in the Palisades fire. |
| 1:48.0 | And that death toll is rising. |
| 1:49.9 | Why? |
| 1:50.6 | Joining me an all-star panel to make sense of what we are learning as we go to air straight out to Courtney |
| 1:56.5 | Friel, anchor, reporter, KTLA, NLA. |
| 2:01.3 | Courtney, thank you for being with us. |
| 2:03.2 | Courtney, it's hard to imagine all of these fires starting simultaneously in various geographic areas. |
| 2:11.9 | What's happening right now? |
... |
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