Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. It's been a little over a year now

since a series of wildfires in Los Angeles killed people and destroyed homes. And as we

look back now on what happened then and talk about how to rebuild, I think it's important

to have an account of what actually happened and what could have been done to prevent it and what couldn't.

Jacob Soberoff is a correspondent for MS now, and he was there on the ground as it was happening.

And he wasn't a stranger to the area.

He was reporting on his childhood home.

He was watching the place where he grew up burned down.

His book about the fires is titled Firestorm, the great Los Angeles fires and America's new age of disaster. And he talked

to here and now as Peter O'Dowd about being that close to the story, but also the politics

of disaster. That's coming out. This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe.

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All this week, we've been remembering the fires that devastated

Los Angeles. It's a story that journalist Jacob Soberoff knows all about. When ferocious winds

whipped up the fires in early January last year, he was a correspondent for NBC News. He spent days

covered in soot at the scene. This is an absolutely devastating,

catastrophic. I am not being hyperbolic when I say situations. I was born and raised in this

neighborhood, literally three blocks down that way on Frontera. I'm not to tell you I drove

around here earlier this morning and houses everywhere you look at burned down. His new book

is called Firestorm. It's a personal account of the catastrophe and the political firestorm that

followed. Jacob Soberoff is in our studios in New York. Jacob, welcome. It's so good to be here.

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