Wildfires in Hawaii
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At least 96 people died in wildfires in Hawaii, making them the deadliest in the US in more than a century.
CBS reporter Jessica Kartalija is on the island of Maui and tells us about why the toll is so large, and the questions being asked in its aftermath.
What can be done to mitigate against wildfires and make towns and cities more resilient? We talk to Dr Kimiko Barrett, an adviser to the Biden administration on wildfires, and analyst at Headwaters Economics.
And Americast host Justin Webb explains how the events are playing out in American politics.
You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere
Today’s episode is hosted by James Cook. It was made by Chris Flynn with Joe Wilkinson and Clare Williamson. The technical director is Gareth Jones and the editor was Damon Rose.
00:00 - James Cook’s experience of reporting on wildfires 02:54 - The situation in Maui 12:02 - Why the fires spread so fast, and the political reaction
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Hello, it's James Cook in For Adam. |
| 0:07.7 | After what has been a pretty grim weekend of news |
| 0:11.4 | from Hawaii, where there's been awful devastation |
| 0:14.8 | from a really, really bad wildfire there. |
| 0:17.7 | And it's brought back a lot of memories for me |
| 0:19.4 | because when I was based in the United States |
| 0:21.9 | for several years, I covered probably dozens of wildfires |
| 0:25.8 | in various different parts of the country, |
| 0:28.4 | including this one in Northern California. |
| 0:30.9 | These pictures of the fire sweeping in |
| 0:33.0 | were filmed by a helicopter pilot. |
| 0:35.2 | They show it jumping the Sacramento River, |
| 0:37.8 | leaving two young children and their great-grandmother |
| 0:40.4 | among the dead. |
| 0:41.7 | And the fear here is that this is what the future looks like. |
| 0:45.8 | But the worst one I covered was in a little town |
| 0:48.8 | called Paradise in Northern California, |
| 0:52.0 | which was completely destroyed. |
| 0:54.6 | 85 people died there, the deadliest wildfire |
| 0:58.3 | in California's history. |
| 0:59.6 | As they fled from this community, which is on a ridge, |
... |
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