LA fires: ‘It’s an apocalypse’ – families return to homes reduced to ruins
More than 20,000 people who evacuated the Pacific Palisades on Tuesday have watched on TV for three days as their neighbourhood has burned without respite.
They have heard the statistics – about more than 50% of the buildings here being reduced to rubble. But it is not sufficient preparation for what they will see in real life.
“I’ve been telling everyone to brace themselves for this moment,” says Rachel Darvish, a lawyer who has lived in Pacific Palisades her whole life.
My team and I ride in a car with her as she returns for the first time since wildfire ripped through this community.
LA fires latest: Number of dead doubles as a blaze is investigated as possible arson
Water is dropped by helicopter on the Kenneth Fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
The destruction left behind by the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood of Los Angeles., California. Pic: AP
The first place we stop is her modest childhood home where she lived until she was nine. It’s now a mound of dust and twisted metal, only a gate on to the pavement still standing.
“People think the Palisades are full of celebrities,” she says. “But this is where hardworking families come so that the kids can be by the beach and have a good life.”
She points across the road to another house which is now contorted by fire and covered in ash.
“That’s where I would spend July 4th at my neighbour’s,” she says. “We would go round to use their pool. I have the best memories here.”
As Rachel is talking she is interrupted by a deafening alarm from her phone. “It’s another emergency evacuation order,” she says. “This time for Malibu.”
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Progress of LA Kenneth fire ‘stopped’
Even though the winds have subsided, the threat of new blazes remains and each new evacuation order or warning causes renewed panic among local people.
Next up on the misery tour is Rachel’s three-year-old daughter’s nursery school. There is nothing left of the main building.
“It’s an apocalypse,” she says. “This is just so devastating. And somehow we are supposed to come back and rebuild.”
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‘Everything we love has gone’
As we are driving away from the school, she spots a familiar face next to a black SUV with tinted windows. “Is that Gavin Newsom?” she asks. “It is, it’s the governor,” she says, slapping the back of the car seat before jumping out to speak to him.
“Mr governor,” she says, chasing him down the street as Newsom holds a phone to his ear.
“Please, tell me what you’re going to do,” she says. Newsom replies that he is on the phone to President Biden.
“Can I hear? Can I hear your call? Because I don’t believe it,” she responds.
Newsom points to his phone, claiming he has poor phone service and was unable to reach the president.
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Biden on LA fires: ‘We’ll help you’
Rachel then asks him why there was “no water in the hydrants?”
As firefighters battled a raging inferno on Tuesday, fire hydrants ran dry because of the huge demands.
Residents are demanding answers about whether there are wider vulnerabilities in city water supply systems and whether they are adequate to tackle wildfires on this scale.
“It has to be different next time round,” Rachel says.
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As estimated losses surge there is still zero containment of the Palisades fire. Officials say they don’t know the death toll and that dogs will be brought in to search the rubble for fatalities.
On the Pacific coast highway in Pacific Palisades, Geoffrey Axelrod and his partner Nicole hug each other tightly as they return to the ruins that are their home. Every one of the houses in this enclave has been destroyed.
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Satellite images show fire destruction
“This is just a little beach community,” says Geoffrey, who has lived here since 2015.
“I know everyone here and it’s all gone.
“My dearest friend Galene, who I’ve known for my whole life lived here,” he says, pointing to the wreckage next door.
“I taught my daughter to ride her bike on this street, how to swim in the pool. It’s so sad.”
Together Geoffrey and Nicole sift through the dust, trying to retrieve any belongings that have survived the fire.
In a plastic box they place everything they can find. There are a couple of turtle figurines, a garden gnome and a house name plaque.
It’s very little, but in a place where the loss is so huge, it means so much.
Authorities have identified the 16 people killed in a massive blast at a munitions factory in rural Tennessee.
They were killed in an explosion on Friday at an Accurate Energetic Systems facility around 60 miles southwest of Nashville. The company researches and supplies explosives for the military.
Investigators are still working to discover the cause of the explosion.
A satellite image showing the plant before the explosion, in April 2021. Pic: Vantor/Reuters
A satellite image showing the aftermath of the blast. Pic: Vantor/Reuters
Those killed were: Jason Adams, Erick Anderson, Billy Baker, Adam Boatman, Christopher Clark, Mindy Clifton, James Cook, Reyna Gillahan, LaTeisha Mays, Jeremy Moore, Melinda Rainey, Melissa Stanford, Trenton Stewart, Rachel Woodall, Steven Wright and Donald Yowell.
Reyna Gillahan. Pic: Facebook
Donald Yowell. Pic: Facebook
At a news conference, Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said people in the community probably at least knew relatives of the victims killed in the explosion.
“It’s just small county, rural America, where everybody knows each other and everybody’s gonna take care of each other,” he said.
A candlelit vigil was held to honour the victims. Pic: AP
Authorities said there were no survivors of the blast, which left twisted and burning metal in its wake.
They said they were working to clear the area of hazards, including explosives, and identify remains.
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Once the area is clear they can begin investigating what caused the explosion, said Matthew Belew, acting special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He said some of the relevant evidence was spread out over miles.
“It’s almost like putting a puzzle back together,” he added.
“We have worked closely with AES to look at pictures, look at blueprints, any of the identifying things that were in the building. And then we slowly methodically start to put some of that stuff together.”
US
Britain has been playing a role behind the scenes of Trump’s deal between Israel and Hamas | Beth Rigby
Sir Keir Starmer will join world leaders at a historic summit in Egypt today – to witness the signing of the Gaza peace plan to end two years of conflict, bloodshed and suffering that has cost tens of thousands of lives and turned Gaza into a wasteland.
Travelling over to Egypt, flanked by his national security adviser Jonathan Powell, the prime minister told me it was a “massive moment” and one that is genuinely historic.
US President Donald Trump moved decisively last week to end this bloody war, pushing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas into a ceasefire as part of his 20-point peace plan.
Pic: AP
In the flurry of the following 48 hours, Sir Keir and another 20 or so leaders were invited to Egypt to bear witness to the signing of this deal, with many of them deserving some credit for the effort they made to bring this deal around – not least the leaders of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, who pressed Hamas to sign up to this deal.
Today, the remaining 20 living hostages are finally set to be released, along with the bodies of another 28 who were either killed or died in captivity, and aid is due to flow back into a starving Gaza.
Some 1,200 Israelis were killed on 7 October 2023, with another 250 taken hostage. In the subsequent war, most of Gaza’s two million population has been displaced. More than 67,000 Gazans have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
Then, the signing ceremony is due to take place this afternoon in Sharm el Sheikh. It will be a momentous moment after a long and bloody war.
But it is only just the beginning of a long process to rebuild Gaza and try to secure a lasting peace in the region.
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Humanitarian aid rolls into Gaza
The immediate focus for the UK and other nations will be to get aid into Gaza, with the UK committing £20m for water, sanitation and hygiene services for Gazans.
But the focus for the UK and other European allies is what happens after the hostages are released and Israel withdraws its troops.
What happens next is a much bigger and more complicated task: rebuilding Gaza; turning it into a terrorist-free zone; governing Gaza – the current plan is for a temporary apolitical committee; creating an international stabilisation force and all the tensions that could bring about – which troops each side would allow in; a commitment for Israel not to occupy or annex Gaza, even as Netanyahu makes plain his opposition to that plan.
The scale of the challenge is matched by the scale of devastation caused by this brutal war.
The prime minister will set out his ambition for the UK to play a leading role in the next phase of the peace plan.
Starmer arrives in Sharm el-Sheikh. Pic: PA
Back home, the UK is hosting a three-day conference on Gaza’s recovery and reconstruction.
Last week, France hosted European diplomats and key figures from Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – and later this week, the German chancellor is hoping to organise a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza with the Egyptians.
But in reality, European leaders know the key to phase two remains the key to phase one, and that’s Donald Trump.
As one UK figure put it to me over the weekend: “There is lots of praise, rightly, for the US president, who got this over the line, but the big challenge for us post-war is implementing the plan. Clearly, Arab partners are concerned the US will lose focus.”
Bridget Phillipson and Mike Huckabee. Pics: Sky/AP
The prime minister knows this and has made a point, at every point, to praise Mr Trump.
His cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson learned that diplomatic lesson the hard way yesterday when she was publicly lambasted by the US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for suggesting to my colleague Trevor Phillips that the UK “had played a key role behind the scenes” and failed to mention Mr Trump by name.
“I assure you she is delusional,” tweeted Governor Huckabee. “She can thank @realDonaldTrump anytime just to set the record straight”.
Today, leaders will rightly be praising Mr Trump for securing the breakthrough to stop the fighting and get the remaining hostages home.
People hug next in Hostages Square. Pic: Reuters
But this is only the beginning of a very long journey ahead to push through the rest of the 19-point plan and stop the region from falling back into conflict.
Britain has, I am told, been playing a role behind the scenes. The PM’s national security adviser Mr Powell was in Egypt last week and has been in daily touch with his US counterpart Steve Witkoff, according to government sources. Next week the King of Jordan will come to the UK.
Part of the UK’s task will be to get more involved, with the government and European partners keen to get further European representation on Trump’s temporary governance committee for Gaza, which Tony Blair (who was not recommended or endorsed by the UK) is on and Mr Trump will chair.
The committee will include other heads of states and members, including qualified Palestinians and international experts.
As for the former prime minister’s involvement, there hasn’t been an overt ringing endorsement from the UK government.
It’s helpful to have Mr Blair at the table because he can communicate back to the current government, but equally, as one diplomatic source put it to me: “While a lot of people in the Middle East acknowledge his experience, expertise and contact book, they don’t like him and we need – sooner rather than later – other names included that Gulf partners can get behind.”
Today it will be the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey that sign off on the peace plan they directly negotiated, as other Middle Eastern and European leaders, who have flown into Sharm el Sheikh to bear witness, look on.
But in the coming days and weeks, there will need to be a big international effort, led by Mr Trump, not just to secure the peace, but to keep it.
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