fire officials say the blaze has scorched 199 acres since it started on wednesday. hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate their homes. will grant reports. another multimillion dollar californian mansion reduced to ashes in minutes. around 20 homes in the canyon near laguna beach were quickly engulfed in flames by the fast moving wildfire, the latest to wreak havoc and destruction along along the southern california coastline. firefighters are doing what they can to try to contain the flames, but theirjob has been complicated by coastal winds and the long running drought, worsened by climate change, which has turned the thick brush on the hillsides into dry, brittle kindling. the local fire chief said previously manageable wildfires now quickly get out of hand. our fuel moistures right now are very low, which basically means that when a fire starts, it will get established very rapidly. throwing some wind on that and the terrain, the steepness
their trucks. so a call immediately went out to stow police detective ken mifflin. when i got there, i saw the fire department still putting out the blaze. someone had taken probably a pipe wrench to disconnect the gas line. and it was blowing out natural gas. it was a very large roaring sound. at that point, the gas hadn t ignited? no. it could have possibly blown up. the person who said to the fire poured gasoline all the way to the gas meter and on top of the gas meter. the idea was fire starts, the gasoline goes to the gas main, and possibly destroys the house, and everybody in it? absolutely. mifflin found the purk family sheltered at a neighbor s house, and asked the father, scott purk, to step outside. we actually went over to my unmarked detective bureau car, and we sat in my car, where it was nice and warm. the first question is, who
announcer: new day weather, brought to you by servepro. the number one choice in clean up and restoration. powerful new storm sweeping across the country. it is set to blanket the north with snow and slam the south and central u.s. with floods, winds and potential tornadoes. let s get to cnn meteorologist chad myers. what are we looking at here, chad? john, this storm is in the windup right now in the southwest. and we know when they re there, they are going to move to the east. wind, rain, snow and, yes, maybe even some tornadoes in the coming days. this weather is brought to you by servepro. step by step, let s get to it. we ll go through it chronologically. we have a big threat of flames today, wild fires in the red area. if a fire starts, it will quickly get out of control. winds will be blowing 50 to 60 miles per hour. the brush is dry and the air is very dry itself. more cold air coming in from the
firefighters smelled gasoline as soon as they got out of their trucks. so a call immediately went out to stow police detective ken mifflin. when i got there, i saw the fire department still putting out the blaze. someone had taken probably a pipe wrench to disconnect the gas line. and it was blowing out natural gas. it was a very large roaring sound. at that point, the gas hadn t ignited? no. it could have possibly blown up. the person who said to the fire poured gasoline all the way to the gas meter and on top of the gas meter. the idea was fire starts, the gasoline goes to the gas main, and possibly destroys the house, and everybody in it? absolutely. mifflin found the purk family sheltered at a neighbor s house, and asked the father, scott purk, to step outside. we actually went over to my unmarked detective bureau car, and we sat in my car, where it
we went over there. the firefighters hadn t even arrived. we called it a one-two punch. somewhere in the garage, the water heater, you get a rupture and a gas-related fire starts. that is what we re hearing from officials, that the gas-related fires are certainly something to be concerned about. paul, thank you for your perspective, what you saw tonight. cyril, i think at this point paul does give us a very good sense of what he s seeing out there. we do know from officials that it will take daylight to get their arms around this entirely. but really, the message that we heard here, even after the 6.4 quake on thursday, was that overall, may felt that the community had fared better from that one than you might have expected in a more populated area. we re going to have to wait to hear from them, how they see the community as having fared after this one, at 7.1 much more powerful. . yeah, and alex i ll just say