Transcript of Erin Burnett shows striking before images of neighborhood destroyed by fire

We are live tonight from Pacific Palisades, California, one of the hardest hit and most devastated neighborhoods right now in California, as the fires are raging so far, uncontained at this hour. The Pacific Palisades fire zero % contained, we understand right now. In this neighborhood, house after house, as far as the eye can see, the schools, the churches, homes just completely and utterly destroyed. Winds set to pick up again in these next few hours. As we anticipate that, a new fire has also broken out that we are aware of right now. None of them right now, of the five major fires that we understand are under control at this point. They're trying to start to contain them as these winds pick up. There are six deaths so far reported. We don't yet know the full extent of what the death hole will be. It's impossible to even know that in these moments that we are in. But this is what this residential neighborhood looked like just a few days ago. One of the most beautiful neighborhoods in this entire country, frankly, Pacific Palisades, California, Look at a basketball hoop, just a normal part of daily life.

That basketball hoop is actually just behind where we are now, looking like something destroyed as part of a warzone strike. White wall with a mailbox, that's just across the street from where we are just days ago. Pristine, perfect, now, utterly destroyed part of this healthscape, and that's really what it is. As we were flying in today, we could see the smoke. Actually, it's a beautiful sunny day. Absolutely beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky, perfect blue sky. Then just in the distance, starts to get hazy, that red, smoky air. You see the billowing smoke. Even in a Boeing 767, cabin starts to fill with that acrid smell of smoke, which we are here, and I don't know, over this hour, you'll see some of the ash coming down, just big chunks of ash coming down, the air smelling of chemicals, of plastics, of all of the things that have burnt to the ground here of modern life. The economic toll, we understand, could be the greatest of any wildfires in US history, even as we have no idea of the extent of the damage as these winds are picking up again and firefighters are trying to assess how big this is and to try to get control and containment of these fires.

Nick Watt is out front with me, and he is in a different section of Pacific Palisades. So the same destruction, the same smells. Nick, how worried right now are officials from what you've been hearing about these winds that are expected to pick up in these next few hours and really potentially last over the next Yeah, well, Erin, they have taken advantage of this lull in the wind to try and get some containment around these blazes because it has been very difficult with those high winds to get a handle on these fires, to get planes in the air to help with the fight.

The fear, Erin, as you just said, is this is just a lull, and we're going to have more. The winds are going to pick up. Then we're going to have another Santa Ana event next week.

Well, there's the ride of planes swooping in to save us.

Sadly, a little too late for this fleeing family. This morning, we found what's left of their home. Nothing. Thousands of homes have been lost across the county, plus businesses and more, $50 billion worth of damage. But the winds finally eased, so now they can attack these flames from the air. All last night, we heard the planes, a reassuring sound in a fire. But winds will pick up again, blow through Friday night, and get stronger again next week. More than 6,000 personnel now fighting the worst fires in the history of this great city.

Sewer, water, your power system, and the transportation system have all been significantly damaged.

We know the depth of the devastation. We can see it, the death toll. Well, it's just too early to tell.

At one point, we'll be able to do a more thorough search of these impacted areas. Some of them look like a bomb was dropped in them, where we will be able to bring in canines and other things to help us, hopefully not discover too many fatalities. That's our prayer.

43 acres burned in Hollywood last night. Hollywood, chaos in such a tight urban environment. In Santa Monica, a sunset to sunrise curfew kicked in last night as the Palisades fire threatened. So far across LA, 20 alleged looters, arrested, accused of praying on houses, left standing.

Shame on those who are praying on our residents during this time of crisis.

Here in Pacific Palisades, where entire neighborhoods are just gone. Arson investigators are today on the ground, and the postmortem is already underway. Did the LA mayor's cuts to the fire Department budget hamper the effort?

There were There was no reductions that were made that would have impacted the situation.

That loss of water in the hydrants here in the Palisades at the peak of the blaze. Governor Gavin Newsom visited again today.

Why was there no water in the hydrants, governor?

It's all literally- Is it going to be different next time?

It has to be.

But for neighborhoods like this and the people who once lived here, now what?

Now, As we've been walking around, we've noticed that the only houses still standing, this is anecdotal, not scientific, the very few houses still standing seem to be newer builds. But that's not always the case. I spoke to a guy earlier who just built his house two or three years ago, and it is gone. I've also met people who have walked the two or three miles into the evacuation zone to see if there's anything left of their home. It's rarely good news. Erin?

All right, nick, thank you very much. Also here in Pacific Palisades, you can hear above me a chopper. We've seen a couple of those. Also every once in a while, some water-fighting planes have been flying overhead. All right, I'm joined now by three fire chiefs who have been in charge, really, of what we're seeing here on the ground. Chief Robert Garcia, obviously spoke to you last night, Fire Chief of LA National Forest, Lauryn More Merrill, US Fire Administration. I know you come from the federal government, and Shane Littlefield, Chief from Cal Fire. You You have been touring these fires. You have been in this brief lull of the winds, which are anticipated to pick up, getting a sense of how things are. Chief Garcia, is there any containment anywhere?

Thanks, Erin. It's good to be with you. Again, this lull is helping us focus some resources on perimeter control, getting containment around the fire. It's giving us an opportunity to deal with that. But the scope and scale is so immense. We talked a little bit about that last night, getting the right resources in the right place, and then also dealing with new the urgent fires that we continue to have to respond to. We're still at zero containment on most of the large fires. We'll start to see that change over the next 24 hours.

Including the one, the Palisades fire, where we're standing. Indeed, yes. Chief Littlefoot, when you hear this, you hear winds are picking up again, you hear zero % containment, these massive fires, it completely now defines the landscape. It defines when you fly into here. How much worse could this get as you see it?

As we keep approaching the critical fire weather and the fuels are already dry, and they're going to continue to get drier over the next week with the predicted weather. The concern is that we get a new fire and we can have more disastrous fires. Currently, all the agencies are bringing in additional resources from across the United States to try and help mitigate any new starts. Our number one priority right now is new starts. The new starts locally, we're going to throw everything we can have at it so we don't have new large fires.

And, Chief Mayor, I don't know if people can hear watching some of those alerts that are going off on the phone. Sometimes they all go off simultaneously. Some of those are evacuation orders. I assume you anticipate there's going to continue to be quite a few of those.

Absolutely. Especially, as the chief said, if there are new ignitions, these are going to continue. So the alerts and warnings that are happening are about the active scenes, the active fires that are going on right now. So by no stretch of the imagination is any of this over. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, we have winds that may be rising up again. So we do have a window of opportunity of firefighters to make great progress. So that's what we're hoping for, controlling that perimeter and doing as much fuels mitigation as they can to give some defensible space and contain these fires within some smaller perimeter. And there are multiple fires. We're at one here right now, but there are others around LA, LA County that are just as active and just as devastated with the same fuel loads, the same exact wind impact, the same groups of firefighters and the inter-agency collaboration between all these groups is monumental, and they're all boots on the ground making as much as effort as they can while the window of opportunity is here.

Yet, you have 0% containment chief. You've got firefighters who are working around the clock, literally around the clock, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, ships. We've heard about this. How long can they continue to do that, even with the resources that are coming in?

Over the last day and a half, we've been able to allow to get most of the firefighters off the line, get them down for at least 12 hours as we get the resources in. Our number one priority is public safety, but then firefighter safety. The rest is number one. We do work 24 hours shifts for some of the agencies, and we ensure that they get their 24 hours down. But as more incidents happen, that stretches us thinner and thinner. As the new resources come in, we start plugging them in and immediately using them.