How are people dealing with the LA wildfires?
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These California wildfires, 24 confirmed deaths so far at last count by my reckoning, though that may have increased and likely to increase, I think, as people make their way through what is left of entire neighbourhoods in Los Angeles. Peter Bowes is with me. He's a reporter with the BBC in North America. Peter, what's the latest there on the state of the fires?

Fires are still burning. There are two of the biggest fires that are still largely out of control. And the real problem now is that the winds are increasing in ferocity again. They're coming in from the east. We're told that the next two or three days will be critical with winds potentially up to 70 miles per hour again. Not quite as bad as the almost hurricane force winds that we had last week, but these winds will certainly hamper winds.

firefighters. They also have the effect of drying out the air and that lowers the humidity, which makes it easier for new fires to start. So there's a whole load of different potential problems. In addition to, and we've just been hearing from a news conference featuring local officials about some of the criminal behaviour of Los Angeles individuals who are going into people's homes, looting them while the owners of those homes are under...

forcible evacuation. And it's becoming a real problem. There have been a number of arrests. There's also a curfew in force every night from 6pm till 6am. A number of people arrested for breaking the conditions of the curfew. So a range of particular problems that are nothing to do with the winds, nothing to do with the climate, but it's making matters worse for the authorities here. And are people kind of quicker now to listen to those calls

around evacuation than they maybe were at the early stages of this. You know, we'd kind of these kind of mad images on our screens and on our phones and what have you of people kind of surrounded by flames in their house, kind of with the hose on, thinking that they might survive it.

I think some people may have heeded that warning that if you're told to get out of your home because the authorities believe it could be engulfed in flames, the best thing to do is to listen to those orders and get out and get to safety as quickly as you can. Because as you say, tragically, a number of the people

who've died and there are more than 20 confirmed and sadly that number will increase but a number of those people were indeed trying to save their homes on their own with hose pipes or whatever else they could do to try to stop the flames encroaching on their property so it is it is potentially a lesson for others that if you're told to get out you should get out

I know that you and I kind of touched on this last week when we were chatting about the recriminations and the finger pointing about preparation for these and mitigation measures between Gavin Newsom, the governor and the incoming Trump administration. Are there differences of opinion about how to actually fight the fire? Is there any kind of finger pointing in that regard or are most people kind of ad idem?

Some of the finger pointing, let's say the example of Donald Trump, he hasn't really explained in any detail why he thinks that the officials here, the authorities are, as he says, incompetent in trying to put these fires out. He's just kind of blasted saying they're not putting the fires out. What's wrong with them? So I think we need perhaps to have some more detailed criticism as to why they think that the Los Angeles authorities are not doing enough, because

Quite honestly, some of the firefighters here are amongst the most experienced in the world in trying to deal with situations like this. There have been issues, though, the water hydrants that run out of water. The governor has called for an investigation into that. And clearly, I think once we get over the immediate crisis, and that is getting the fires out, getting people to safety, there will be an investigation into the preparedness and how ready the authorities were to deal with a situation on this magnitude.

Peter, listen, thanks a million for that update. And we might speak again over the next few days. Reb Kennedy is with me as well. Reb is an Irish TV producer based there in L.A., former regular on The Late Late and a good friend of Imelda May as well, of course. Reb, how have you been impacted by the fires? What happened?

In many ways, I'm actually not a TV producer. I'm a record producer. I run a record label here in Los Angeles. But the fire devastated my life. It destroyed my home, all my belongings. It destroyed my recording studio, all of my instruments, my master tapes, my recording desk. So right now, I have no possessions whatsoever.

and I'm likely to be without a home for a minimum one year. My neighborhood that I lived in was one of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, a beautiful, peaceful neighborhood.

And it looks like a bomb, a nuclear bomb hit it because everything's gone. The houses are gone. The palm trees are gone. It's it's the most horrendous, depressing thing I've ever seen. And of course, losing everything that myself, my wife, Jenny and my son Hayden own is just devastating. Oh, God, I was going to say I can only imagine. I can't even imagine it. To be honest, where are you staying at the moment?

The insurance, luckily we had insurance. And the sad thing is the neighborhood I live in, it's very difficult to get insurance because we do get the threat of fires at least once a year. We had insurance which covered our home. Sadly, my studio and all of my equipment was not covered because apparently being a small business, it's not covered. So we're temporarily staying at a hotel. We don't know what the next

step is from day to day. We can't live in a hotel for a year and obviously the insurance company won't pay that. So I don't know what our next step is really. When did you realise you were going to be in trouble, Reb? I mean, was it early doors in this as soon as the fire started? Was there a period of time where you thought maybe they wouldn't reach you?

Now, there was a period of time that we thought we'd be okay. Again, we do get fires fairly regularly. And my house was at the foothills of the Los Angeles mountains. You know, initially I seen the fire, the...

The evening before, I'd seen the fire. I went to check on it in my car, of course. Seeing that it was burning down one of the mountains in the opposite direction of my home, I felt really confident that we were good. Went to sleep, woke up in the middle of the night. The...

Winds had changed. They were 20 miles an hour. When I woke up, they'd gone to 95 miles an hour. And they changed direction, which, of course, caused problems for the firefighters because they set up their defense lines in one direction and the wind changed. So I got an evacuation order. My wife grabbed their passports, a handful of photographs.

our dogs and we left and that meant we lost everything there. Even for the next few hours, I was convinced that my house wasn't under threat because

I thought that we'd been evacuated just because of the smoke, because it was unbearable. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And the reason I thought we were safe was that where the fire was burning between the fire and my house were hundreds and hundreds of houses. And I didn't believe there's

any way you could get so deeply into a neighborhood. And it did. And this is what I think everyone's in shock with, the firefighters and everyone, is that this is unprecedented. There's no way anyone in America, especially in California, would have believed that whole neighborhoods would have burned. And they did. And is life on hold, say, for you and others, or is it kind of...

Is there any work happening? I just wonder what the situation is like on that front in the city. Well, something I want to sort of clarify is that the vision of all the Irish listeners is that we're living in hell here. You know, the crazy thing, you know, Los Angeles is so big. I'm in the city of Glendale, which is about a 15 minute drive from my former home. And it's beautiful, sunny day, peaceful, no smoke. So life continues here in L.A.,

Altadena is affected and on the other side, near the coast, there's the other fire. But in general, everything moves on. For me, I'm very fortunate that I'm Irish because...

I'm moving forward here. You know, we went into production for a new movie yesterday. I'm not sure whether your listeners are aware, but I did have a very major documentary made about myself about 10 years ago. And Imelda, of course, attended the premiere and so did the Irish president and all this other stuff.

But yesterday what I did in this living hell to keep my sanity was we did a table read for this new movie that we're working on. And I actually did a recording session last night with loaned equipment because for me, I believe I have to keep moving. I've got to look to the future and I've got to support my family. So I can't just sit in a corner and cry. So instead I'm running and moving forward.

that's the way to survive. Well, listen, we wish you well with the continual moving forward, Reb, and thanks a million for chatting to us. Reb is a record producer, as he says, and people will know his name from the documentary or from the late late or his friendship with Imelda May down through the years and Peter Bowles from BBC North America was with us as well. The Hard Shoulder with Ciarán Cudahy with the MG Hybrid and Electric range. Weekdays from 4pm

on Newstalk.