On the Ground for ‘Apocalyptic’ LA Wildfires: 5 TV Reporters Talk Covering Unprecedented Level of Destruction

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CBS News reporter Kris Van Cleave tells TheWrap he saw a 91-year-old man’s home burn to the ground in his Pasadena hometown

CBS News/Chris Smith for TheWrap

For three days, fires have turned some of Los Angeles’ most storied neighborhoods into what some national TV reporters have called an “apocalyptic” hellscape. Wildfires continued sweeping the city from the coast to the mountains through Friday morning, wreaking devastation.

On the ground, those reporters have weathered whipping Santa Ana winds, a lack of water and cell service and the shock of covering blazes that have damaged or destroyed more than 9,000 homes — about 5,300 of those structures decimated by the Palisades fire. By late Thursday, the fires had torched 29,000 acres combined — about twice the area of Manhattan — and killed at least six people.

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