An Australian TV correspondent was forced to take cover during a live cross on the Los Angeles wildfires after a shopfront suddenly exploded.
Sunrise’s Isabelle Mullen was on the ground in Altadena, about 23km from LA’s CBD, when her cameraman came within metres of the flames.
‘Cam, watch out,’ she yelled out during the segment.
‘We’re just moving down a little bit guys. A shopfront that Cam was standing in front of has just erupted in flames,’ she said.
‘There seems to be some gas bottles or something inside that’s exploding. It’s already pushed a bit of the glass out.’
Mullen, who was wearing a smoke mask, was speaking with Channel Seven hosts Monique Wright and Michael Usher about the conditions.
But amid the visible and horrific devastation in LA, the Australian correspondent did not expect to almost become part of the story herself.
Fortunately, Mullen and her cameraman were not hurt in the frightening encounter and she was able to continue her report.
Sunrise’s Isabelle Mullen (pictured) was on the ground in Altadena, about 23km from LA’s CBD when she and her cameraman suffered a very close call
Mullen (pictured in Canberra) explained that a shopfront just metres from where she and her crew were filming had begun to burn furiously, forcing them to move away
Mullen said the fires were ‘out of control’ because there wasn’t enough firefighters to safely contain the blazes.
‘There’s no way that authorities at the moment can get a handle on this,’ she said.
‘You can see the number of people right now getting out-of-tow. Police are chasing their tails. There’s another fire emergency just before us here. But at the end of the street, as you were saying, is that petrol station.
‘They’ve cordoned off a large exclusion zone.’
Mullen said she had noticed a key difference in the way emergency services approached the wildfires in the US to the bushfires in Australia.
‘Really, it’s up to individuals to take their safety into their own hands. That’s the one thing I’ve noticed. It’s very different here to Australia,’ she said.
‘There’s so much damage, so much destruction. They say if you want to go home and get your things, you enter at your own risk. The onus is on the property owner here.’
She said the tragedy was worsened by the fact that some of the destroyed homes may have survived the inferno if there were better resources.
The tragedy has been worsened by the fact that some of the destroyed homes (pictured) may have survived the inferno if there were better resources
‘A number of homes probably could have been saved if there were just enough fire crews to deal with the ongoing emergency,’ Mullen said.
‘We saw one property right beside another that was untouched by flames and then a small fire started in it and crews (were) just flying as fast as they can past (to) the next fire and next street, on and on it goes throughout this region.’
So far, two people have been killed in the LA fires, around 70,000 people have fled their homes and a growing number of multi-million-dollar mansions have been destroyed.
Huge winds have fuelled the fires and hindered firefighters’ efforts to control them.
‘I was amazed and a little frightened by the intensity of the wind gusts,’ one LA local told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I don’t ever remember the winds being that strong before. A couple of times I wondered if we’d be blown off our feet.’
Los Angeles City Fire Chief Kristen Crowley said the strong winds that continue to push through the city and the county meant residents were still in danger.
The city’s water systems are also under huge strain.
‘The fire department needs the water to fight the fires and we’re fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging,’ Janisse Quinones, LA’s water and power department CEO, said.
