Teesside firefighter says it'll be a long time for LA to return back to normal
Firefighters over in America are continuing to deal with a series of wildfires
Last updated 1st May 2025
A Teesside firefighter says it is going to take a long time for Los Angeles to return back to normal, as wildfires continue to wreak havoc.
Thousands of acres of land, homes and businesses have been destroyed since it all began last week - fuelled by powerful winds and dry conditions.
Marty Challenor, District Manager for Grangetown and Redcar Fire Stations, said: "Looking at the size of the fire that they're dealing with, I think at the moment they're reporting six different places where the fire's actually taking place of different sizes, which you know when you look at the square mile that they're reporting, that's maybe half or maybe three quarters the size of Cleveland, our county, so it's a massive area that's being affected.
"We always consider different issues that are going to make this fire worse or the situation worse. The first one being the wind; they've got particular wind patterns at the moment and it's moving around all the time, which is making it every hard for the firefighters and those in charge to plan their response to these incidents. They're saying some of the winds are peaking at up to 100mph which obviously if that's changing regularly, it's making it really hard to plan ahead.
"That wind is carrying burning embers, possibly one or two miles ahead, which is then landing in properties and other vegetation which is igniting and again, it's making it really difficult for the firefighters and emergency responders to actually plan and respond to because it's really dangerous in that sense.
"Due to the nature of where they are, especially over their mountainous areas, the actual access for crews and responders getting into those fire areas, it's very difficult and it makes it very dangerous as well because there's that risk of crews being cut off, not being able to get the water supply that they require. It demands a lot on manual firefighting if you like, trying to get the water and the resources there.
"It's just that planning because these fires are logistically in different areas, so there's that risk of not only members of the public being cut off, but the fire crews and the response crews being cut off as well. So in terms of this 'perfect storm' that keeps being mentioned, all these things are making it difficult and I can really feel for the crews and responders who are working in those conditions."
If the fire were to be under control, Marty says the job would not be over for those firefighters.
He added: "For a firefighter and a crew to deal with one property, that takes a lot of resources and a lot of time and when you're looking at some of the numbers where they have 9,000 properties involved, that's not just the properties, that's the infrastructure around that; that'll be the gas, electricity, water, it'll be making buildings safe afterwards because you're going to have a lot of buildings that are in an unsafe condition.
"I know that there will be planning now contingency now for what happens afterwards. It's getting us back to that 'norm' I suppose which looking at some of the damage and the areas that are involved, it's going to be considerable time. They're going to be really busy for a long time after that and that's hopefully without anymore fires starting or occurring further down the line as well.
"Getting things back to the 'norm' is always going to take some time anyway and the fact that unfortunately, people are still going to have emergencies, they're still going to have all the other incidents and accidents that happen in a normal day-to-day, so the service will still have to respond to those.
"If they've got a damaged infrastructure and they do get a recurrence of something like a wildfire, how are they responding? Do they get more resources? I know they spoke about bringing in the army and the forces to back up the current response and again, it'll be I suppose that further planning plus making sure they still provide the care that they need for those people who can move back into their properties."