Shadowing Practice: California wildfire rips through LA suburbs as 30,000 told to evacuate | BBC News - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
B2
A huge wildfire is burning through thousands of acres in California with tens of thousands of people evacuated from their homes.
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A huge wildfire is burning through thousands of acres in California with tens of thousands of people evacuated from their homes.
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This is the scene live in Pacific Palisades,
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a neighborhood in the hills near Santa Monica in Los Angeles,
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where we've seen pictures of burning cars,
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destroyed buildings as the fire swept through.
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Local firefighters say the conditions are as bad as they get,
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with gusts of winds of up to more than 100 kilometres per hour
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fanning the flames from 10 acres to almost 3,000 in a matter of hours.
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The White House says President Biden is being briefed on the situation
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whilst the governor of California has warned fires there no longer are seasonal but a year-round threat.
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With more, here's our LA correspondent Emma Vardy.
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The fire exploded at astonishing speed.
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The combination of dry conditions and strong winds causing the fires rapid spread.
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People evacuating began to leave their cars and escape on foot.
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Emergency services eventually bulldozed some 200 abandoned vehicles to clear the roads.
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The Pacific Palisades area is home to luxury properties and celebrity homes.
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At least 30,000 residents were told to leave.
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my heart is in my throat but we're okay as long as the firefighters said there's a
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ambulance to take us out
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but this is like right at my doorstep we've been watching these huge plumes of smoke rising
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and the flames flickering over the mountains behind us now people in california are used to wildfires
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and strong winds at this time of year
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but this one is more unusual because of how quickly it spread
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and the fact it's so close to a densely populated area
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Thousands of buildings were in danger of being engulfed by flames as emergency services tried to keep people safe.
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It's not yet clear how widespread the damage is to properties,
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but some homes have been destroyed and several other fires have also been burning.
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While the strong winds continue,
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there's warnings across California that more wildfires may start.
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Emma Vardy, BBC News, Los Angeles.
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And this here is live film footage we're receiving right now here at BBC News from Alta Dina,
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which is in Los Angeles.
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You can see there a building on fire.
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Firefighters are just outside of this shot where they're trying to get control.
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It gives you a sense of the scale of this and the ferocity of the flames
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as firefighters desperately try to bring an end to these wildfires
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which are just raging through the whole of Los Angeles at the moment.
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I talked to David Latt.
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He was forced to evacuate his home.
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He lives in Pacific Palisades.
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He told us what happened to him.
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This morning early, my wife and I were very unaware of what was happening,
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and a neighbor called and said, get out.
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This was about 10 a.m.,
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and I went outside and saw what he was reacting to,
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which was a huge plume of black smoke about four blocks away from our house.
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I took out a ladder,
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and I went up on the roof because I saw that there was fallen leaves and other debris,
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and I wanted to make sure that the fire,
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if it spread in our direction,
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didn't have combustibles on the roof.
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So I quickly swept that off.
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And then over the next 30 to 40 minutes,
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I watched as the fire got larger and moved in our direction.
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And as your reporter indicated.
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The problem here is extreme wind coupled with no rain for half a year.
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So the conditions are primed for a very difficult situation.
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We were ordered to evacuate and the communication was extremely good.
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We received texts, messages saying you must evacuate immediately.
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And I have to say our mayor,
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Karen Bass, had prepared for the situation by assembling material and personnel.
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So they were in the area.
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So the response was very quick.
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And even as I was watching in some video that I shot,
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you can see first observational helicopters analyzing the area from the air,
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or the situation from the air.
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And then you saw, I think they're called super scoopers,
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fixed wing airplanes that go close to the surface of the ocean,
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pick up water, and then drop it,
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along with fire retardants to slow down the fire.
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So the attack by the city officials was very aggressive.
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The problem was and continues to be the wind.
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And again, as your reporter mentioned,
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the concern now is what's going to happen tonight where the expectation is not hurricane force,
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but extremely high winds.
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And even though the personnel have been very aggressive
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putting out the fires they can find with the wind it's
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very hard to know where the fires are going to be as they're spread embers are picked up
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and they can go across the street or a mile away
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so all of la is on alert you hear sirens um excuse me
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and you can you can tell there's a lot of smoke in the air
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and
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but we're happily safe at a friend's house in the middle
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of la an area called larchmont The problem in Pacific Palisades is
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that it's a relatively isolated area with just one road in and out.
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So the traffic jam, it took us two hours to get out of the area.
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And while you're speaking there,
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David, we were looking at the videos that you sent us that you shot before you left your home.
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Just talk us through what goes through your mind when you know you've got to evacuate your home.
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You don't know what you will return to.
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I mean, what do you grab?
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And what's the pressure, the time pressure, I assume?
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You really had to act quickly.
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Yeah, you really, well, first of all,
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I'm a native Los Angelian.
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This, like earthquakes, is just a natural fact of living in the area.
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We're taught, you're taught over and over again to have what they call a grab and go box,
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which means with your passport,
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tax records as you're preparing your tax returns,
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especially prized videos or still photographs and albums.
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So we already had part of that pact.
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We're also ready to go out of town.
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So we actually had suitcases packed with clothing,
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so we just knew to grab those.
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But you're right, the hard thing is we have paintings,
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some done by my wife's father,
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who's no longer with us.
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They're wonderful, but they're large,
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some of them, and by other artists,
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which we've collected over the years,
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and we knew we had to walk away from them.
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And that's hard.
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I mean, it's just hard to do.
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So that there was David Latt,
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who I spoke to earlier,
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who lives in Pacific Palisades.
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And these pictures we're receiving now are the area,
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Pacific Palisades, which is the area where he lives,
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where everyone has been ordered to evacuate their homes.
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Because, of course, it's extremely dangerous,
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as you can see here.
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30,000 people are under evacuation orders at the moment across the state of Los Angeles,
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which is declared a state of emergency.
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As the wildfires spread rapidly,
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the winds that are sort of extremely high and the dry lands,
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as we were hearing from our correspondent Emma Vardy earlier,
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making it very, very difficult to bring this under control.
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Millions of people in California across the state are under a red flag warning,
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meaning there is an extreme fire danger.
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We've got a live page up and running at the moment on our website and on the BBC News app,
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which is following all our coverage and all the updates as they happen.
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So do stay with us here on BBC News as we keep you across this developing story.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will practice your English speaking skills using the transcript from a news report about a wildfire in California. You will focus on the urgency and emotions conveyed in the report, which will help enhance your understanding of real-life situations and improve your speaking abilities. By the end of this practice session, you should feel more confident in expressing thoughts related to emergencies and environmental issues in English.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- wildfire - a large fire that spreads rapidly, especially in forested or grassy areas.
- evacuate - to leave a place of danger; to remove people from an area to ensure their safety.
- firefighters - professionals who are trained to put out fires and rescue people from dangerous situations.
- plume of smoke - a column of smoke that rises into the air, often a sign of a fire.
- strong winds - powerful gusts of air that can contribute to the spread of fires.
- emergency services - organizations that provide urgent assistance, such as police, fire, and medical services.
- property damage - harm caused to buildings and other structures during incidents like fires.
- rapid spread - the fast movement of flames or a situation worsening quickly.
Practice Tips
To maximize your shadow speaking practice with this video, follow these tips:
- Listen Actively: Play the video at a normal speed initially to understand the context and emotion behind the words.
- Use Shadowing Technique: After familiarizing yourself with the content, try repeating phrases immediately after the speaker. This helps you match their speed and tone accurately.
- Adjust the Speed: If you find the natural pace too fast, consider slowing down the playback speed. Once you're comfortable, gradually increase it to improve your fluency.
- Focus on Emotion: Pay attention to the urgency and seriousness in the speaker's tone, which is crucial in understanding the context. Try to emulate this in your own practice.
- Record Yourself: Using your phone or computer, record your shadow speaking sessions. Listen to the recordings to critique your pronunciation and intonation.
- Engage with Content: Discuss the themes of the video with fellow learners or through language exchange to deepen your understanding and practice your speaking.
- Learn English with YouTube: Utilize similar news reports and videos on YouTube to continually improve your English speaking practice, implementing these shadowing techniques regularly for best results.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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