Shadowing Practice: LA fires death toll rises as officials warn against looting and price hikes | BBC News - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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The number of people killed has risen to 16,
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The number of people killed has risen to 16,
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and a dozen are missing after five days of these devastating fires.
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The two biggest blazes in the city remain largely uncontained,
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and more strong winds are forecast over the coming days.
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Now, those two fires have destroyed an area more than twice the size of New York's Manhattan.
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No cause has yet been established for these fires,
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and firefighters have made some progress against the worst of the infernos,
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the Palisades Fire, which has scorched nearly 35 square miles.
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And it's described as being 11% contained.
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Now that basically means that barriers or fire breaks have been placed around 11% of its perimeter.
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And the Palisades Fire is now threatening Brentwood.
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That's one of LA's most exclusive neighborhoods,
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where celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the basketball star LeBron James have their homes.
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There have also been dramatic scenes of aircraft dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant on the hills and the scrub.
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It's all in an attempt to put out the blazes.
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But if the winds do pick up,
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it will be harder to get those aircraft and the helicopters into the air.
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More than 12,000 homes and other buildings have been destroyed so far.
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The second biggest blaze is the Eton Fire and it's destroyed more than 20 square miles.
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and it was described as being 15% contained.
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Firefighters have mostly contained two smaller blazes,
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the Kenneth and the Hearst fires.
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However, the National Weather Service is warning that the Santa Ana winds
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that whipped up the fires at the outset could increase again over the weekend and also in the next coming few days.
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Seven neighbouring states, the federal government,
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Canada and also Mexico, have sent resources to California.
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Well, our first report comes from Helena Humphrey, who is in L.A.
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Still the fires grow, hungry and unrelenting,
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as firefighters remain locked in a battle against nature's fury.
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From the sky,
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it's an all-out assault to keep the largest of these deadly wildfires in the Pacific Palisades from spreading any further,
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bombarding the flaming hills with water and fire retardant.
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Meanwhile, on the ground, the National Guard is out in force.
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A nighttime curfew is in effect to clamp down on those profiting from the chaos.
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A lot of crime, a lot of people trying to steal things.
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But if you protect yourself and your family,
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I mean, I have to be there to protect my wife,
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my son, my kids, my mom,
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and I cannot even go and see them.
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I've been in the street for three days.
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Luckily, my sister lived down the street or also end up in the street.
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But this unprecedented crisis is also bringing out the best in humanity.
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At a local shelter in Pasadena,
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volunteers are caring for more than 450 animals,
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dropped off by evacuees or found wandering amid the destruction.
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Others who escaped with only the clothes on their backs are
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desperately searching for the beloved pets they lost in the scramble to get out.
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here have lost everything, entire homes reduced to rubble.
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And with days of winds now forecast,
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it's a race against time to stop these fires from spreading further.
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Los Angeles knows it needs all the help it can get.
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And with a change of administration looming in Washington,
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local officials say they have yet to hear from the incoming president.
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I wrote a letter to President-elect Trump inviting him to engage in wildfire recovery efforts
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and to visit the county to see the impact firsthand that it has on every social economic individual in this county.
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For now, it is all hands on deck.
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Firefighting crews have arrived from across the United States,
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with Mexico and Canada sending in battle-tested teams of their own.
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They know that any pickup in the now notorious Santa Ana winds could wipe out their hard-won progress in an instant.
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Helena Humphrey, BBC News, Los Angeles.
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Well, as Helena was mentioning there,
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Mexico is among one of the countries which has sent firefighters to assist in combating these wildfires,
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as local officials seek to draft in help from across the US as well.
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Two plane loads of more than 70 firefighters,
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along with their equipment, landed in LA International Airport on Saturday,
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and they were greeted by California's Governor Gavin Newsom.
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The firefighters are expected to join combating efforts within the next 36 hours and Gavin Newsom talked about the new help efforts.
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This is what friends do.
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This is what relationships are all about.
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Friends in need being there for one another.
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We want to be there for the people of Mexico in times of need
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and disasters and we're incredibly humbled and grateful that the president was willing to send the crew you see behind me.
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They'll be out on the lines within the next 24,
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36 hours, and we're very, very grateful.
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Well, they're going to be joining the hundreds of firefighters who are working around the clock to tackle these blazes.
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Liz Lynn is president of the LA Fire Department Foundation.
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It's been assisting firefighters in the area.
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She spoke about just how tough it's been for them.
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The firefighters are now on day five or six.
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They have been there since day one.
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We are normally during a fire season,
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which happens in the fall.
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Very rarely do we have something in January.
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You see one fire.
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There's something like six fires and they keep popping up.
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And what's even more usual is that the fire behavior and the winds are things we've never seen.
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We saw this in Hawaii a couple of years ago and we're seeing it here.
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And unpredictable behavior, uncontrollable winds driving these fires to cause mass devastation.
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It's unprecedented in the city of L.A and in the nation for what we're seeing.
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And my only mission is to serve the Los Angeles Fire Department.
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With that, anything that they need during these fires,
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anything that the budgets didn't support,
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anything that helps them do the job that they do to save lives and protect the community,
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we will fund.
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And our funding depends on the general public.
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So this morning I was at Palisades and I bought some technology equipment because some of the computers and things were failing.
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hero wipes, eye goggles, something as simple as eye drops,
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making sure that they have everything that they need to keep them safe,
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to keep them healthy, and to keep them doing this job.
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In Palisades this morning touring the sites,
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we had a couple of our canine therapy dogs available,
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not only for the firefighters,
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but for the families that were starting to come in and seeing their homes and the devastation that,
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you know, a street and a block where that's completely decimated
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and then there's one house standing and you ask yourself why
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and so it's very very emotional and unfortunately we have some resources
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that we can use to help not only the firefighters but also the public as well.
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Liz Lynn there on the many many challenges facing the firefighters.
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Well our North America correspondent David Willis is in Altadena.
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He spoke to Nikki Schiller a little bit earlier Nikki asked David about the evacuation order
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which is extending into the Brentwood area.
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That's an area that includes the University of California
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and also the Getty Center which is home to thousands of priceless works of art.
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It's a very nerve-wracking time,
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and this is also something that affects other less populated but nonetheless quite busy areas,
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Encino, Tarzana, and so on.
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It's a very, very difficult time for the firefighters because they thought they were starting to get the edge on this,
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the biggest blaze, the Pacific Palisades fire.
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And it was just this twist in the wind last night
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which caused the fire to grow a thousand acres in size overnight.
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That's the sort of challenge that firefighters are up against at the moment,
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Nicky, because it is just down to the elements.
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Ultimately, they're bombing these fires from the air,
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pouring water, gallons of water,
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flame retardant and so on.
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You've seen pictures of that, of course.
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And it's having an effect but they can only do it
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when it's safe to get those aircraft up in the air and of course as soon as the winds change
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they're not able to do that and there is a very small window because monday night into tuesday
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the winds are expected to pick up very violently once again perhaps up to 70
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or 80 miles an hour almost hurricane speed winds and
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that will mean that the challenge for firefighters is all the greater grim uh prospect
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that the authorities face of trying to piece together what happened
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here what caused these wildfires you're absolutely right teams with cadaver
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dogs due to go into worst affected areas such as this one pasadena alter dino
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and of course the area
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that was uh completely destroyed in pacific palisades we heard today from the l.a coroner's office that uh 60 identified
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16 different human remains and of course identifying those will be almost impossible
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because of the the state of them
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and the sheriff's deputies here have been hinting for days
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that the death toll could rise considerably there was reports a
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few days ago of a man the body of a man being found in his driveway with a hosepipe in his hand.
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Just a sign of the terrible tragedy that has befallen this part of Southern California.
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It's going to be very difficult.
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I mean, the question rises as well.
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Do people want to go back to these communities?
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I spoke to one person the other day whose house had survived the fires,
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but it was the only one in the street that had done so.
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So he lost as well as his neighbours' houses.
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Gone was the local church,
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the local grocery store, and so on.
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So it begs the question,
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are these communities going to want to rebuild?
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And if so, at what cost?
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And where does the manpower come from?
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Because there aren't enough construction workers you wouldn't have thought to rebuild the size of the area around here,
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Altadena, Pasadena, where I'm speaking to you from,
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let alone the area along the coast there.
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So a lot of questions,
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really, and these are questions that will be dogging officials here and residents here for years probably to come.
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One thing I would say is this is a part of the world that has seen natural disasters in the past,
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seen earthquakes and riots and floods and so on.
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And there has a reputation as the capital of reinvention, if you like.
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This is a place where people come to chase their dreams,
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and those dreams can be quite durable.
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The people here are quite durable,
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and I think a lot of them won't be put back for too long by the terrible disaster
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that has unfolded and continues to unfold here over the last few days and weeks.
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About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will enhance your English listening and speaking skills by analyzing a recent news report about the wildfires in Los Angeles. By engaging with this material, you will practice understanding complex information, improve your pronunciation, and expand your vocabulary. This lesson is particularly useful for those preparing for the IELTS speaking test, as it involves discussing current events and their implications. You’ll learn to communicate ideas effectively, which is essential for any English learner aiming to articulate thoughts clearly in real-life situations.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Uncontained: Not controlled or confined.
- Inferno: A large fire that is dangerously out of control.
- Fire retardant: A substance that reduces flammability.
- Containment: The action of keeping something harmful under control.
- Santa Ana winds: Strong, dry winds that can exacerbate fire conditions in California.
- Curfew: A restriction on movement during certain hours.
- Evacuees: People who leave a place in response to an emergency.
- Desperately: In a way that shows despair or urgency.
Practice Tips
As you watch the video, consider using the shadowing technique to improve your spoken English skills. First, listen to a short segment of the video (about 10-15 seconds). Then, pause it and repeat what you heard, mimicking the intonation and rhythm of the speaker. This practice helps you grasp natural speech patterns. Keep in mind the video’s pace is relatively fast, so take your time and don’t rush—focus on clarity. Focus on the sections discussing the challenges of firefighting and community efforts, as these present strong emotional cues in the language. Using this method on a shadowing site can help reinforce your learning and ensure you understand the context behind vocabulary usage.
Overall, by engaging actively with the video and applying these techniques, you will improve not only your vocabulary but also your overall confidence in speaking English.
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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