Shadowing Practice: Los Angeles wildfires leave dozens injured and at least two dead, say officials | BBC News - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Let's return straight away to the US.
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Let's return straight away to the US.
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Two people are known to have died,
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and a thousand structures have been destroyed by the major wildfires that continue to burn out of control around Los Angeles.
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Let me show you some of the live pictures
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that were still coming in here to the BBC because tens of thousands of residents have evacuated from the Pacific Palisades area,
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the site of the largest blazes that we've had that has now consumed almost 5,000 acres.
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The fires are being fanned by strong gusting winds of up to 75 miles an hour.
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The authorities have described it as a tragedy for the city of Los Angeles and like something they've never seen before.
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Well, the state of emergency is in force with the fires spreading at speed,
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forcing people to abandon their homes and their vehicles as they try to escape.
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Well, we've had the latest from the fire authorities and the police chiefs in the last little while.
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Let me bring you right up to date
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because the fire chief Anthony Marioni gave us an update on the two biggest fires,
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starting with that major blaze in the Palisades.
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We have well over 5,000 acres that have burned and the fire is growing.
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We have no percentage of containment.
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We have an estimated 1,000 structures destroyed and also no reported fatalities
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and a high number of significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate
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in addition to first responders who are on the fire line.
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For the Eaton Fire, it is located in both the Angeles National Forest,
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the Altadena area of L.A.
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County, and Pasadena.
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L.A.
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County is in unified command with both the Angeles National Forest and the Pasadena Fire Department.
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We have over 2,000 acres burning at this time,
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and the fire continues to grow with 0% containment.
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We have over 500 personnel assigned,
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and unfortunately, we have two reported fatalities to civilians,
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unknown cause at this time,
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and we do have a number of significant injuries.
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We have over 100 structures destroyed,
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and the cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation.
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Lastly, the National Weather Service has predicted a continued red flag weather event with strong winds and low humidities,
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placing all residents of Los Angeles County in danger.
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To all of our viewers,
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please prioritize your safety as well as the well-being of those around you.
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As we come together to continue to get through this widespread disaster,
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Los Angeles County firefighters will remain on the front line until we reach full containment.
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Well, that news conference, it is still going on.
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And we're keeping an ear because so many different officials have been speaking.
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But this is what people there in Los Angeles are waking up to.
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And this is the areas where there are no fires.
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But you can see the huge plumes of black smoke.
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And the police chief
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and the fire chief saying high numbers of significant injuries to people who did not evacuate those key areas.
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They've also been saying that services are being stretched to their limits.
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The fire chief, Kristin Crowley,
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explained that the sheer number of factors that the fire service there are having to deal with.
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Have a listen.
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Now together these fires are stretching the capacity of emergency services to their maximum limits.
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The Los Angeles City Fire Department is battling these two major fires while also maintaining,
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I want to focus on this as well,
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9-1-1 services for the city's approximate four million residents.
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Now despite the severity of conditions our department remains fully committed to safeguarding lives
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and property let's get the very latest on the ground let's go to our correspondent emma vardy
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and emma just tell our viewers uh watching where you are and what is happening all around you
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we've been driving along the pacific coast highway the big coastal road that goes along the coast of LA.
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Pacific Palisades where one of the biggest fires has been raging is up the hillside behind us
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and we've been seeing the destruction of the coastline.
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We've seen power lines down, scorched hillsides.
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It's like a ghost town.
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This is usually a very busy road.
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People traveling up and down to spend the day at the beach,
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cars with surfboards on their roof but it couldn't look any more different today.
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Emergency services vehicles are the only ones we're seeing going up and down.
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Many of these buildings people have been evacuated from from it's just like a ghost town
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and you can probably see the air is
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so thick with smoke we can barely see a few meters in front of us
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and even with this a protective gear on it's stinging my eyes
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and you can smell and taste the smoke all around
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and there are still burning embers from the fire i don't know
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if you can see but there's still fire burning up on the hillside
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and just behind us but we're in a pretty safe location the ocean is just a few metres that way.
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We were hearing in the news conference that,
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and I'll quote it, a high number of significant injuries to people who did not evacuate the areas
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that they were told to leave.
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In terms of those evacuations,
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take me through what you've seen.
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Well, as you can imagine,
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tens of thousands of people were given these evacuation orders.
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As soon as we got into the evacuation zone,
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all our phones started beeping with that evacuation warning.
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So everybody presumably with phones would have got that alert as soon as you get anywhere near a danger zone.
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But look, California residents are used to wildfires.
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These happen and have been happening more and more frequently over the winter period when there are strong winds.
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People know it's a risk and there are always people who do decide to wait it out a little bit longer,
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sometimes because they're protecting pets sometimes
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because they feel they're not quite in the danger zone some people try to douse their houses down with water
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but we've heard from emergency services
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that there have been a high number of injuries this time from people who did not evacuate for various reasons
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but that has led to injuries although thousands
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and thousands of other people of course did leave
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and we saw those dramatic scenes yesterday of people at first leaving by car,
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then on foot and abandoning vehicles that then had to be bulldozed out of the way.
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But when you're in the thick of it like this,
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it is very difficult to tell where the fire is coming from and there's limited signal to get any messages.
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And we can see behind you the wind whipping up and
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that is one of the things that they are really battling with
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because these are winds once in a decade they've been describing them as.
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And I suppose what was most concerning in that news conference,
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despite all their efforts overnight,
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they say there is zero containment in terms of any of these major fires?
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Yeah, that's right.
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Zero containment.
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And usually when you watch wildfires at this time of year,
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you hear within a few hours or in a day or so that they've got it under some degree of control.
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But they're battling so many fires on so many fronts.
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The emergency services are really tested to their limits.
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And I've never felt winds as strong as this in all the time I've been The winds were howling last night.
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The palm trees were bending.
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You almost thought they were going to crash down around you.
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So you can only imagine what that does to a wildfire,
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literally fanning the flames, causing those flames to rage out of control.
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Now, it's been a really comparatively dry winter here in Los Angeles.
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Very little rain through November and December, which means the hillsides hillsides
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and of course this is a city that is surrounded by mountains surrounded by hills
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have just been really dried out it's like kindling up there
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when you go hiking underfoot incredibly dry
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and the risk of a tiny spark setting off a fire is ever present and that's what's happened
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we've been listening to that news conference different officials giving us an update about different areas
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and when you tot up the figures just the latest now the two dead
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that we knew about but that figure
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that is now on the screen Emma you won't see it
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but let me tell viewers 70,000 people now under evacuation orders across Los Angeles
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and the wider areas so that number has increased markedly in the last few minutes
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when you total it all up
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but tell me a little more about the amount of firefighters they have trying to battle this
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and and just how stretched they are and whether they need others to come from other areas?
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Well just on those evacuations you know we were driving from the Hollywood area down to the coast
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and as we were driving
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you know our producer and other friends were getting calls
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that their homes back where we'd come from were being evacuated
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so you know you're almost driving out of one area of danger into another
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and many people really don't know where to turn.
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Now there have been thousands of firefighters mobilised to try to deal with this.
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And of course, the emergency services are having to prioritise with five or so different fires raging in different places.
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It means they're stretched so much more to their limits.
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Normally, they'd be able to pour all their resources into one really bad fire.
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Here, they're having to make really critical decisions about who to send where.
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And of course, there are only certain limited moments that they're able to get help from the air and drop fire retardant,
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drop liquid onto the flames to help try and get those under control too.
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But, yeah, those words, zero containment,
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are pretty scary to hear after sort of 24 hours of this going on.
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It's really interesting, Emma, because of his shoulder behind you.
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We can see the wind whipping up.
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Even through the course of this interview,
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it is getting worse behind you, not better.
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In terms of other details,
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though, we were just hearing people being urged to conserve water.
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there are power lines that are down all sorts of consequences
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that people are having to deal with that's right I mean
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where we were in Hollywood last night we weren't in danger for the time being
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but we had no power or we had no internet internet connection
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so very difficult to communicate as a reporter
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but also to check in with your friends
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and other people who live closer to where the danger zones are up in the hills.
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And so communication is very difficult.
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Now, as I say, that emergency warning thing that's been setting our phones off clearly overrides all of that.
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So you can get these emergency alerts,
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but it does mean that there's a lot of confusion.
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People don't know where family members are or
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which centres people have gone to when they have been evacuated or what's become of their homes that they've left behind.
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So a lot of uncertainty just driving through the city.
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You know, we were driving towards the fire.
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A lot of people were driving away from it.
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It really felt like the apocalypse.
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It was the only word that I could use to describe it.
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The normal blue sky blacked out by smoke,
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the orange glows and different sides of the city.
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It was like a scene out of a Hollywood movie.
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And, you know, Hollywood superstars who acted these movies are the ones now kind of experiencing the nightmare.
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They've been having to leave their homes behind,
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just like the thousands of ordinary people being evacuated too.
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Well, Emma, listen, we will leave it there for now.
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But thanks so much for joining us here in our program
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and giving us such a graphic account in terms of what is actually happening on the ground.
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We're talking there about the evacuation orders, 70,000 now in total.
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Well, let's hear from one of those who've been forced to leave their home, Marika Erdly.
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She talked to me a little earlier.
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She's now staying with relatives in Santa Monica.
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And she explained what the last 24 hours have been like.
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really scary i mean um it started this uh yesterday at
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10 50 i was gonna head out for a um a meeting
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and a business meeting to talk about the solar project and energy audits and uh
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we look outside and that orange glow you were talking about was all across the ocean and it was
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it was frightening i looked out with my cousin of a cousin visiting from budapest we went out
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and saw um saw the view of this i live above
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the my home is above the getty villa museum in la it's between right between pacific palisades
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and malibu it's a a development on a plateau of about 500 homes
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and i you know you can see everything from up there
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and the orange glow i'm like what's going on
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and look to the left and there's this giant giant storm of um of plume of smoke and i mean I mean,
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it was obviously right there in the Palisades and very scary.
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And as we're standing there looking,
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my daughter calls me, who's home I'm at,
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that her daughter, who's a two-year-old,
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needed to be picked up at the preschool.
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So I had to immediately get in my car,
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go rush and pick her up.
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She was on Sunset and PCH there.
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Brought her home.
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And as soon as I brought her home,
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the evacuation orders came and we just piled the car up with,
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you know, whatever I could think of at the time and got my dog my cousin,
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the baby, and some valuables into the car and drove to Santa Monica.
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Well, just one of those 70,000 who've had to leave their homes.
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So interesting through the course of the program, talking to different people.
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They are all saying that they've never seen anything like this.
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Veterans of California, veterans of wildfires,
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but this for them feels very, very different.
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Let me show you the live pictures again
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that are still coming into us that some of the emergency response
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and we heard from officials those being stretched to the limit sealing with
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so many fires in so many different areas
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and still none of them under control and this is what it's leaving behind
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because those some of the damaged structures in one of the
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main areas a thousand structures destroyed we heard from the officials 5,000 acres destroyed so So those,
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the live pictures coming in,
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you can keep regular updates,
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the pictures, the accounts, what we're hearing from officials.
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It's there on the BBC's live page on the website.
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So head there for the very latest.
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Around the world and across the UK,
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you are watching BBC News.
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About This Lesson
This lesson focuses on enhancing your English listening and speaking skills through a recent news report about the wildfires in Los Angeles. You’ll practice identifying key information while improving your pronunciation and intonation by shadowing the speech patterns of the newscasters. By engaging with this material, you will not only expand your vocabulary but also gain insights into disaster management and emergency response vocabulary, increasing your comprehension in real-world contexts.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Wildfires - uncontrolled fires that burn in wildland areas.
- Evacuate - to leave a place for safety.
- Structures - buildings or constructions.
- State of emergency - a situation requiring exceptional measures.
- Containment - controlling a fire to prevent its spread.
- Inferno - a large and out of control fire.
- First responders - emergency service personnel, such as firefighters and police.
- Tragedy - an event causing great suffering; a disaster.
Practice Tips
To maximize your learning with this lesson, consider the shadowing technique while watching the video. Start by listening to a small segment, pausing it after a sentence. Then, repeat that sentence aloud, mimicking the pronunciation, rhythm, and tone of the speaker. This "shadowspeak" method helps you internalize natural speech patterns. Given the report’s fast pace, it may take several attempts to get comfortable with the flow.
As you use a shadowing app or your own recording device, try recording your voice and comparing it against the original audio. Pay attention to words that might be challenging, such as "evacuate" or "containing," which may require extra practice. Incorporate pauses to give yourself time to think and respond—this will boost your confidence while speaking. Dedicate specific times in your learning schedule to practice using the phrase "learn English with YouTube" as a reminder to engage with real-world listening activities.
Finally, keep track of your progress. Noticing improvements over time will motivate you to continue refining your skills using both the shadowing technique and regularly engaging with informative content like news reports. Remember, effective communication in English is a gradual process, and immersing yourself in such engaging materials is an excellent step forward.
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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