Reporter Chokes Up on the Air as He Says Friends Just Learned from TV That They Lost Their Home in L.A. Fires
“It is very difficult to see,” Mark Liu of KCAL told viewers
A local newscaster grew emotional while on the air as he told viewers that two close friends were among those who had lost their homes in the raging fires around Los Angeles.
Mark Liu of CBS’ station KCAL was broadcasting on Wednesday, Jan. 8, when he said that his friends had just learned from KCAL itself that their home was on fire — as documented by colleague Joy Benedict, who was reporting from a street in Altadena outside L.A.
Benedict was showing how the swirling embers from the blaze, gusted by dangerous winds, had caught more and more homes on fire, including the residence for Liu’s friends.
“I have to tell you … unfortunately the home that Joy was just in front of belongs to two very good friends of mine,” Liu said on air.
“I’ve known them for many, many years, they’re a wonderful husband and wife and they own three cats and they were able to evacuate safely,” he continued, “but just now, on KCAL, they were watching and learning that the home that they have lived in for more than 10 years … is destroyed.”
Liu choked up as she shared more about his friends.
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David McNew/Getty
The Los Angeles fires on Jan. 7“I have many good memories of being in that home with my friends, they’re a wonderful and warm and loving couple,” Liu said, his voice growing thick with emotion.
“It is very difficult to see a home that they had built so lovingly and carefully over the last decade going up in flames,” he said.
So many other people have been struggling with the sam fate, he noted.
“It is just incredibly hard to see and know that someone’s life, everything that they have built and all of their wonderful memories and happiness, are now destroyed,” Liu said.
But there was one “silver lining,” he said: “I have recently been talking to both of them over text and they are both safe, they are with their parents and their three cats are with them as well, and they are going to eventually have to start over their life.”
Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty
The Los Angeles fires on Jan. 7Luckily, Liu said, “they did heed the evacuation order to get out with the important things, their keepsakes, and of course their three cats that they consider very dear family members.”
Amid the “incredible tragedy” unfolding around L.A. where the fires that started one day earlier have continued to burn, Liu said his friends “are going to have to process what they are seeing here … as are many, many other people.”
As of Wednesday, there are five fires in the L.A. area, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection — collectively, they have burned more than 5,700 acres and led tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Two people have been confirmed dead.
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