Local Reporter's Comments Are Flooded with Addresses During L.A. Fires — and Her Response Goes Viral (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

CBS reporter Ashley Sharp with photographer Dave Grashoff covering the wildfires in Los Angeles, California.Photo:Ashley Sharp

Ashley Sharp

CBS Sacramento reporterAshley Sharpis no stranger to reporting onnatural disasters.

In her six years working as a reporter, she was on the ground, covering the tornados that ripped through Tennessee in 2020 and the Thompson fire in Northern California in July 2024. But Sharp, 28, admits that the level of devastation from theL.A. fires— which hit the Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities the hardest — has been hard to wrap her head around.

Ashley Sharp reporting from Los Angeles during the wildfires.Ashley Sharp

“It felt so different to see a fire explode in Los Angeles, the second largest city in our country,” Sharp tells PEOPLE. “It’s not that the hurt or the loss is any different [from other natural disasters] on a base level, but what was just so shocking to see was the way that this fire impacted so much of the city in such a short amount of time.”

As of Jan. 22, thePalisades fireis 63% contained and destroyed over 6,300 structures while theEaton fireis 91% contained and destroyed over 9,400 structures — per CalFire. As theAssociated Pressreports, the LA fires are already projected to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history, with the estimated loss and damages ranging between $135 billion and $150 billion.

Sharp’s reporting looked very different this time around as she went viral onTikTokposting check-ins on people’s homes with photographer Dave Grashoff. Their initial assignment took them around Los Angeles and they spent a lot of time reporting in the hardest-hit areas around Pacific Palisades and Altadena. The check-ins started on their last night in Altadena on Jan. 9 and continued until Sharp and Grashoff left Los Angeles on Jan. 11.

Sharp and Grashoff were working on live shots around the area for the station at the time and she decided to walk over to the address and check on the house during their downtime.

“I walked over to the address that she sent me with a pit in my stomach because, at that moment, I knew I was walking into the most impacted neighborhood that I had seen so far. So I had a feeling I was about to tell her that her house was gone,” she recalls. Sharp responded to Katie’s comment with another video and confirmed that her childhood home was gone.

“I’m really sorry,” Sharp said in her firstTikTokfor Katie. “It’s not easy to be here and we’ve watched families coming in and out. But I’m glad we could give you an update but I’m really sorry we had to be the people to tell you.”

“I think you could hear the emotion in my voice,” she continues when talking about the first video. “I was honestly trying not to cry. We had already spent all day seeing so much devastation, and it really does impact you just having to see it and cover it. But then to take that extra mile [and I realize] ‘Oh wait I’m now telling this person that their home is gone.’“

Sharp — who only had around 200 followers on TikTok at the time — suddenly found her videos go viral and amassed thousands of followers after that.

Ashley Sharp on site covering the Los Angeles wildfires.Ashley Sharp

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“I knew going into it, we weren’t going to be able to get to everyone,” she continues. “It was like, ‘Okay well, we can help the ones that we can help and it’s gonna mean something to them.’ But I always knew that I was gonna be guilty at the end of it.”

While she was able to provide those families with information on their homes, she still wishes she could’ve done more.

“The purpose [of the videos] was to give these people an answer,” Sharp notes. “But I think so many people on TikTok just really resonated with it too. That feeling of [not knowing what you’ll see] when I turn the camera around… it gives you the sense of being the homeowner and being able to connect to that tragedy.”

Sharp believes that if she had shared her videos on Instagram or Facebook, they wouldn’t have gotten the same traction they did on TikTok and “would not have put these videos in front of the people who needed to see it.”

Click hereto learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.

source: people.com