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

• While covering the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles, CBS Sacramento Reporter Ashley Sharp went viral on TikTok after she posted videos checking on people's houses around the most affected areas

• Sharp tells PEOPLE she received hundreds of comments and messages from people asking to check on their homes after her first TikTok went viral, but she and her photographer Dave Grashoff were able to check on around 15 homes during their downtime

• Sharp says that it was "never about views or likes" for her online, but is glad that users online could better "connect to that tragedy” watching her videos

CBS Sacramento reporter Ashley Sharp is no stranger to reporting on natural 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 the L.A. fires — which hit the Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities the hardest — has been hard to wrap her head around.

“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, the Palisades fire is 63% contained and destroyed over 6,300 structures while the Eaton fire is 91% contained and destroyed over 9,400 structures — per CalFire. As the Associated Press reports, 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 on TikTok posting 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.

“I was back in Altadena and I just posted a video [on TikTok] of some devastation on a street that was basically decimated,” she explains. “I checked my comments hours later and I saw a comment from this woman Katie, who [shared her address and] asked if there was any chance we were still near her street because she was desperately trying to get information on [her home].”

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 first TikTok for 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.

Related: TV Reporter Describes ‘Cataclysmic' Scene as Wildfires Torch L.A., Including His Childhood Home (Exclusive)

“This was never about views or likes,” Sharp makes clear. “I never expected people to see [my video] when I responded to Katie, but the comments started pouring from these people in Altadena who saw [the video] and asked if I could check on their home.”

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Sharp then continued to post check-ins on TikTok, with Grashoff driving them to the addresses when they weren’t working. Sharp says that she even made a spreadsheet of all the addresses to figure out which ones they’d be able to check. While Sharp had an influx of comments from people asking her to check on their homes, she revealed that they were able to check on around 15 homes during their time in Los Angeles.

“It left me with a sense of guilt because we got hundreds of comments and messages from people to check on addresses that we only had so much time and couldn't get to everyone,” she notes. “We were tracking down houses until after midnight some of these nights and we had to be up at nine the next morning to work. So we were trying to make it work.”

“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.”

Related: Los Angeles Man Stunned to Find His Dog Alive After 5 Nights Alone amid Fire Rubble: ‘Thank You God'

“I've learned a lot covering these fires, and I think one thing I took away from the response to these videos was that people really appreciate the rawness and realness that we don't often see on TV,” she says. “When we put these news packages together, it’s very produced and it can take several hours to get that up on TV. But with these videos, it was just so in the moment, and I think that there's a craving for that [type of reporting].”

“In TV reporting, we are meant to report the news and to do it compassionately, but I think a lot of times we compartmentalize our emotions and we kind of felt like that's the standard,” she continues. “But what I learned is that people do appreciate when you’re authentic and show your emotion. They resonate with that because it makes them feel more like they’re there.”

Sharp also commends the other TV reporters on the ground, who also showed their compassion in their reporting and adds that “pretty much all of us have that compassion, but it's just easy to lose that in TV versus watching it on TikTok in such a raw and real video.”

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

Read the original article on People