Speaker 1: You're listenings KPI AM six forty, the Bill Handles Show
Speaker 1: on demand on the iHeartRadio f.
Speaker 2: And now Handle on the news. Ladies and gentlemen, here's
Speaker 2: Bill Handle.
Speaker 1: All right, it's a Wednesday, January eighth, and I would
Speaker 1: start good morning saying good morning not unfortunately anticipated and
Speaker 1: it came out exactly as we did anticipate and expect.
Speaker 2: The wildfires and it is.
Speaker 1: We're going to be covering out, of course, versually the
Speaker 1: entire show, and it's been going on all night. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we did not go to syndicated
Speaker 1: programming George Norri. It was live through the entire evening
Speaker 1: with the KFI hosts and reporters. And so when we
Speaker 1: say a hello first everybody, Amy, I know you've been
Speaker 1: up for a while.
Speaker 3: Good morning, good morning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Neil, who has been here since? What
Speaker 1: you were on from three to five am?
Speaker 4: Now here at thirty and did a three to five
Speaker 4: before wake up call?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know what was on from seven to midnight?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, he had a long shift and then you
Speaker 4: had Conway come back midnight to three am.
Speaker 3: He likes these overnight fire shifts.
Speaker 1: Well because he's ups up anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yet it's not gone to bed, and I swear
Speaker 4: he lives so close that if he fell right here
Speaker 4: at the station, his head would hit his pillow on
Speaker 4: his bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's been a This is where I love KFI
Speaker 1: and I love what it does.
Speaker 2: We're at our best and situations like this.
Speaker 1: I got a call yesterday Chris Berry, who is our
Speaker 1: now management, came into manage for a while and interrupted
Speaker 1: watching Wicked, which I got very upset. I actually paid
Speaker 1: thirty dollars to buy Wicked. Big, big, big mistake. So
Speaker 1: I'm watching it dozens of times to get my money's worth.
Speaker 3: All right, We're going to have to hear about that
Speaker 3: at a later date when we're not talking about wildfires.
Speaker 2: You don't really think so yeah, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, I you know, all of you folks have been
Speaker 1: up and working for a long time. And I was
Speaker 1: up all night because my little dogs, they have a
Speaker 1: bed in the bedroom and when there are people outside,
Speaker 1: the dogs mark because they're simply protective.
Speaker 2: They're dogs.
Speaker 1: They're dogs, and so you know, people walking outside, the
Speaker 1: barking happens. Well, the wind was howling and the furniture
Speaker 1: outdoor furniture was moving that. Every time the wind picked
Speaker 1: up and you could hear a branch. The dog starts
Speaker 1: barking because someone is outside, and.
Speaker 2: I got I shut up, shut up, I want some sleep.
Speaker 1: I had no idea you could do that much damage
Speaker 1: to a dog, a twelve pound dog, by throwing it
Speaker 1: against the wall.
Speaker 2: Uh. It did work, though, that little dog shut up.
Speaker 1: Finally it's limping, you know it's it's out there limping
Speaker 1: and won't be barking again at people. God, God help
Speaker 1: us if a burglar comes in, because that dog is
Speaker 1: never gonna bark anyone ever.
Speaker 4: A more tiny little dogs balls or four times the
Speaker 4: size of yours. You're not throwing that dog, mister a
Speaker 4: tough guy.
Speaker 2: Oh and I looked at that dog and I said, honey, honey,
Speaker 2: do you want to snack?
Speaker 1: And let me tell you what a weird I don't
Speaker 1: even know if you know this story, Neil, Let me
Speaker 1: tell you what a weirdo. Lindsey is little Tommy, who
Speaker 1: of course had to be spade, had to be neutered
Speaker 1: because it's a male dog. She kept his balls in
Speaker 1: a jar, which is yours. No, well that's different, but
Speaker 1: we have his nuts in a jar on the shelf.
Speaker 2: Those those are what I'm serious. By the way, I'm
Speaker 2: not making that up. It is different, Yes, she's different.
Speaker 4: Who would have thought that a forty old marrying this
Speaker 4: wind bag over here is weird?
Speaker 2: Not quite a little older than that? All right, Cono,
Speaker 2: that I say good morning to you, you do not? Okay?
Speaker 2: Good morning? Cono. Also drove in. Did you see the
Speaker 2: fire on your drive in?
Speaker 5: I did see one fire, Okay, I want to say
Speaker 5: it's a simmer fire.
Speaker 1: Right, we're going to talk about that. Gary Hoffman, I
Speaker 1: heard him this morning. Gary is and he came in
Speaker 1: very early, obviously, and at his driving from Santa Clarita.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to him at seven point thirty,
Speaker 1: and it's I have not seen any fires. First of all,
Speaker 1: I live in South Orange County, and so I'm in
Speaker 1: my home studio this morning because I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: deal with all that stuff. So on my ten foot
Speaker 1: commute from the bedroom to my studio, I did not
Speaker 1: see a fire. I don't have a fireplace on so
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Amy, driving in, did you see any fire?
Speaker 3: I did not, Okay, not at all. But I did
Speaker 3: notice when I walked out of my house this morning,
Speaker 3: you could smell the smoke in the air, which was
Speaker 3: which was a new thing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, all I all I have is the winds
Speaker 1: were howling, and just I haven't even gone outside yet
Speaker 1: to see what.
Speaker 3: A mess are they still blowing where you are?
Speaker 2: Uh, let me look.
Speaker 3: I don't think you need to look for the winds.
Speaker 2: Is he licking his finger and putting it in the air.
Speaker 3: That seems stupid because at my house there were no
Speaker 3: winds this morning. The winds were howling last night, but
Speaker 3: then this morning, dead calm in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I can't see because it's dark. Yes, so we have
Speaker 1: yea the outdoor lighting. The winds are going, They're not howling,
Speaker 1: but it looks.
Speaker 2: Like a wind. What I'm not trying to be mean?
Speaker 4: Do you think that your star on the Walk of
Speaker 4: Fame and your Marconi was a like a dare? Like
Speaker 4: somebody in those departments thought it'd be funny to give
Speaker 4: you those things.
Speaker 2: Okay, Woodleigh Fire.
Speaker 4: This is a one Woodley Avenue south of Victory Boulevard,
Speaker 4: and this Pulvida base and seventy five acres another one
Speaker 4: just pop it up there.
Speaker 1: So we're obviously going to be reporting on the fires.
Speaker 1: We've got Michael Monks out there on the fire scene.
Speaker 1: We're going to go to some national correspondence coming up
Speaker 1: at seven Alex Stone, ABC News correspondent who's on our
Speaker 1: show all the time. He's going to talk about what's
Speaker 1: going on, and he's in Altadena at the Altadena fire.
Speaker 1: This is being covered. If you watch national news, which
Speaker 1: I always do. You know, I'm sort of a news junkie,
Speaker 1: so I always watch ABC or CBS in addition to
Speaker 1: all the rest of it. It started, the story started
Speaker 1: with the fires, and no doubt, of course it's a
Speaker 1: huge story, bigger here than across the rest of the country,
Speaker 1: but international story. And as Neil and I were talking
Speaker 1: about before we take a break and come back, when
Speaker 1: you look at the total acreage of this fire, it's
Speaker 1: really no big deal. It's what five six thousand acres
Speaker 1: in total all the fires combined, which would would barely
Speaker 1: be a mention.
Speaker 2: It would be a brush fire.
Speaker 1: The problem is, of course, it's in Pacific palisades.
Speaker 2: Populated areas period, right, It's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or what used to be Pacific Palisades, and we've
Speaker 1: got Malibu. All of these these aren't in the hills
Speaker 1: way above where firefighters can't get through.
Speaker 2: Firefighters can't get through now because.
Speaker 1: The winds are blowing so strong, aircraft can't get up
Speaker 1: in the air.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is a mess. It is a mess,
Speaker 2: and something that I have rarely heard.
Speaker 1: I've been watching Channel five and Channel eleven as well
Speaker 1: as for hours, is the word heartbreaking in referring to
Speaker 1: the houses that have been destroyed and the families that
Speaker 1: have been affected. And reporters, usually try to be objective,
Speaker 1: are deeply moved about seeing going there's some one's home going, not.
Speaker 2: Be it's you know, I was looking.
Speaker 4: I was just went into the booth, was talking with
Speaker 4: kno and and we're looking up at the screens and
Speaker 4: you're looking at areas that, you know, there were sidewalks
Speaker 4: that people were probably walking their dogs on two days ago,
Speaker 4: and the houses on the corner. I mean, everything looks
Speaker 4: like a normal neighborhood, except it's completely engulfed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's almost like it's almost like a movie set.
Speaker 2: It's almost like they're filming.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they're filming, filming. Gone with a wind
Speaker 1: with at land to burning.
Speaker 2: All right, a back lot somewhere, Let's take a.
Speaker 1: Break, we'll come back and then we're gonna go right
Speaker 1: into it, the latest, what's going on talking to people
Speaker 1: who are on the fire line. Uh, and give you
Speaker 1: somewhat of an idea that you're only going to hear here,
Speaker 1: You're only going to hear on KFI. You know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I really enjoy doing stories that are breaking and we
Speaker 1: have to deal with them all morning.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's a different Yeah, this is this is our wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: You know, like nine to eleven, I think I broadcast
Speaker 1: for seven or eight hours straight.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, this is what we do.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, always unfortunately, I mean god, that was the
Speaker 1: most unfortunate thing that happened to us in one hundred years.
Speaker 2: But being this close and knowing people have been evacuated.
Speaker 1: For example, we have friends in Malibu, Uh, and this
Speaker 1: will be their fourth.
Speaker 2: Go round after having already rebuilt a.
Speaker 1: House that went down, and if it goes down again,
Speaker 1: it will be their second rebuild. If they're even there,
Speaker 1: and if they even stay, because.
Speaker 4: Would huh would you stay if it was your even
Speaker 4: if it.
Speaker 2: Was and if it was a dream house, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it is their dream house.
Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't stay. I'd go, you know, what uh,
Speaker 1: this is somebody up there telling me. If I I
Speaker 1: don't know who it was would be up there would
Speaker 1: be telling me, Actually be the pyro Baniaca on the
Speaker 1: hill just above me would be saying this is not
Speaker 1: a very good place to live anyway.
Speaker 2: So what we're going to do is we're going to report.
Speaker 2: I'm going to throw it to Amy.
Speaker 1: Amy, if you can just give us the highlights the
Speaker 1: headlines of the Palisades Eton Hearst fire, and we also
Speaker 1: understand there's what fire is now breaking out all over
Speaker 1: southern California, small spotfires, which is one of the problems
Speaker 1: when you have eighty mile an hour winds and you
Speaker 1: have no idea where the next spot fire is going
Speaker 1: to erupt.
Speaker 3: Well, the laziest one to erupt is in the Subpulvida
Speaker 3: Basin in the San Fernando Valley. It started just before
Speaker 3: six this morning and has burned at least seventy five acres.
Speaker 3: Officials say the fire is being pushed by the winds
Speaker 3: moving south and is threatening to jump Burbank Boulevard. There's
Speaker 3: no reports of any buildings threatened for that one at
Speaker 3: this time.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: The one you mentioned first was Pacific Palisades. We've got
Speaker 3: thirty thousand people under evacuation orders. At last count or
Speaker 3: at last update, it had burned just about three thousand acres.
Speaker 3: We're expecting those numbers to change, possibly dramatically, when we
Speaker 3: get an update later this morning from fire officials in
Speaker 3: the Altadena area. That fire, we just got new numbers
Speaker 3: twenty two hundred and twenty seven acres and there are
Speaker 3: evacuation orders. We've seen the houses burning and the buildings
Speaker 3: and the businesses burning, and the evacuation orders for that
Speaker 3: fire have been expanded to include Laknata and flint Ridge.
Speaker 3: Now fifty two thousand people are have been ordered out
Speaker 3: of their homes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we are not reporting
Speaker 1: and no one is reporting, is how many homes were.
Speaker 3: Destroyed or damage because we don't know.
Speaker 1: There's no way to know, because the way is the
Speaker 1: only way to know is to send aircraft up and
Speaker 1: literally look down and just start counting the neighborhood, look
Speaker 1: at the looking at the neighborhoods that have been destroyed
Speaker 1: and go, Okay, there's a this street one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: eight houses that's straight over there. Twelve houses no idea
Speaker 1: or firefighters come into a neighborhood and start counting. One
Speaker 1: of the things I want to ask and I want
Speaker 1: to look at, is you had Pacific Coast Highway or
Speaker 1: a Sunset Boulevard, which is basically the only way into
Speaker 1: the Palisades. It's one road in and out. And people
Speaker 1: were abandoning their cars because they couldn't get out, just
Speaker 1: leaving their cars in the road, blocking the road. And
Speaker 1: that pretty well stops evacuations, doesn't it. So they come
Speaker 1: out and did you look at the lines lineup of
Speaker 1: cars after they've been moved over by the big dozers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know what they look like now they're torched. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're all torched. And you can't help but notice because
Speaker 4: the affluent nature of the neighborhood that the row of
Speaker 4: cars were not your average wasn't a bunch of Toyotas,
Speaker 4: is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Not Honda's No.
Speaker 1: Well, those houses and if they're not really mentioning it
Speaker 1: because it sounds a little bit, is the word obnoxious elitist?
Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades is a wealthy area. Those are multi million
Speaker 1: dollar homes. I mean, this is I'll tell you who's
Speaker 1: sweating bullets the insurance companies. You've got a couple of
Speaker 1: insurance executives looking at this and going ah, crap, oh.
Speaker 4: Well, there's also there was also some pulling out or
Speaker 4: some changes with insurance companies a week or so ago
Speaker 4: that will be affecting these people, and rate change in
Speaker 4: all kinds of things we haven't even heard the beginning.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's crazy. That will go on.
Speaker 1: And then there are some homes along the coast in
Speaker 1: Malibu that have gone up, and those try to get
Speaker 1: anything along a coast for under twelve million dollars.
Speaker 2: I mean this financially, the hit is going to be enormous.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean that people who have a lot
Speaker 1: of money are more important or have greater value than
Speaker 1: everybody else. Well actually they do, but we normally don't
Speaker 1: talk about that. The point is that you've got this devastation.
Speaker 1: The financial hit is enormous, which I think what this
Speaker 1: is going to do is amplify the issue of you
Speaker 1: can't get fire insurance. You know, we have three insurance
Speaker 1: companies bail out of California. A lot of people are
Speaker 1: not insured. They're bare because it's not a question of
Speaker 1: being able to afford insurance. They have plenty of money,
Speaker 1: they can't get insurance because the insurance companies will not
Speaker 1: give them insurance because they're in fire areas. Although I'm
Speaker 1: guessing a Malibu on the water, I wouldn't guess that'd
Speaker 1: be a fire area.
Speaker 4: No, but the hills. So what happens. What's that California
Speaker 4: insurance that you get.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the Fair Plan, the Fair Plan with the
Speaker 1: insurance companies put into this fund, and you can buy
Speaker 1: into the Fair Plan if you can't get insurance anyplace else.
Speaker 1: The problem with the Fair Plan, well, if I mean
Speaker 1: it does help, it's only fire insurance. It's not liability,
Speaker 1: it's not comprehensive, it's not theft, nothing except for fire itself.
Speaker 2: Pipe breaks.
Speaker 1: You're done if your house floods out, and it costs
Speaker 1: a fortune. The rates are very expensive, and the limitation
Speaker 1: I think is around two point two to two point
Speaker 1: three million dollars I think is the most they'll pay out,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of money for most of us.
Speaker 1: I mean, not too many people have homes that are
Speaker 1: worth two point two million dollars, but every one of
Speaker 1: those homes and palisades are, and certainly in Malibu, and
Speaker 1: you're not going to replace an eleven thousand square foot
Speaker 1: home for two million dollars.
Speaker 4: But is the house itself? Is the value based on
Speaker 4: its location? That sure?
Speaker 2: No, we're talking about hard costs. Were just talking about
Speaker 2: hard costs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to build the house. That's what fire insurance is about,
Speaker 1: just rebuilding. That's it, okay, But I want to go
Speaker 1: into a deeper conversation as to what is happening. As
Speaker 1: I said, and as we all know, this has become
Speaker 1: an international story beyond just a national story, and so
Speaker 1: we're going to get a couple of different views of it.
Speaker 1: Alex Stone, who's an ABC News correspondent, is going to
Speaker 1: give you what he's reporting nationally, what that take is,
Speaker 1: and he happens to be in Altadena. Michael Munts, our
Speaker 1: reporter KFI reporter is in the Palisades area.
Speaker 2: He'll be reporting. And then we have a.
Speaker 1: Couple of press conferences. What I think there's a press
Speaker 1: conference at eight o'clock, yes, the fire officials, which of
Speaker 1: course will be covering, and then at a thirty assuming
Speaker 1: the press conference doesn't go on forever, Jim Keeney is
Speaker 1: going to be with us, and obviously we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the effects of smoke inhalation, what it's about,
Speaker 1: long term, short term, medium term of fire injuries, burn injuries,
Speaker 1: which we now know there are several and they're probably
Speaker 1: getting me much more. And that's the very unique part
Speaker 1: of medicine, is dealing with burn injuries. So there was
Speaker 1: a lot going on and you were in We talked
Speaker 1: about it a voluntary evacuation order or we're waiting for
Speaker 1: the evacuation order. Yeah, yes, I had asked you do
Speaker 1: you have a go bag?
Speaker 2: And you said yes, What exactly were you doing and
Speaker 2: what was in it?
Speaker 1: And how close were you actually bailing out getting out
Speaker 1: of dodge.
Speaker 6: Well, I figured, if we're gonna sit there and get
Speaker 6: these notices, I might as well be prepared in case,
Speaker 6: just in case. You never know, these embers fly far,
Speaker 6: and you know, we were in an evacuation potential area.
Speaker 6: So I mean, we just put like photo albums, birth certificates, passports,
Speaker 6: just those types of things in our car and.
Speaker 2: Just we're already in a car and then yeah, we're
Speaker 2: ready to My car is loaded right now. Actually, okay,
Speaker 2: ready to jump in the car.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Pamela, my daughter Pamela, who is
Speaker 1: in with Woodland Hills area, and she was very close
Speaker 1: into a couple of voluntary evacuation orders and she was
Speaker 1: the light was flickering on and off, and she would say,
Speaker 1: there's no power in the house.
Speaker 2: Dad. She was on a cell phone. Obviously there's no
Speaker 2: power in the house.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden three minutes later or
Speaker 1: two minutes later, Ah, the.
Speaker 2: Powers back on.
Speaker 1: Go.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those Department Water and Water and Power people are very
Speaker 1: good about repairing.
Speaker 2: It takes them two minutes. Yeah, flickering all night, Yeah,
Speaker 2: those are trained squirrels.
Speaker 1: You know that the DWP has that repairs that stuff
Speaker 1: very quickly. Do we know, and let me go to
Speaker 1: Amy on this one, Amy, do we know how many
Speaker 1: voluntary blackouts? That is the power company blocking off electricity cutting,
Speaker 1: shutting it down for fear of the power lines igniting
Speaker 1: the structures or the brush around the structures.
Speaker 3: We know that in southern California about three hundred thousand
Speaker 3: people are without power. We do not know which of
Speaker 3: those might have been precautionary shutoffs and which might have
Speaker 3: been as a direct result of fire activity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's fairly new southern California.
Speaker 4: Edison did implement preventive power shutoffs, but as Amy said,
Speaker 4: they didn't say what areas or how many homes were affected.
Speaker 1: Now, usually by this time we hear from the fire
Speaker 1: officials that the fire started under where they're investigating the
Speaker 1: origin of the fire, which means was at arson, Was
Speaker 1: it caused by somebody? Any information of that, because I've
Speaker 1: been waiting to hear whether that's even being looked at.
Speaker 3: We do not have any kind of information on the
Speaker 3: sources of the fires.
Speaker 2: I mean, think of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've you've been covering fires for a whole
Speaker 1: lot of years. We don't know how many structures have burnt,
Speaker 1: no idea, how many homes, no idea how many people,
Speaker 1: for example, have ignored evacuation orders, although at this point
Speaker 1: I can't think of anybody in their right mind that
Speaker 1: would ignore an evacuation order. I mean, it happens all
Speaker 1: the time with hurricanes. Yeah, just let it, you know,
Speaker 1: come over me. I knew I was gonna I knew
Speaker 1: we were gonna be okay just before there literally swept away.
Speaker 1: And it's the evil Witch of the West.
Speaker 4: You know, there was one that we had all seen
Speaker 4: because somebody was shooting video from their own home on
Speaker 4: their phone. There was a couple of guys and I
Speaker 4: think a dog in Pacific Palisades and they have these beautiful,
Speaker 4: massive windows, and the fire was right outside. I mean
Speaker 4: it basically was anove. And I have not heard any
Speaker 4: updates about them, but they were unable to get out.
Speaker 4: From what I had seen, that would be one that
Speaker 4: I would be curious about, for sure.
Speaker 2: There was.
Speaker 1: I was watching one of the news outlets, and I
Speaker 1: don't know whether it was eleven or five or two,
Speaker 1: because I was going back and forth on all the channels,
Speaker 1: and one of the reporters was there in front of
Speaker 1: the camera. Behind you could see the smoke going sideways.
Speaker 1: The wind was blowing so hard, and.
Speaker 2: One second she's there, the next second she's not. It's
Speaker 2: like in vaudeville they got.
Speaker 1: The hook and yanked it and you flew off the stage.
Speaker 2: Oh it was insane.
Speaker 3: But there are seventy eighty mile Prier in Palisades.
Speaker 1: Amy. I noticed you're not out there reporting in the
Speaker 1: middle of these howling winds.
Speaker 3: It's my job to be here.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: We have Michael Monks out on the lines, you have
Speaker 3: Alex Stone out on the lines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk to them, and I want you to mention,
Speaker 1: you know, when I will start, I'll mention how comfortable
Speaker 1: you are when we start talking to them. We heard
Speaker 1: from the weather people that this high wind event is
Speaker 1: coming when you days in advance, and so there was
Speaker 1: plenty of warning, and you had Southern California fire departments La.
Speaker 2: County, La City.
Speaker 1: I think you had the various other adjacent fire departments
Speaker 1: all ready to go and stay each right.
Speaker 2: Well, did that help? And I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: Later on, Chuck Lovers, who has been a friend of
Speaker 1: mine for twenty.
Speaker 2: Five years and he was with La County Fire.
Speaker 1: He if he had not retired, and he retired a
Speaker 1: few years ago, he would be on.
Speaker 2: The fire line right now.
Speaker 1: I would be having a reporter throw a microphone in
Speaker 1: his face and say, Chuck, what are you doing now?
Speaker 2: What is happening?
Speaker 1: And I have a couple of questions to ask Chuck
Speaker 1: that frankly, very few other people are getting because he
Speaker 1: could tell me inside, tell us inside baseball. And then
Speaker 1: I want to talk to Gary Gary Hoffman a little
Speaker 1: bit later on, because he described driving in and what
Speaker 1: he saw. He came from the north. He came from
Speaker 1: Santa Clarita into burbank Gary of the North, Gary of
Speaker 1: the North.
Speaker 2: Gary. Yeah, and Amy, who lives you live east of here? Right?
Speaker 3: Aby, I live south of here.
Speaker 1: Okay, she lives. She lives south of here. And you're
Speaker 1: of the South, Amy of the South. Cono, you live
Speaker 1: just east of Denver, right, pretty much?
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much?
Speaker 3: Might have. He got quite a spectacle on his way in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, ConA, what did you see coming in? And
Speaker 1: usually it takes you what forty five minutes to get in?
Speaker 5: Yeah, closer to an hour with no traffic, with no
Speaker 5: traffic yeaheah. So I'm like lo Melinda out in the
Speaker 5: Inland Empire. So and I was corrected. I was saying
Speaker 5: the Silmar fire. But it's the Altadena fire that I
Speaker 5: was seeing off the one thirty four when the two
Speaker 5: ten turns into the one thirty four, and it basically
Speaker 5: just looked like armageddon.
Speaker 2: Just those are the hills. Those are the hills.
Speaker 1: If you're heading from the east to the right, the
Speaker 1: foothills sort of northeast of Pasadena and Altadena is up
Speaker 1: against those hills.
Speaker 4: You can see that fire from here in the studio.
Speaker 4: If I turn around I look out the window, I
Speaker 4: can see it coming down, miserable.
Speaker 2: Just the wind is still going now.
Speaker 1: The worst of it, I understand, was done by around
Speaker 1: six am this morning, about an hour ago.
Speaker 2: That's what the weather report said.
Speaker 1: And then throughout the morning, Amy, I know you're following
Speaker 1: this much closer than we are because you're right on
Speaker 1: top of it, and you're in front of all the
Speaker 1: news computers.
Speaker 3: And what are you asking about the winds?
Speaker 1: I completely forgot we were asking about the winds. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a joke, by the way, Neil, I knew.
Speaker 2: Exactly what I was asking. Stop at that was a joke.
Speaker 2: By hear the moment joke, Amy, I was.
Speaker 1: I was asking about the weather National Weather Service and
Speaker 1: the winds when they died or will die down, and
Speaker 1: what we're looking at.
Speaker 3: They're not going to die down for a while. We
Speaker 3: did talk to Mike Woff with the National Weather Service
Speaker 3: this morning. The winds are still blowing. They're not blowing
Speaker 3: as strong as they were, but we still have red
Speaker 3: flag warnings in effect until at least tomorrow evening. We
Speaker 3: could see gus still up to seventy miles per hour
Speaker 3: one clocked. Neil mentioned this earlier. One clock didn't act
Speaker 3: in at one hundred and fifteen miles an hour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is hurricane strength.
Speaker 1: I mean it's four, but that's pretty Yeah, that's pretty insane.
Speaker 4: And then Toto, wasn't he saying on your way in
Speaker 4: that you saw a truck or something top of Oh.
Speaker 2: No, I saw it's like seven.
Speaker 5: I think around seven that.
Speaker 2: I counted big rigs that were over.
Speaker 5: But the wind is I mean, you know it's a
Speaker 5: big deal, but I didn't really take it into perspective
Speaker 5: until I'm driving, you know, at eighty miles an hour
Speaker 5: and I'm seeing actual massive trees now down that I
Speaker 5: have to look out for.
Speaker 1: Whether it's no like, was was your car buffeted at
Speaker 1: all by the winds coming in?
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to explain what buffeted The winds affected
Speaker 2: the car?
Speaker 1: Were one and you said you went sideways or you
Speaker 1: swerve because of the wind power.
Speaker 4: Well at he was missing a door and there's no window,
Speaker 4: that's not your shield, and.
Speaker 2: None of that is true.
Speaker 5: But yes, it was affecting my car along with other
Speaker 5: people's cars and big rigs.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not driving you.
Speaker 1: Could understand because big rigs are basically a sail in
Speaker 1: the shape of a box, and the wind comes against
Speaker 1: those things, and that's a lot of wind.
Speaker 4: It is ultimate gottam here. That's what's key, that's what's important.
Speaker 4: It's a multwagen.
Speaker 1: Okay, Amy, you drove in for a bit. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you, did you would did the wind affect
Speaker 1: your drive?
Speaker 2: Did you feel it?
Speaker 3: It did? Yes, but it was once I made the
Speaker 3: made the turn onto the one thirty four and headed
Speaker 3: west and was hitting the valley.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I and it comes to the point,
Speaker 1: and there's a point of this conversation somewhere, and that
Speaker 1: is if the winds are strong enough to move a
Speaker 1: car or to take a big rig off the road,
Speaker 1: can you imagine what it does to a fire? That is,
Speaker 1: all the fires consume oxygen, and the more oxygen they get,
Speaker 1: the hotter they burn.
Speaker 2: Of course, there has to be fuel a lah brush.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: And but for saying that the winds are eighty miles
Speaker 1: per hour, which is a massive quote event wind event. Amy.
Speaker 1: If this was forty miles an hour, this would be
Speaker 1: big news, wouldn't it.
Speaker 3: It could be if the conditions were ripe. What makes
Speaker 3: the wind conditions so devastating or potentially devastating here is
Speaker 3: because the humidity levels are very low and we haven't
Speaker 3: had much rain, so the ground is very dry and
Speaker 3: it's just ready to burn.
Speaker 4: So, by the way, I just got up to look
Speaker 4: out the window. Here, go look at that, and it
Speaker 4: is insane. So that fire has now become this massive
Speaker 4: black cloud that's moving our way here in Burbank.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 4: Before all you could see is the flames serpenting up
Speaker 4: the mountain, and now we have It's so it's hard
Speaker 4: to describe the difference between the sky I'm looking at
Speaker 4: now and then you peek around the corner in the
Speaker 4: studio here and that is I'm assuming that is the
Speaker 4: eating fire, the Altadena Pasadena fire. Now it's just massive,
Speaker 4: this cloud that is coming our way, and it is
Speaker 4: pitch black.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when it started, of course, it was a
Speaker 1: spot fire that started. And because of what we were
Speaker 1: talking about, the massive winds, the fuel, the brush that's
Speaker 1: available to it, that's a bone dry and also humidity.
Speaker 1: Aimy even been reporting on the humidity because that is
Speaker 1: ridiculously low, which of course adds quote fuel to the.
Speaker 3: Fire absolutely, and the humidity levels are expected to stay
Speaker 3: low through at least tomorrow, which is why those red
Speaker 3: flag warnings for high fire danger will remain in effect.
Speaker 3: The winds are still going to be blowing, not quite
Speaker 3: as as strong as overnight. The humidity levels stay low.
Speaker 3: That keeps the fire danger really high, and new fires
Speaker 3: could crop up at any time. We've got the new
Speaker 3: one burning in the Supulvida basin. It just started at
Speaker 3: six o'clock this morning and it's already whipped up to
Speaker 3: seventy five acres.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is KFI A M six forty. You've been
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