Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: They have a special fire coverage, of course, covering the
Speaker 2: fires that continue to burn in these very very windy
Speaker 2: conditions throughout La County. We have three, although they keep
Speaker 2: saying they want to shoehorn a fourth in there and
Speaker 2: there's no need. Three big fires. The Palisades Fire burning
Speaker 2: out Malibu between Malibu and Santa Monica through Pacific Palisades,
Speaker 2: well over five thousand acres is an under estimate as
Speaker 2: to how much ground has burned up. The county fire
Speaker 2: chief did say that about a thousand structures were destroyed.
Speaker 2: That number could also be low. A high number of
Speaker 2: significant injuries that again the Palisades Fire. The Eton Fire
Speaker 2: in the Altadina Pasadena area has now burned more than
Speaker 2: ten thousand acres according to the Angelus National Forest. We
Speaker 2: do know there were two fatalities in that fire, but
Speaker 2: at this point point unknown cause of the fatalities, also
Speaker 2: a number of significant significant injuries and well over one
Speaker 2: hundred structures destroyed there. The third one, burning in the
Speaker 2: northernmost area of the San Fernando Valley. The Hurst Fire
Speaker 2: up near Silmar is over five hundred acres burning in
Speaker 2: an old burn scar from the old Saddle Ridge Fire
Speaker 2: and has caused been cause for several evacuations as well.
Speaker 2: We're keeping an eye on a fire station out of
Speaker 2: Santa Monica where we expect to have President Biden and
Speaker 2: Governor Newsom take part in a news conference in a
Speaker 2: short time.
Speaker 1: Biden was just a Cedar Sinai where Hunter's wife, the
Speaker 1: one he married in twenty nineteen after just six days
Speaker 1: of knowing her, is giving birth to their second child.
Speaker 1: It was a planned c section there. He was in
Speaker 1: town to do the two monuments right over in the
Speaker 1: Inland Empire, and then they decided he would not be
Speaker 1: doing that because of the fire. So he was hunkered
Speaker 1: down somewhere overnight in La went to Cedars this morning,
Speaker 1: and it's going to the fire station now. But that's
Speaker 1: neither here nor They're not important. No politics is important
Speaker 1: right now. It was devastation and eating canyon overnight where
Speaker 1: that brush fire that started last night round six six
Speaker 1: thirty something like that. It exploded overnight because the winds
Speaker 1: were so insane. We mentioned that ninety nine mile per
Speaker 1: hour wind in Altadena clocked at about nine thirty last night.
Speaker 3: That is just where you're.
Speaker 1: Finding home after home after home just gone. And again
Speaker 1: the fire crew saying we are spread too thin. And
Speaker 1: when you think about the distances between the fires as well,
Speaker 1: it's great, great distances between the Palisades and Eaton Canyon
Speaker 1: area as well.
Speaker 3: And I think it is telling that a lot of
Speaker 3: times with.
Speaker 1: These fires, you'll hear the firefighters say, you know, just
Speaker 1: get out, just get out of your neighborhoods, you know,
Speaker 1: to leave the hoses there so that we can use
Speaker 1: them if we need to. You're not hearing that because
Speaker 1: they don't have enough crews to respond to every single
Speaker 1: residential fire that's sprouting up. So you've got people manning
Speaker 1: the hoses trying to water down the bushes and the
Speaker 1: trees and the fences and everything around the homes because
Speaker 1: of what you saw also in past in the Pacific
Speaker 1: Palisades yesterday where the fire crews couldn't get to the
Speaker 1: top of Palisades Drive because of all the traffic moving
Speaker 1: down all four lanes from the mountain, and then saying
Speaker 1: that if you're at the top, shelter in place, don't leave.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Obviously, people's eyeballs are important when we see the beginnings
Speaker 2: of these things. And the very first indication that we
Speaker 2: had of this fire yesterday in Palisades was listener Felix,
Speaker 2: who called and left us a talk back.
Speaker 5: Oh, Garre at Salamonica. I'm facing north of Gloriafield Exit.
Speaker 5: It's a giant fire. I don't know if we just
Speaker 5: want to talk about that. It's yeah, these ways going
Speaker 5: to be killed.
Speaker 6: Take care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that basically started what began twenty four hours
Speaker 2: of wall to wall coverage up to this point. At
Speaker 2: this point, Felix actually is joining us live now on
Speaker 2: the phone to talk more. Felix, hey man, thanks for
Speaker 2: having great eyeballs yesterday. Good when you saw this yesterday,
Speaker 2: you have any expectation that it was going to get
Speaker 2: this bad?
Speaker 6: I kind of did. Just the wind were so bad
Speaker 6: and the flames were just so so strong already, even
Speaker 6: if it's just on top of the ridge, you were
Speaker 6: able to tell that it wasn't going to be an
Speaker 6: easy battley to pay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could kind of hear it in your voice.
Speaker 1: You're like, these winds are not good. This is not
Speaker 1: going to be a good situation. You know, we kind
Speaker 1: of had the same feeling yesterday when we were talking
Speaker 1: about it, talking to Henry to Carlo, and you know,
Speaker 1: you hear all this hyperbole about you know, Arctic blasts
Speaker 1: and atmospheric river and polar vortegs and Arctic outbreak and
Speaker 1: it's just like this hysteria. But when we are about
Speaker 1: this wind event, with these crazy ass mountain wave winds.
Speaker 3: You just kind of knew it was gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: hit us very different.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the winzard are consistent, they're being they may not
Speaker 6: be extremely strong, but they're they're there. I'm working, I
Speaker 6: work on doors, so I'm just constantly feeling the wind.
Speaker 4: Oh man, what do you do?
Speaker 6: I delivered for the brown trunk.
Speaker 4: The brown trucks got it. I know. I like those guys. Felix, again,
Speaker 4: thanks for thanks for calling us when you saw that yesterday.
Speaker 2: It's it's important we get that information quickly, and you
Speaker 2: were the first.
Speaker 1: Thanks you, and thanks for continuing to work through all
Speaker 1: this mess.
Speaker 6: Thank you. I appreciate your all.
Speaker 4: You know, as they say, brown never stops.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't like that. No, it's a brown storm.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, that's the cruise.
Speaker 4: Thanks Felix, We appreciate it you too.
Speaker 2: We are in Santa Monica, the City of l a
Speaker 2: fire chief is giving President Sandalus an update looking at
Speaker 2: a map and aerial map of the Palisades fire warning.
Speaker 7: Around ten thirty. We did pre deploy a number of resources.
Speaker 7: We knew this was there was a potential for a
Speaker 7: significant threat to our constituents due to the weather event
Speaker 7: high high, high winds. I've never seen the winds in
Speaker 7: my twenty five year career, so we leaned forward as
Speaker 7: much as possible and pre deployed with that. We had
Speaker 7: a significant amount of fire that occurred. We had an
Speaker 7: aggressive fire attack. The fire has grown from originally ten
Speaker 7: acres to ten thousand, eight hundred and two acres as
Speaker 7: we speak. It's an active, active firefight with our firefighters
Speaker 7: and they're doing their very best to protect our people
Speaker 7: within this area.
Speaker 3: Interesting enough, because.
Speaker 7: Of the winds and the low humidity, we had a
Speaker 7: second fire also break out, and that was the Hurst Fire,
Speaker 7: which is just north.
Speaker 3: Of that area.
Speaker 7: Again, this was close to eleven one thousand acres. This
Speaker 7: is close to five hundred acres. That also broke out.
Speaker 7: The information that I want to share with you is
Speaker 7: also the significance of multiple fires in the area within
Speaker 7: the city but also the county.
Speaker 3: That's the second.
Speaker 7: Fire that actually came out and we're actively engaged in
Speaker 7: that firefight. The third fire then broke out this morning
Speaker 7: at four o'clock in the morning, in which we have
Speaker 7: an active firefight there as well. We're working with our
Speaker 7: local jurisdictions, our state, regional, as well as federal, so
Speaker 7: we're doing everything we can to protect life first and
Speaker 7: property next. We'll go ahead and then pass this off
Speaker 7: to Police Chief McDonald.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you, Chief, Miss President.
Speaker 8: It's an honor to be able to be here and
Speaker 8: be part of this and represent the men and women
Speaker 8: of LAPD and policing to support our partners in the
Speaker 8: fire service. What we saw here in the last twenty
Speaker 8: four hours is unprecedented. I've never seen anything like this.
Speaker 8: Fire is driven by the type of winds that we
Speaker 8: saw up to one hundred miles an hour. Our role
Speaker 8: out there is strictly support to be there for evacuations,
Speaker 8: to get people out of the affected area, to be
Speaker 8: able to provide for traffic control and then crime suppression
Speaker 8: as the fire is fought and some may come in
Speaker 8: and try and take the opportunity to go into these
Speaker 8: homes and steal from them. So we're going to be
Speaker 8: on top of that. I just want to say the
Speaker 8: relationship we enjoy here in my case under the leadership
Speaker 8: of Mayor Bass, but all of our elected officials, is
Speaker 8: unlike I think anywhere else in the country. We are
Speaker 8: blessed to have the relationship between police and fire that
Speaker 8: we do here. Unfortunately we do this kind of thing frequently,
Speaker 8: never to this level, but I can't say enough about
Speaker 8: how important that is. And as we go into the
Speaker 8: next five years with the Super Bowl and the World
Speaker 8: Cup and the Olympics coming up, it's critical that we
Speaker 8: maintain those partnerships.
Speaker 4: So thank you for this opportunity circuit.
Speaker 8: Oh sorry, let me introduce my partner from the county
Speaker 8: Fire Department, Chief Tony Maloney.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so thank you. I'm going to be giving you
Speaker 9: an update on our Eaton fire, which is east of
Speaker 9: cornst The county starts all the way up in Lancaster
Speaker 9: and goes all the way down to the Long Beach border.
Speaker 9: We go from the county line in Fadura all the
Speaker 9: way out to Pomona four three hundred acres, so we
Speaker 9: have a fire east of the Palisades Fire that began
Speaker 9: last night. It's called the Eton Fire. It's currently ten thousand,
Speaker 9: six hundred acres zero percent containment. We have over seven
Speaker 9: hundred and fifty firefighters on the line. Unfortunately, two people
Speaker 9: have lost their lives. Residents have lost their lives at
Speaker 9: the Eaton fire. It's impacting tens of thousands of homes,
Speaker 9: not only in the city of Pasadena, but also the
Speaker 9: county area of Altadena, and we're doing our very best.
Speaker 9: We just had our out of state resources arrived from
Speaker 9: Arizona at the Eaton fire to assist us. Last night,
Speaker 9: as the Region one coordinator, I contacted the Governor's Office
Speaker 9: of Emergency Services. We requested two hundred and fifty additional
Speaker 9: engines into La County with one thousand personnel. We also
Speaker 9: are using our inner our compacts with other states like Arizona, Nevada, Oregon,
Speaker 9: and Washington. Firefighters from those regions are on their way
Speaker 9: down to Los Angeles County right now to assist us.
Speaker 9: So thank you for your interest, thank you for your attention.
Speaker 1: You get him a microphone? Why are people not good
Speaker 1: at their jobs?
Speaker 9: Ken?
Speaker 2: We are listening to President Biden speaks well from a
Speaker 2: mile away.
Speaker 10: Apparently driving me.
Speaker 1: Because he's talked to the Department of Defense about this.
Speaker 1: California National Guard, California National Guard. Good lord, why can't
Speaker 1: they get the president a microphone? For the love for
Speaker 1: more SOT? Okay, you know what, that's not gonna go
Speaker 1: any better. He's not on Mike. He's not on Mike.
Speaker 1: I've got an update here. We'll monitor this. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna listen to bad audio. We've got an update from
Speaker 1: the watch Duty app. By the way, the watch Duty
Speaker 1: app has been key. There's been a lot to talk
Speaker 1: about this on Twitter and elsewhere.
Speaker 3: It is true. It is a great app.
Speaker 1: It's nonprofit, and it's fantastic in terms of the updates.
Speaker 1: It's a free app again watch Duty. It reports that
Speaker 1: the Palisades fire now that radio traffic indicates the fire
Speaker 1: is advancing up the canyon and will reach Old Topanga
Speaker 1: in about an hour.
Speaker 3: Reversing direction there uh not.
Speaker 2: They did see some of that kind of fire behavior yesterday,
Speaker 2: but it was not well reported. They did, you know,
Speaker 2: instances of it, but it wasn't. I mean, the benefit
Speaker 2: that we have today, obviously is daylight. For one thing,
Speaker 2: lower wind speeds and wind gusts, So we do have
Speaker 2: aircraft in the air so they can see that sort
Speaker 2: of behavior and give us a heads up. The other
Speaker 2: thing that the fire chief did mention was that Palisades
Speaker 2: fires close to eleven thousand acres. Remember we were saying
Speaker 2: earlier today that five thousand that he estimate that he
Speaker 2: gave in the first news conference was very very low,
Speaker 2: and as I was saying multiple times, it's going to
Speaker 2: come out much higher than that, the ten thousand, eight
Speaker 2: hundred and two acres of the Palisades fire.
Speaker 1: But by the time we're done with this, it's going
Speaker 1: to be in the tens of thousands, if not, you know,
Speaker 1: six figures.
Speaker 2: You mentioned this earlier. The acreage isn't what is most
Speaker 2: important here. Most important here is a that we had
Speaker 2: no fatalities. We did have a high number of significant injuries,
Speaker 2: but that we've seen one thousand structures destroyed. That was
Speaker 2: the That was the number that was given by the
Speaker 2: county fire chief early this morning. A thousand structures destroyed.
Speaker 2: And that's just the Palisades fire. That doesn't count the
Speaker 2: Eaten fire over an Altadena in Pasadena.
Speaker 4: This is continued. Nobody has a microphone.
Speaker 2: Nobody has a microphone in that in that fire station,
Speaker 2: and there's a dozen cameras they're watching that.
Speaker 1: Let's it's not a time, it's not about the what
Speaker 1: day is it is? Wednesday eleven, nineteen and forty nine seconds?
Speaker 2: There is a microphone on a boom that's about sixty
Speaker 2: feet away from the guy's face.
Speaker 3: I understand that. I understand that we're going to get
Speaker 3: through this together.
Speaker 4: I doubt it.
Speaker 3: We're taking your calls one eight hundred five.
Speaker 2: Now they're offering everybody out, Ladies and gentlemen, out of
Speaker 2: the room, no questions.
Speaker 1: You're yelling one eight hundred and five to zero, one KFI.
Speaker 1: This is a horrific morning, a lot of shock. A
Speaker 1: lot of people who didn't even know that they were
Speaker 1: going to have to evacuate, got out in the nick
Speaker 1: of time, and then went back this morning and there's
Speaker 1: nothing left. I mean, just a freaking whiplash morning for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Eaton Canyon Pacific Palisades a mess.
Speaker 1: So if you've had an experience overnight a lot of
Speaker 1: us have, let us know. We'll talk about it together.
Speaker 1: One eight hundred and five to zero, one KFI. The
Speaker 1: big three, of course, being of the Palisades, which we've
Speaker 1: been monitoring for more than twenty four hours now, Altadino
Speaker 1: which exploded overnight sheer devastation there as well, and Sillmar
Speaker 1: being the site of the latest big one. There have
Speaker 1: been other smaller ones popping up all over the place,
Speaker 1: but these are the three big ones. The good news,
Speaker 1: I guess, if there is any for people whose homes
Speaker 1: still stand, is that the water dropping aircraft have resumed flight.
Speaker 1: The winds have died down, which will make it all
Speaker 1: not for not the way it was yesterday and you
Speaker 1: saw whatever aircraft were able to survive the winds and
Speaker 1: fly through the winds, they were kind of deemed irrelevant
Speaker 1: because they would drop the water and the water would
Speaker 1: just fly sideways. It wouldn't land because the winds were
Speaker 1: so erratic. You saw the flames blowing sideways. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was the angriest fire I've ever seen, and it
Speaker 1: was no match, no matter We've talked to firefighters and
Speaker 1: fire agencies, no matter how ready they were, how experienced
Speaker 1: they are. We have the best firefighting agencies in the
Speaker 1: world in La County, and I can't get over how
Speaker 1: frustrating it might be to be put up against a
Speaker 1: wind event that you just have no chance against.
Speaker 2: You were under an actual mandatory evacuation order. I was
Speaker 2: ready for one. I kept getting the alerts, but they
Speaker 2: were apparently sending them to the wrong zone. But I
Speaker 2: was ready to go. Dear, what was going on with you?
Speaker 2: I know you were in an area that was going
Speaker 2: to be you were nervous. I have a sense that
Speaker 2: you are a bit nervous.
Speaker 11: Well, I'm in Woodland Hills and I'm up in the hills,
Speaker 11: and you know, Shannon's been mentioning ninety eight mile per
Speaker 11: hour winds and she's not kidding.
Speaker 3: It was terrifying.
Speaker 11: I literally, and I'm not exaggerating, did not get a
Speaker 11: minute of sleep last night. My bags and my husband's bag,
Speaker 11: dog stuff were all packed to go. In fact, I
Speaker 11: was going to bring the dogs into work this morning.
Speaker 11: But fortunately my daughter was able to come over for
Speaker 11: a little bit so I can come to work.
Speaker 3: But terrifying. And we're very close to the Panga Canyon, so.
Speaker 11: There are areas and it's very confusing with the different zones,
Speaker 11: but there are areas into Panga Canyon that have mandatory
Speaker 11: evacuation orders. Were also very close to Calabasa. It's the same.
Speaker 11: So I am just ready to get out.
Speaker 1: Me.
Speaker 2: Let me say, I was confused last night when my
Speaker 2: first when my first alarm went off at about twelve
Speaker 2: fifteen this morning and it said that I was in
Speaker 2: an evacuation zone. I didn't think I was, but I
Speaker 2: went on to their there's a couple different.
Speaker 1: I mean, watching all in evacuation zones. It's just whether
Speaker 1: your zone has been alerted to it's turned off exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Watch Duty is that app that you mentioned a
Speaker 2: few minutes ago. That was great in terms of being
Speaker 2: able to very clearly see which zone you might be
Speaker 2: in or which zones are evacuation orders or warnings. The
Speaker 2: other one is Genesis Protect, which is ge Na Genesis
Speaker 2: Protect very similar in terms of the ability to zoom in,
Speaker 2: find your location where you are, and then compare that
Speaker 2: to which zones are under evacuation orders or warnings.
Speaker 3: And those two do work in conjunction at times as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My experience was my power was shut off just randomly
Speaker 1: at six pm. I didn't know if it was be
Speaker 1: peremptory preemptively shut off because I'm in a fire area.
Speaker 1: I'm right up against the foothills in the two ten
Speaker 1: quarridor where they were worried about, or if it was
Speaker 1: a power line down or whatever. And it was a
Speaker 1: pot a popcorn machine in my backyard for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term. Tables and chairs and plants just being
Speaker 1: thrown all over the place. And like Debra said, I
Speaker 1: was not going to be able to sleep, There's no way,
Speaker 1: Like you didn't get any sleep because your first alert,
Speaker 1: Gary went off at twelve fifteen. I knew I would
Speaker 1: not be able to sleep through that winds because I
Speaker 1: was worried that the trees in the backyard were come
Speaker 1: slight just come be thrown into the windows.
Speaker 3: Of the house.
Speaker 1: Like we heard Aaron said her dining room windows got
Speaker 1: blown out by the winds.
Speaker 3: That seemed like a very real possibility.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, my power was shut off at seven.
Speaker 11: And also I heard you talking earlier how you weren't
Speaker 11: able to listen to the station A same. I need
Speaker 11: to get a transistor radio as well, because I had
Speaker 11: my cell phone was everybody kept texting me to say
Speaker 11: if I was okay, which was very sweet, but I
Speaker 11: kept saying, don't text me anymore, and I don't want
Speaker 11: to answer it because I was trying to save the power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I had a battery ready to go
Speaker 1: for my phone, so I was able to have a
Speaker 1: full phone battery. But it didn't matter because because I
Speaker 1: couldn't get anything, I couldn't get online. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: to Twitter, I couldn't get online, I coudn't get any
Speaker 1: news source.
Speaker 3: I had nothing.
Speaker 1: And that's a terrible feeling, especially how connected we are now.
Speaker 3: It's not like it's nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen eighty five, we all had transistor radios
Speaker 1: at the home. We all had radios, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: a problem. Now we're so connected with these phones. When
Speaker 1: they stopped working, we're screwed. It's a bad place to be.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I couldn't wait to get into the
Speaker 1: car so I had access to an actual radio. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we will stay on top of this. Let us know
Speaker 1: your experience. One eight hundred and five to zero one
Speaker 1: kfive eight hundred five two oh one five three four
Speaker 1: will take your calls. See what happened in your life.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 2: Special coverage of these fires burning throughout southern California one
Speaker 2: thing to keep in mind. Former mayoral candidate Rick Ruiz
Speaker 2: was going to be on with John coming up right
Speaker 2: about one o'clock. Made some headlines yesterday when he went
Speaker 2: on Channel eleven and suggested that one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why we were seeing such damage inflicted on Pacific Palisades
Speaker 2: was crews were hooking up the fire hydrants and not
Speaker 2: getting any water pressure.
Speaker 4: So we'll we'll hear.
Speaker 2: From him again see if he can give flesh out
Speaker 2: some of the details about that.
Speaker 1: The bottom line right now is we've got more than
Speaker 1: one thousand homes gone devastated. We've got two people who
Speaker 1: have died in Alta Dina. We don't know the specifics
Speaker 1: of that. We know that people had a hard time
Speaker 1: escaping in both Alta Dina and in the Palisades because
Speaker 1: the flames were moving so quickly, so ferociously, covering two
Speaker 1: to three football fields in one minute.
Speaker 3: At times.
Speaker 1: We heard that Dukes was kind of a mass casualty situation,
Speaker 1: with burned people coming down from the hills seeking refuge there.
Speaker 3: These fires are out of control at the moment.
Speaker 1: The good news, if any, is that the winds were
Speaker 1: the most dangerous last night between ten PM and five
Speaker 1: am least definitely for that two to ten area there
Speaker 1: in Altadina, where the evacuations are vast.
Speaker 2: The fear was that when the sun came up, the
Speaker 2: winds would pick up. They have not, thankfully, and it
Speaker 2: appears that the peaks that we saw between say, ten
Speaker 2: o'clock last night and five o'clock this morning are gone
Speaker 2: for good. We will not see those wind gusts repeated.
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean that it's that we're out of
Speaker 2: the danger yet. The other thing is that when we
Speaker 2: saw the sun come up, we knew where we were
Speaker 2: going to see some pretty devastating pictures and those have
Speaker 2: come to four. I mean the images that are coming
Speaker 2: out of Pacific palisades, of entire sections of sunset gone.
Speaker 4: Andrew Sorry.
Speaker 1: Andrew Friedman is a senior climate reporter for Axios. He
Speaker 1: specializes in extreme weather climate science.
Speaker 3: Andrew, thanks for joining.
Speaker 10: Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: So this is, as we've.
Speaker 1: Said, been covering fires for decades, unprecedented to everyone who's
Speaker 1: lived in southern California for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Does nothing ever like this when it comes to this
Speaker 3: wind event.
Speaker 10: Yeah, this is the worst wind event in the Los
Speaker 10: Angeles County region since twenty eleven. What you haven't had before, however,
Speaker 10: is a wind event that is this powerful coinciding with
Speaker 10: this level of dryness. So usually when you have this
Speaker 10: wind event later in the season, so in November through January,
Speaker 10: that's not only your wet season, you expect it to
Speaker 10: be raining in southern California. However, that has not happened.
Speaker 10: The raining season has just extended the dry season right now.
Speaker 10: So we had that extreme wind event coinciding with this
Speaker 10: extreme dryness after a summer that was unusually hot. It's
Speaker 10: just been this disastrous ingredients that we could see coming
Speaker 10: that forecasters we're using very strong language from the National
Speaker 10: Weather Service, from TV broadcasters, from radio broadcasters. Everybody's trying
Speaker 10: to get the word out. But there's a limited amount
Speaker 10: of number of things that you can do before these players,
Speaker 10: you know, start in terms of preparing to evacuate, obviously,
Speaker 10: but now this is just this is just really everybody's
Speaker 10: fears come true.
Speaker 2: I think this is a lee that is definitely a
Speaker 2: lesson that people are going to learn from this in
Speaker 2: terms of in terms of preparation.
Speaker 4: And this is ironic.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm assuming you're you're calling us from the
Speaker 2: from the east coast where it's you know, twenty five
Speaker 2: degrees below what it would normally be this time of year.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we we've got into the tavama on the ground
Speaker 10: here in d C. So you know, I wish I
Speaker 10: could carry some of that over there and help you out.
Speaker 10: But I think that what people need to realize is,
Speaker 10: you know, when people talk about extreme weather and climate
Speaker 10: change and California fires, I think there's been a tendency
Speaker 10: to think about northern California and to think about, you know,
Speaker 10: the massive forest fires that we've seen in recent years.
Speaker 10: But these firestorms that can take place in the wildland
Speaker 10: urban interface, where they start at the edges of these
Speaker 10: forests in these hills and come roaring into populated communities
Speaker 10: is also part of what we're seeing with climate change
Speaker 10: in terms of making these events more likely, making hydro
Speaker 10: climate extremes more frequent, more severe, and more likely, as
Speaker 10: you see saw between two wet conditions too dry conditions.
Speaker 10: But this wind event, truly, truly is has been horrific,
Speaker 10: with winds upwards of one hundred miles an hour in
Speaker 10: some locations, and that obviously affects the firefighting efforts. We had,
Speaker 10: you had aircraft up last night, but they were grounded
Speaker 10: for most of today because of because of the winds.
Speaker 3: Andrew, thank you so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 10: Thank you, good luck and everybody out of here.
Speaker 2: Speaking, Thank you Andrew Friedman. When we come back, more
Speaker 2: of your calls. What's going on where you are? What
Speaker 2: was your night?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: One eight hundred and five to zero one five three four.
Speaker 1: Kings game against the Flames at Crypto tonight has been
Speaker 1: postponed because of the fires. We don't have a new
Speaker 1: date as well. The Palisades fire has expanded, as you
Speaker 1: were mentioning, as you were predicting, to more eight hundred.
Speaker 3: Acres according to cal Fire at this point.
Speaker 4: You know, this is one of those suggestions from a
Speaker 4: talkback here. I'll play for you in a second.
Speaker 2: We don't spend a whole lot of time on I mean,
Speaker 2: this is an immediate threat still to the areas around
Speaker 2: Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Santa Monica and of course Altadena, Pasadena
Speaker 2: and then Silmar. But this is a you know, you
Speaker 2: can have twelve million people and the Greater Southern fifteen
Speaker 2: million people in the greater Southern California area and this
Speaker 2: affects a few hundred thousand. Most of us are going
Speaker 2: to see some of the smoke or have an idea
Speaker 2: of what's going on, or maybe we know somebody who's
Speaker 2: been affected by this. But this will have impacts nationwide,
Speaker 2: and this is something that we don't think about all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 12: Hey, Gary and Shannon, my heart goes out to all
Speaker 12: those people affected by the fires in California. I don't
Speaker 12: think we think about how much commerce is being effected.
Speaker 12: But our freight here in Tucson was about two hours late,
Speaker 12: and I don't think we'll be sending much out going
Speaker 12: that way. So with probably something unrelated, we're having wins
Speaker 12: here at least twenty two miles an hour, and that's
Speaker 12: run and steady, and our air quality and parts of
Speaker 12: the city are considered to be highly unhealthy.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the big things that we noticed yesterday, that
Speaker 2: I heard Conway mention quite a bit, was the amount
Speaker 2: of dust, the amount of particulate that was in the air,
Speaker 2: not smoke, but just stuff that was brought in as
Speaker 2: the winds came across the desert and up and over
Speaker 2: the hills.
Speaker 1: You know, we've covered fires for twenty plus years living
Speaker 1: in California as reporters and working in news. And you know,
Speaker 1: I even right now, I'm under a mandatory evacuation order
Speaker 1: started last night, remains in place, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: wonderful to hear from family and friends texting and calling
Speaker 1: wondering how you're doing. And I say the refrain, and
Speaker 1: I you're so even though you're covering fires, you're still
Speaker 1: distance from them. Even if you're out there on the
Speaker 1: front lines with the command post or whatever, you're still distanced.
Speaker 1: You're still telling someone else's story. And even under a
Speaker 1: mandatory evacuation order, and I'm telling people checking up on me,
Speaker 1: I'm like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's just stuff. It's just stuff.
Speaker 1: Like, as long as people are safe in my neighborhood
Speaker 1: and everything, it's it's just stuff. But then I get
Speaker 1: pictures from friends and Altadena, one picture in particular from
Speaker 1: a friend in Altadena whose house has been reduced to ashes,
Speaker 1: and suddenly that whole it's just stuff line kind of
Speaker 1: sounds so trite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so vapid.
Speaker 2: Gigi Grossiette with Fox eleven has been in Pacific Palisades
Speaker 2: and has been stationed out in front of what used
Speaker 2: to be a mobile home park and it is. There
Speaker 2: is not a structure standing in that entire area, and
Speaker 2: that's that level of devastation. It adds a different feel
Speaker 2: to it. I mean, obviously, if it's your even if
Speaker 2: it was just your home, one home that was burned
Speaker 2: and it was your home, that's obviously devastating to you
Speaker 2: and your family.
Speaker 4: But the idea then that you.
Speaker 2: Are have that same I mean that there are that
Speaker 2: many families that are all feeling that same impact at
Speaker 2: the same time. It is it's almost overwhelming to think
Speaker 2: about the idea that I mean, Pacific Palisades is not
Speaker 2: going to look the same when this smoke clears, when
Speaker 2: this fire is tamped down, when they are able to
Speaker 2: get in there and get a true look at the
Speaker 2: be the station the same, because you almost can't, you
Speaker 2: cannot have that same, I mean the same vibe. I
Speaker 2: think that we talked about that with with Sue Cole,
Speaker 2: the Pacific Palisades Community Council President, about what that place
Speaker 2: means to those people who live and have lived in
Speaker 2: Palisades for you know, in some cases decades, and the
Speaker 2: she described it as kind of a Midwest feel despite
Speaker 2: the fact that you're on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Speaker 1: Now where the dust is settled in some place this
Speaker 1: is in the devastation has become clearer. It has not
Speaker 1: settled in many areas. We're looking at live shots right
Speaker 1: now from the Eton fire there Pasadena, Altadena area, and
Speaker 1: there are businesses on fire, homes on fire. You have
Speaker 1: yet to get your hands around any sort of understanding
Speaker 1: around the level of devastation there. Again, this is far
Speaker 1: from over. These two fires remain out of control, The
Speaker 1: Palisades Fire making its way as we speak to Old Tapanga.
Speaker 1: The winds remain a factor today, although not as devastating
Speaker 1: as we saw overnight, remain extremely.
Speaker 3: Difficult to battle with.
Speaker 1: If you are a firefighter, and you got to believe
Speaker 1: these guys gals are tired. They have all hands on deck,
Speaker 1: they called in all off duty firefighters.
Speaker 3: They still don't have enough people.
Speaker 1: There are crews coming down from Oregon, in Washington, northern California.
Speaker 3: Still maybe not enough people.
Speaker 1: Like we've said, you take the two biggest fires here
Speaker 1: and they rival when you talk about destruction and loss
Speaker 1: and just the ferocity of these things, they rival the
Speaker 1: worst wildfires in La County history.
Speaker 2: This is also I mentioned this very early this morning.
Speaker 2: It's reminiscent to me of the at least the Palisades
Speaker 2: fire by itself was reminiscent of the Oakland Hills fire
Speaker 2: from back in nineteen ninety one. In that there were
Speaker 2: it wasn't huge acreage, but the houses were so close together.
Speaker 2: I think that was about sixteen hundred acres in that
Speaker 2: Oakland Hills fire. They called it the Tunnel fire near
Speaker 2: the Caldecott Tunnel. Fifteen sixteen hundred acres burned, but almost
Speaker 2: three thousand single family homes.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the Cedar fire more recently in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three in San Diego. I remember covering
Speaker 1: that from Sacramento and just how quickly that thing moved,
Speaker 1: and that was driven by those Santa Ana fires moving
Speaker 1: at you know, thirty six hundred acres an hour or
Speaker 1: something crazy like that. It was just it moved too
Speaker 1: fast to contain, I mean, let alone contain, and move
Speaker 1: too fast to get away from it.
Speaker 3: And we're seeing that in both these places.
Speaker 2: One of the resources not just for people who are
Speaker 2: affected by the fires directly, but others who want to
Speaker 2: help out was mentioned by Lindsay Horvath from La County's
Speaker 2: third Supervisor, District Emergency dot La County dot gov. It's
Speaker 2: emergency information specifically about evacuation maps areas large animals, small
Speaker 2: animal evacuation centers, evacuation for human centers, but also places
Speaker 2: that if you have resources and you can volunteer, you
Speaker 2: have the time. This is going to take months, if
Speaker 2: not a couple of years, to get anything close to
Speaker 2: a semblance of normalcy. Emergency dot La County dot gov.
Speaker 4: You've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 2: You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
Speaker 2: forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
Speaker 2: and any time on demand on the iheartradiol