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: We heard sirens all night whatnot with literally amber bouncing
Speaker 2: off the window, and I thought it was flash light
Speaker 2: splashing in the window. We opened up the blind to
Speaker 2: see the neighbor's house on fire. The whole alley was
Speaker 2: on fire, the chain, our driveways on fired.
Speaker 3: That's Ernest, he called from Altadena earlier.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 1: We are taking your calls one eight hundred five two
Speaker 1: zero one KFI because this thing, this incident incidents. There
Speaker 1: are fires everywhere across southern California, from the Palisades to Silmar,
Speaker 1: Thousand Oaks. This morning, we've got the big one in Altadena.
Speaker 1: It is a mess where everyone is affected, and we
Speaker 1: really want to hear everyone's experience here today.
Speaker 5: Aaron is calling us from South Pasadena. What's going on?
Speaker 6: Erin hey there? So I'm calling for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 6: We are on the border of South Pasadena in Pasadena.
Speaker 6: The last night, from our window, we literally saw the
Speaker 6: entire hillside of Altadena catch on fire.
Speaker 7: The wind was.
Speaker 6: Blowing so strong that it blew out our dining room windows.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 6: Wow, the smoke is so sick in our house right
Speaker 6: now that my eyes are burning, my lungs are burning.
Speaker 6: Our power has been out for the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 6: And the reason I'm calling is when you guys put
Speaker 6: that public service announcement on to text your congressman to
Speaker 6: keep AM radio alive. That's the only thing that we had.
Speaker 6: If I didn't have my transistor radio or radio in
Speaker 6: our car, we would have had no idea about evacuation
Speaker 6: notices or anything at the time. So this is a
Speaker 6: public service announcement.
Speaker 9: Please text five to eight eight six AM radio and
Speaker 9: tell them to keep the AM radio stations alive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Aaron, you bring up a really good point that
Speaker 1: I noticed. I didn't notice last night when I called
Speaker 1: an e Mos show because my power went out there.
Speaker 1: I'm in kind of the same area you are, and
Speaker 1: my power went out, and so the Wi Fi goes
Speaker 1: out right, and I'm in my house and I listened
Speaker 1: to the station on the iHeartRadio app, So I don't
Speaker 1: really think about it, you know, when I'm at home,
Speaker 1: that's I just put the app on. But I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and I've got no WiFi and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get the news on my phone. I turned the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi off on my phone, which should still get me
Speaker 1: to the internet, but I wasn't getting Twitter, I wasn't
Speaker 1: getting any of the news sites.
Speaker 3: It was getting nothing.
Speaker 1: And so I just started reading a book, watching a
Speaker 1: show and one of my girlfriends text me and she says,
Speaker 1: are you close to Alta Dina? And I'm like yes,
Speaker 1: And so then I started to try and find information
Speaker 1: I couldn't and I'm like, where's the radio And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't have transistor radio in my house.
Speaker 3: I'm like, the iHeart radio app doesn't work.
Speaker 4: Where the hell I don't have it?
Speaker 1: And so I was like, number one, as soon as
Speaker 1: I get service again, I'm going on Amazon and buying
Speaker 1: a freaking transistor race. Because You're absolutely right, that was
Speaker 1: the only way. I couldn't wait to get in my
Speaker 1: car to turn on Kfi to hear what the hell
Speaker 1: was going on, because I was in a blackout, just
Speaker 1: like just like you would have been without.
Speaker 4: Your radio, Aeron.
Speaker 5: Are you going to stick around there or are you
Speaker 5: going to get out of the at least out of
Speaker 5: the smoke zone.
Speaker 6: Well, you know the problem is is that everywhere is
Speaker 6: a smoke zone right now. I did put together some
Speaker 6: things just in case, and of course I'm in asthmatic,
Speaker 6: so this is just like a double way. I don't know,
Speaker 6: you know. Again, like listening to the radio, you get
Speaker 6: some information. My friends in the Polisies have lost their home.
Speaker 6: My friends in Altadina, I have a feeling, have lost
Speaker 6: their home Silmar. Nobody really knows where to go. The
Speaker 6: Pasadena Convention Center is not far from me, and I
Speaker 6: know that that's a safe zone for people. But I'm
Speaker 6: prepared just in case. The wind has been so strong
Speaker 6: that who would have known that it would have traveled
Speaker 6: as far as it did in the Pasadena now Arcadia area.
Speaker 6: You know, we just don't know.
Speaker 5: Well, let me say yeah, from our perspective, we're kind
Speaker 5: of between the Eaton fire there in Pasadena, h Alta
Speaker 5: Dina and the Somar fire. If you were to just
Speaker 5: head up Foothill or the two ten there through Sunland
Speaker 5: into Honga along the base of the mountains there those fires,
Speaker 5: the smoke is not going that direction.
Speaker 4: So if if nothing else just to give.
Speaker 3: You, don't go there there, don't go there, go south.
Speaker 6: Do not because family in Orange County.
Speaker 1: Perfect way to go if you go to Orange County,
Speaker 1: That's what everyone's saying. Because here's the thing. You're not
Speaker 1: looking at just Alta, Dina. You're looking at Glendale, You're
Speaker 1: looking at Arcadia, Monrovia and now law Kenyata is all
Speaker 1: is all affected, Sunland into Hunga. I mean, those are
Speaker 1: those are the places where I'm most worried about today.
Speaker 5: I think I'm just looking for clear skies, just for
Speaker 5: at least a short time to get you some some rest.
Speaker 4: But Orange County, friend.
Speaker 3: There you go, that's perfect. That's what I did.
Speaker 6: I got to say, we're beach in a martini at
Speaker 6: this point, Aaron.
Speaker 1: Last night, when I took off from the hell fire,
Speaker 1: that was where we are. You know, I got on
Speaker 1: the two ten, by the way in my truck like
Speaker 1: I could barely. I took my arm strength to stay
Speaker 1: in the lane. The winds were blowing so so quickly
Speaker 1: and so strongly on the two ten, Get on the
Speaker 1: six o five. Look in my rear view mirror and
Speaker 1: it's just pitch black because everyone was out of power
Speaker 1: all along the foothill communities. No lights except for that
Speaker 1: red bright vein of the Eton Canyon fire.
Speaker 4: It was eerie.
Speaker 1: It was still windy on the six o five you
Speaker 1: get to the one oh five, no wind, clear skies,
Speaker 1: different worlds.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a nightmare. And just to put you know,
Speaker 9: wrap this all up with my thoughts, I can't even
Speaker 9: tell you the sadness I feel for everybody that's lost
Speaker 9: their homes, their animals, you know, everything. It's it's unimaginable.
Speaker 9: I'm so cal born and raised. I've never seen before
Speaker 9: in my entire life. And you know, we're okay up
Speaker 9: here on the hill, but I you know, I hope
Speaker 9: we can all come together and just help everyone out
Speaker 9: because this is not going to go away anytime soon.
Speaker 9: It's going to be a really long time before there's
Speaker 9: any sort of building back up again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, take care of yourself. Aaron, thank you for calling.
Speaker 6: Thank you too, you bet Aaron there.
Speaker 4: In South Pasadena. There we will here.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, we've seen the tragedy firsthand here over the last
Speaker 5: twenty four hours. We have said many times in situations
Speaker 5: like this, the important thing is we're going to be
Speaker 5: able to tell the good stories that have happened as well.
Speaker 5: Where we're going to be able to tell the stories
Speaker 5: about the neighbors who, even though they may have lost everything,
Speaker 5: helped their neighbors escape or help their neighbors save their
Speaker 5: house or Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of our friends says that he's been evacuated, evacuated
Speaker 1: with his family overnight, but his sister's house right now
Speaker 1: is what he's trying to defend because all of her
Speaker 1: neighbors' homes have burned to the ground. Hers still standing,
Speaker 1: he says. We keep putting out spot fires on our fences,
Speaker 1: bushes and trees, et cetera. Another person that a friend
Speaker 1: of the show who's on our show, has been on
Speaker 1: our show repeatedly, but want to keep her anonymity. Her
Speaker 1: home completely burned to the ground there in Altadina.
Speaker 5: All right, we will continue. We're doing our special coverage
Speaker 5: of these fires. They continue to burn here in southern California.
Speaker 5: Hoping for a much better weather day today. We know
Speaker 5: that at least the news helicopters are back in the skies.
Speaker 5: The fire aircraft are also back in the skies and
Speaker 5: are going to start to make some progress.
Speaker 4: We hope today we're going.
Speaker 1: To get an update in moments too by a meteorologist
Speaker 1: about what we can expect hour by hour as we continue,
Speaker 1: we want to get right to it right now because
Speaker 1: we have an Alli County supervisor that's got to get
Speaker 1: to one of those updates immediately.
Speaker 5: Lindsay Horvaf is the supervisor for the third District and
Speaker 5: both the Pacific Palisades fire and the fire burning and
Speaker 5: Silmar are in that third district. Supervisor, thanks for taking
Speaker 5: time for us today.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, thank you for keeping everybody informed.
Speaker 3: So what do you know right now? What is the latest?
Speaker 3: What are we looking at for today?
Speaker 6: So we are hoping that our conditions as we get
Speaker 6: into this day will be better than last night, so
Speaker 6: we can actually deploy more of our aerial equipment. Overnight,
Speaker 6: we couldn't do that because the winds got to what
Speaker 6: were hurricane like conditions and the speed and velocity they
Speaker 6: So we're hoping that we're going to be able to
Speaker 6: use those tools to aggressively attack this fire. We are
Speaker 6: deploying more resources. Obviously we're already in unified command as
Speaker 6: of new yesterday, but we are continuing to get resources
Speaker 6: from the state. We appreciate the leadership of Cow Fire
Speaker 6: and all of the jurisdictions that have come to the area,
Speaker 6: and we are in unified command not only for Palisades,
Speaker 6: but also for the Hearst fire. There's also a smaller fire,
Speaker 6: the Woodly Fire, in the Suppulvidabasin area, which is also
Speaker 6: in my district, and we're watching to see if there
Speaker 6: are other fires that pop up along the way as well.
Speaker 1: You've been getting regular briefings from La County fire executives.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming do you get I got to believe you
Speaker 1: get a sense of kind of frustration and hopelessness from
Speaker 1: the guys that are usually in gals that are usually
Speaker 1: on top of this. But this wind event just left
Speaker 1: not a lot of room for quick action because it
Speaker 1: just moves so quickly.
Speaker 6: Yes, I will say that our team is second to none.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't want to be in these circumstances with anybody
Speaker 6: else on the front line. So I know that they
Speaker 6: are giving it. They're all and we really appreciate how
Speaker 6: diligently and committed they are working to get this fire
Speaker 6: under control. We knew that the conditions were going to
Speaker 6: be very complicated, and the National Weather Services started informing
Speaker 6: us late last week and of course over the weekend,
Speaker 6: and we were hearing that these are conditions know at
Speaker 6: least on par with Wolvey, if not worse, and so
Speaker 6: we knew the state was already deploying resources over the
Speaker 6: weekend and staging them in the area. So god forbid
Speaker 6: we did get to this state, they were already here.
Speaker 6: So that allowed us to move into unified command pretty
Speaker 6: quickly yesterday. But you know, we also over the past
Speaker 6: year have been doing emergency preparedness trainings ever since I
Speaker 6: came into office, throughout our district, in many different communities
Speaker 6: to help make sure that they had access to emergency
Speaker 6: evacuation information to know what to do when your power
Speaker 6: is out or you don't have cellular coverage, and you know,
Speaker 6: we need to communicate with you in other ways to
Speaker 6: make sure you get out safely. We have a t
Speaker 6: set group of volunteer group led by James Brosso in
Speaker 6: the Topanga Canyon area, which really works to keep the
Speaker 6: entire canyon informed. About twelve thousand people really rely on
Speaker 6: their volunteer efforts and they have been absolutely extraordinary, and
Speaker 6: so when we had to evacuate the canyon last night,
Speaker 6: we worked with them to do that and do our
Speaker 6: best to keep everybody safe. So you know, it's an
Speaker 6: ongoing situation. That's still dynamic. While the worst of it,
Speaker 6: we believe was between ten pm last night and five
Speaker 6: this morning. We are still in red flag conditions through
Speaker 6: the end of day tomorrow. So we are by no
Speaker 6: means in the clear, and we are asking everyone to
Speaker 6: continue to heed those evacuation warnings as well as the orders.
Speaker 6: When you get a warning, get ready, because when you
Speaker 6: get the order, you got to go. It's not just
Speaker 6: about our residence safety. It's also about the safety of
Speaker 6: those who are on the front lines trying to get
Speaker 6: this thing under control. And the longer we wait on
Speaker 6: an evacuation order, the more we're putting them in harm's way.
Speaker 5: One last quick question for those people who are not
Speaker 5: under evacuation warnings or evacuation orders right now, what can
Speaker 5: they do?
Speaker 4: Is there a priority?
Speaker 5: Is there something you would like all the other members
Speaker 5: of La County to do?
Speaker 6: I would say, I've got to go into this free
Speaker 6: thing that I will say everyone should go to emergency
Speaker 6: dot La County dot gov. That is where the latest
Speaker 6: up dates and all relevant information is for anyone who
Speaker 6: is potentially at risk of being put under warning or
Speaker 6: getting an evacuation order. We will also be placing information
Speaker 6: there for any community members who want to volunteer and support.
Speaker 6: We've been getting a lot of generosity from Angelina's who
Speaker 6: are really trying to stand up for others really struggling
Speaker 6: during this difficult time. That kind of partnership is great.
Speaker 6: So it's an emergency at La County dot gov.
Speaker 1: Lindsay Horvatz, La County Supervisor, thanks so much for your time,
Speaker 1: and again, I can't stress enough just to get into
Speaker 1: your car and listen to the radio. Honestly, because Aaron,
Speaker 1: a caller we had this hour highlighted it. You're screwed
Speaker 1: without the radio because I had no internet access when
Speaker 1: my power went out and the Wi Fi went down.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's not the case everywhere, but it was
Speaker 1: certainly the case for me and the radio. Wherever you
Speaker 1: want to go for your news, we are a great source.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying it really helps because being in
Speaker 1: the dark when the conditions are still this bad is
Speaker 1: a horrible place to be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is going to get It's going to be
Speaker 5: a long day, and we will continue to bring you
Speaker 5: special fire coverage. We want to hear from you about
Speaker 5: what it is that's going on, and we'll take your
Speaker 5: calls a little bit later, but just write the number
Speaker 5: down eight hundred five to zero one five three four,
Speaker 5: eight hundred five to oh one KFI.
Speaker 4: But up next.
Speaker 5: Of course, the biggest character in this in this play
Speaker 5: is the wind and how it has fed these otherwise
Speaker 5: small fires into just these absolute terrifying fires that we
Speaker 5: saw explode yesterday and into last night.
Speaker 4: You mentioned the weird the detritus that was.
Speaker 5: On the roadways today when you're driving at it, so
Speaker 5: it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just when I was driving in. It was
Speaker 1: when I was leaving the house and my husband came
Speaker 1: home right before we left, and he said, because we
Speaker 1: were taking two different cars because we had two different
Speaker 1: jobs today, and so I leave first and he goes,
Speaker 1: just be careful.
Speaker 4: It's really crazy.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff in the roads. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I make it about thirty yards down my street and
Speaker 1: there's a pine tree that has fallen horizontally over the road,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, huh, And there's people turning around and
Speaker 1: going around, and I'm like, oh, I guess I could
Speaker 1: drive over this tree and in this truck. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've never used the four wheel drive. Maybe now is
Speaker 1: not the time to figure it out.
Speaker 8: I just see it.
Speaker 1: I drove around that and on my way, which is
Speaker 1: not very far maybe a mile mile and a half,
Speaker 1: to get to the two ten, I had to go
Speaker 1: around several different trees that had fallen in the road.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just a mess, just littered with
Speaker 1: trees and branches and what have you, and the leaves
Speaker 1: that were blowing up from the street just being whipped up.
Speaker 1: I guess I should say by the winds created not
Speaker 1: a lot of visibility. You felt like you were in
Speaker 1: the desert storm out there with the dust and the
Speaker 1: wind last night, especially between those hours of eight thirty
Speaker 1: ten to early this morning, it was just winds that
Speaker 1: you have never experienced.
Speaker 5: Maxiparis, as a meteorologists for News Nation, joins us. Talk
Speaker 5: more about this wind that's going on, and I mean
Speaker 5: just simply driving around doesn't matter how tall, how high
Speaker 5: profile your vehicle was. Yesterday you were getting blown out
Speaker 5: of the lanes that you were driving in. But it
Speaker 5: looks like the worst has passed in terms of the
Speaker 5: peak wind.
Speaker 4: Gus am, I.
Speaker 8: Right, Yeah, that's what we're seeing right now, that the
Speaker 8: winds are going to fully die off, but you still
Speaker 8: have that high wind warning across southern California lasting until
Speaker 8: six this evening Pacific time, so that's actually extended earlier
Speaker 8: today it was noon they were going to drop it,
Speaker 8: then it was two pm out six. So it does
Speaker 8: give you an idea that, you know, the worst of
Speaker 8: the winds are behind us, we still are going to
Speaker 8: be dealing with significant enough winds that are likely going
Speaker 8: to prevent any aircraft or many poppers from taking off
Speaker 8: to help with the fire suppression, simply because again, as
Speaker 8: you've seen overnight, with those sort of winds, it is
Speaker 8: still to win at the happens. So I really think
Speaker 8: it's going to take much of the day to get
Speaker 8: those planes up because as you know, I mean, these
Speaker 8: firefighters are really struggling to get not just protect the homes,
Speaker 8: but get into the more rural foothills in the tougher
Speaker 8: terrain there. So it's an intense situation. The Weather Service
Speaker 8: saying that this wind event, the Santanas that we're experiencing
Speaker 8: right now are the worst winds in fourteen years back
Speaker 8: to January of twenty eleven for a similar wind event,
Speaker 8: but of course you didn't have the historic wildfire outbreak
Speaker 8: that we're seeing right now, and that's what makes this
Speaker 8: so intense. So it's those two things combined. Not like
Speaker 8: the weather starts these fires, but of course as we're
Speaker 8: seeing the weather certainly causing the flames to spread much
Speaker 8: more quickly than would otherwise happen.
Speaker 1: As we look through the rest of today, what are
Speaker 1: our trouble spots in terms of when the winds will
Speaker 1: be peaking up?
Speaker 3: Picking up or peaking.
Speaker 8: Sure exactly as we discussed. I mean those winds up
Speaker 8: to one hundred miles per hour. I saw up to
Speaker 8: ninety four miles per hour at least out of Silverado.
Speaker 8: That was around three am. That's not going to be
Speaker 8: seen anymore. But we can still definitely get those gusts
Speaker 8: up to sixty miles per hour through the afternoon until
Speaker 8: the extreme wind warning ends. But we still have fire
Speaker 8: weather conditions continuing into tomorrow's forecast two. Even with the
Speaker 8: lighter wins, the humidity staying pretty low, and so that's
Speaker 8: going to still cause for elevated wildfire risk for this area.
Speaker 8: Seeing the outbreak all the way down to San Diego
Speaker 8: as well, more fires can break out is kind of
Speaker 8: a message that people should know, and that's why they're
Speaker 8: telling folks, hey, just make sure you have that go
Speaker 8: bag ready in case there's any other situations that get
Speaker 8: out of control.
Speaker 1: This quick follow up to win question, it was odd
Speaker 1: to me at least that usually, you know, when the
Speaker 1: sun goes down, the winds die down kind of thing
Speaker 1: in the past. But you know, we saw the most
Speaker 1: dangerous wins or some of the most dangerous winds between
Speaker 1: ten am and five am. So no repeat of the overnight, right.
Speaker 8: No, we should definitely still see a lessening of the winds.
Speaker 8: You know, they'll fluctuate, you know, it's not going to
Speaker 8: be a continual downward trend, but overall that will be
Speaker 8: what we do see getting into tomorrow's forecast. So again,
Speaker 8: I don't expect those winds to be up to category
Speaker 8: two hurricane strength like we saw last night. But it's
Speaker 8: really splitting hairs here. Even though the wind side of
Speaker 8: the story improves, you already have all these fires that
Speaker 8: are broken out, you know, tiring what more than five
Speaker 8: thousand acres right now, So the damage is already done.
Speaker 8: And let's put this into perspective. This time last month,
Speaker 8: we were talking about the Franklin fire in Malibu that
Speaker 8: burned only around four thousand acres and that took a
Speaker 8: week and a half to happen. So just typically because
Speaker 8: we do have these winds and they are saying, oh
Speaker 8: so elevated, I mean, it's just continuing to get these
Speaker 8: flames out of control. So even as the winds lighten up,
Speaker 8: it's not going to just be a light switch, right
Speaker 8: And I don't know, I know we're trying to find
Speaker 8: the silver lining here, but it's really tough doing.
Speaker 4: It's an excellent point.
Speaker 5: Max Sparis, meteorologist for News Nation, thanks for your time today.
Speaker 4: Of course, ye so letch you all thank you right well.
Speaker 5: Bright and Max was talking there. The Angelus National Forest
Speaker 5: officials have updated the size of the Eton fire, the
Speaker 5: one burning in Altadena and Pasadena, at ten thousand, six
Speaker 5: hundred acres.
Speaker 4: So to give you an idea of massive that.
Speaker 5: Leap from what we knew even in the eight o'clock
Speaker 5: news conference, which wasn't a lot. They have been able
Speaker 5: to put aircraft in the air. It gives them a
Speaker 5: better idea. It's not mapped specifically, I mean it's not
Speaker 5: down to the acre like we will see later, but
Speaker 5: six hundred acres in the Eton fire alone, So that
Speaker 5: should let you know that the Palisades fire burning in
Speaker 5: the Malibu Santa Monica Palisades area, that that's going to
Speaker 5: be even larger based on what we saw yesterday, the
Speaker 5: incredibly rapid growth from last night. All the county fire
Speaker 5: chiefs said this morning was that it's well over five
Speaker 5: thousand acres, which I think is a pretty conservative estimate
Speaker 5: once we get an update on the size of that
Speaker 5: as well. The bigger story is out of the Palisades fired,
Speaker 5: that as many as one thousand structures were destroyed. That's
Speaker 5: according to the county fire chief. He did say that
Speaker 5: there were a high number of significant injuries. At one
Speaker 5: point yesterday last night, they were saying that Dukes in Malibu,
Speaker 5: the legendary restaurant, was considered a mass casualty site because
Speaker 5: people had been walking out of the hills after they
Speaker 5: were burned, just trying to find a place to go
Speaker 5: to get out.
Speaker 4: And then we knew that some of the.
Speaker 5: Homes that were to the west of Dukes along pch
Speaker 5: between the highway and the sand are gone, and I
Speaker 5: mean gone.
Speaker 3: All those sand castles.
Speaker 1: Garian Channon kfi Am six forty live everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. We are staying on top of an unprecedented
Speaker 1: situation here in southern California where the wind event unfortunately
Speaker 1: as more destructive and life threatening as predicted, maybe more so.
Speaker 1: Like I said, we saw those mountain wave winds just
Speaker 1: crashed down on the palisades all Toa Dina. It looks
Speaker 1: like the worst winds hit last night from ten pm
Speaker 1: to five am, or we saw gus of ninety nine
Speaker 1: miles per hour near Alta Dina, ninety eight Woodland.
Speaker 3: Hills, eighty four Bob Hope Airport.
Speaker 1: We just talked to a meteorologist who said that the
Speaker 1: worst winds are behind us, but that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we're not going to have, you know, forty degree forty
Speaker 1: mile per hour sustained winds and gus to sixty today.
Speaker 5: We have seen agencies from Afar as far away as Washington, Oregon, Nevada,
Speaker 5: and Arizona at least say that they're going to be
Speaker 5: making their way towards southern California. Throughout the state. Obviously,
Speaker 5: people have come, and it's not just state and county
Speaker 5: fire departments or CalFire, it's also federal fire agencies as well.
Speaker 1: Matt Brossard is the union president for the Angelus National
Speaker 1: Forest joins US Now, Matt, it must be frustrating as
Speaker 1: hell for the best of the best in being California firefighters.
Speaker 1: Where being La County, Angelus National Forest Firefighters, La City CalFire?
Speaker 1: What have you to not have enough to go after
Speaker 1: a beast this size and this driven by wind.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so it's definitely some unprecedented weather that we had
Speaker 7: with the wind event. The agencies were prepared as they
Speaker 7: could have been moving resources from out a region at
Speaker 7: least for the US for service. But one of the
Speaker 7: biggest battles right now that US Forces firefighters are fighting
Speaker 7: is the pay situation. They're the lowest paid firefighters in
Speaker 7: the country and Congress has failed to act on it
Speaker 7: numerous times, and it's driving the firefighters to other agencies,
Speaker 7: which is reducing the capacity we have to respond to
Speaker 7: these incidents.
Speaker 5: What are the conditions that your crews are actually working
Speaker 5: out there on these the Hurst fires up in Silmar,
Speaker 5: they eating fire there in the Altadena area.
Speaker 7: The conditions I'm currently in Pasadena in the eating firefootprint.
Speaker 7: It's conditions are improving, the winds not as bad at
Speaker 7: least here. But the fire is going house to house,
Speaker 7: which makes some challenges with panicking public leaving the area,
Speaker 7: not heating, the warnings of law enforcement to evacuate, and
Speaker 7: the tactics we generally use won't work in these conditions
Speaker 7: of anchor and flanking and getting the flanks and securing
Speaker 7: the edge of the fire.
Speaker 1: All right, Matt Brosser, thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. We are taking your calls. Let us know
Speaker 1: your experience. One eight hundred and five to zero, one KFI.
Speaker 1: Did you want to go to someone, Yeah, we.
Speaker 4: Could totally do that. Do that.
Speaker 5: Let me see here, alex Is, alex Is in Westminster,
Speaker 5: Alex what's going on?
Speaker 10: Hey, how's it going great?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 10: So, like I I work in Glendale. Well, I'm just
Speaker 10: doing I'm doing my rotation in Glendale. And it was
Speaker 10: just so weird because I drove from Glendale on the
Speaker 10: five yesterday back to Orange County and I even had
Speaker 10: a and text me on the East coast saying, Hey,
Speaker 10: are you affected by the fires? And I said no,
Speaker 10: I didn't even see the smoke. And then today this morning,
Speaker 10: my preceptor who's my supervisor, told me not to come
Speaker 10: in that parts of Glendale had been evacuated. So yeah,
Speaker 10: I've just been keeping up on the news and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, it's it's crazy how quick this thing
Speaker 1: is moving. Where you think you're in the clear, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you look around, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not in the clear.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the call.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do believe that everyone has been touched by
Speaker 1: these incidents because they are so widespread over the past
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Or you know someone who has I mean,
Speaker 1: we have a dear friend whose home is has been
Speaker 1: reduced to ashes, and it's just heartbreaking. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is going to be the story for so many
Speaker 1: people and in so many areas, because the thing to
Speaker 1: know and not to get bogged down with acreage and
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 3: Here's what to know.
Speaker 1: We've got four major fires, two massive ones that would
Speaker 1: alone rival for the worst of La County history, and
Speaker 1: they are burning out of control. And the firefighters will
Speaker 1: tell you they don't have enough people to fight these fires.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, we do have crews coming down
Speaker 1: from Washington, from Oregon, and that's great and all, but
Speaker 1: the winds are not going to let up. They're not
Speaker 1: going to be as disastrous as we've talked about, as
Speaker 1: they were overnight, but they're not going to let up.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a very long day. We are
Speaker 1: here to give you all the information as we get
Speaker 1: it and stay on top of how these fires are
Speaker 1: progressing and what's going on. But again, more than a
Speaker 1: thousand homes have already been lost with these destructive wins
Speaker 1: here in southern California.
Speaker 5: It looks like the next news conference that we will
Speaker 5: get will be a combination of President Biden and Governor
Speaker 5: Newsom from the fire station. From a fire station, i
Speaker 5: should say, in Santa Monica before the President and first
Speaker 5: Lady get back on Air Force one and scoot on
Speaker 5: out of town. So when we get any updates, we'll
Speaker 5: definitely bring those to you, But in the meantime, we'd
Speaker 5: love to hear some of your stories. Eight hundred five
Speaker 5: two zero one five three four eight hundred five to
Speaker 5: oh one KFI. And on the other side of the break,
Speaker 5: I'm going to give you a couple of important websites
Speaker 5: things that we have been using to make sure that
Speaker 5: we stay up up to date on the latest information
Speaker 5: and that you should have, especially if you are anywhere
Speaker 5: near any of these fires to keep an eye on
Speaker 5: the conditions and potential evacuation warnings and orders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a key app that has been really helpful
Speaker 1: throughout the whole thing.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about that when we come back to Gary
Speaker 3: and Shannon.
Speaker 4: You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
Speaker 5: You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
Speaker 5: forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
Speaker 5: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.