Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on.
Speaker 2: Demand, KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is La Fires,
Speaker 2: A Path Forward, our special presentation on the wildfires. What
Speaker 2: happened and what happens now. It's not even been six
Speaker 2: weeks since we first told you something dangerous was brewing.
Speaker 3: We got reports out of the Santa Monica area. We've
Speaker 3: got a brush fire in the Palisades Highlands right now.
Speaker 3: You can see this smoke. Not sure about the size
Speaker 3: of this baby. They're usually quick to step to those
Speaker 3: there near the Palisades.
Speaker 2: The warnings had come days in advance. The National Weather
Speaker 2: Service told us major Santa Ana winds were coming. A
Speaker 2: lack of rain for many months had left things dry
Speaker 2: and ripe for destruction. And that's what happened. Has heard
Speaker 2: on kfi's Gary and Shannon as it unfolded.
Speaker 3: We now have a fire, Palisades fire is what they're
Speaker 3: calling it.
Speaker 2: It started small in the Palisades, but with the conditions,
Speaker 2: the fire was poised to grow quickly.
Speaker 3: This thing is living up to its potential, they say.
Speaker 3: Right now, the crews on the ground are furiously engaged
Speaker 3: in structure protection.
Speaker 4: And then it grew even more.
Speaker 3: The latest is that they're seeing spotting ahead of this
Speaker 3: thing a mile to three quarters of a mile out,
Speaker 3: which was the absolute fear. When you're thinking about the
Speaker 3: winds and the gusts that are coming with this wind event,
Speaker 3: that'll take a fire and carry it and keep carrying it.
Speaker 4: Well, and that's well. I mean there's a couple thousand
Speaker 4: homes well within that range. Eyewitnesses started to call in
Speaker 4: with what they were seeing.
Speaker 3: Caesar works at sunset smash and joins us. Now, Caesar
Speaker 3: crazy over there right now.
Speaker 5: I bet it is very concerning at this point because
Speaker 5: there's black smoke. It seems like there's still in the area,
Speaker 5: and everyone out of here is just concern about what
Speaker 5: was going on taking fiction.
Speaker 2: By the time that John Colebelt Show came on the air,
Speaker 2: homes in the Palisades were burning.
Speaker 4: Pacific Palisades is on fire. I'm looking at several television
Speaker 4: news feeds and they have different homes burning on different stations.
Speaker 4: I see one home just starting to burn. There's a
Speaker 4: wall of flames in the backyard, wall of flames in
Speaker 4: the backyard of the neighbor's house, and then the.
Speaker 2: Terror of it all became real as residents started to flee,
Speaker 2: clogging streets.
Speaker 4: We're going to talk to a woman now who's trying
Speaker 4: to get out of the Palisades Kelly. Are you there, Kelly, Yes,
Speaker 4: can you hear me? Yeah? Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, no problem. Right now, I'm on Sunset and
Speaker 6: Palisades Drive and it's completely you can't even move. And
Speaker 6: as I'm sitting here on the corner of Palisade Drive,
Speaker 6: there's a palm tree on fire, so like we're kind
Speaker 6: of all sitting here in the car and watching. I
Speaker 6: mean it's like fifty feet away.
Speaker 4: I think, oh, that's that's really frightening.
Speaker 6: It's really frightening. It's really really.
Speaker 4: Frightening, and you can't get away from it, no.
Speaker 6: Because we we're locked in. It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 6: we see those terrible movies where everybody's running from something
Speaker 6: and all the cars are stuck.
Speaker 7: That's kind of how it is.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Oh my gosh, Yeah, this tree is really.
Speaker 4: It's on the corner or on the in the median.
Speaker 6: On Palisades Drive and Sunset directly on the corner, there's
Speaker 6: a and I don't know if you can hear all
Speaker 6: the honkings.
Speaker 4: I can. Yeah, I saw on TV there was a
Speaker 4: palm tree in the median that was.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's right now. I just I just don't know,
Speaker 6: Like people are getting out of their cars now, what
Speaker 6: if you think, yes, yes, all.
Speaker 4: Right, go okay okay, Oh my god, that's terrifying.
Speaker 2: The Mo Kelly Show comes on at seven, and by
Speaker 2: then The eaton Fire had also started barreling towards Altadena.
Speaker 8: To Walla Sharp, I was telling your business because I
Speaker 8: think someone could have benefited from knowing how seriously not
Speaker 8: only are we telling them to take it, but how
Speaker 8: seriously we are taking it.
Speaker 2: Producer Tawalla Sharp lives in Altadena. He rushed back home
Speaker 2: to help his family leave before coming back to the show.
Speaker 9: The entire ride back to Altadena, the wind was the
Speaker 9: nastiest I've ever experienced. The debris things fly from the freeway.
Speaker 9: There are actual trees on the one thirty four, the
Speaker 9: actual trees from from I don't know where they're come from,
Speaker 9: but the small trees that are maybe on the side
Speaker 9: of the freeways or whatever, in the actual freeway.
Speaker 2: It is absolutely crazy. K if I decided to go
Speaker 2: wall to wall with live coverage NonStop for days.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna be with you all the way up until midnight,
Speaker 8: and then Tim Conway Junior is going to come back
Speaker 8: to the studio bless his heart, and go from midnight
Speaker 8: to three am. Neil Savagor will be in from three
Speaker 8: to five am, and then Amy King will take over
Speaker 8: the normal course of things with wake up call at
Speaker 8: five am.
Speaker 2: The scenes of destruction were breathtaking. As I told Valentine
Speaker 2: on my FM while reporting from Altadna.
Speaker 4: Whatever iHeart.
Speaker 2: Reporters from KFI Michael Monks in the phone line, Michael,
Speaker 2: where are you right now?
Speaker 10: I'm on the corner of Mariposa Street and El Molina Avenue.
Speaker 10: I'm standing in front of the Mariposa town Homes for rent.
Speaker 10: This sign has no damage to it at all, whatsoever?
Speaker 10: Mere feet behind the sign advertising the town homes. There
Speaker 10: are no town homes gone. They're burned to the ground.
Speaker 10: There is smoke coming off of the rubble that used
Speaker 10: to be these homes that the owners were trying to
Speaker 10: rent out.
Speaker 2: We talk about the news coverage. We talked to victims
Speaker 2: who lost their homes out. What's happening for them?
Speaker 4: Now I truly, truly.
Speaker 9: Truly hope and pray that Alcadema can rebuild and that
Speaker 9: that character and that thing that grew up with can
Speaker 9: be there for future generations to see.
Speaker 11: My biggest fear on January was the biggest problem is
Speaker 11: going to be is going to be the city and
Speaker 11: the politics, And that's kind of exactly what's happening.
Speaker 4: We look at the.
Speaker 2: Historic buildings and iconic businesses taken by the flames.
Speaker 7: In a manner of hours. So many were lost, so
Speaker 7: it's sort of unfathomable to even still get your arms around.
Speaker 2: We hear from the local government about how we're supposed
Speaker 2: to move forward. We examine the economic costs not just
Speaker 2: to victims but to all of us.
Speaker 1: We predict that talking projects will still increase in the
Speaker 1: long term.
Speaker 2: And then the independent phone app that many relied on
Speaker 2: for up to the second information.
Speaker 11: I would have assumed that you know, the same folks
Speaker 11: who build roads and schools.
Speaker 3: And infrastructure or going to be building a larning systems
Speaker 3: to keep us informed.
Speaker 9: And although they exist, they're not really properly used.
Speaker 2: And how the disaster has given LA the opportunity to
Speaker 2: come together.
Speaker 11: There is a silver lining through this. It's a LA
Speaker 11: has been really mobilized to where we've seen the best
Speaker 11: of our city.
Speaker 4: LA fires, a path forward.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: Kf I Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is our special
Speaker 2: report on the LA wildfires. When those fires broke out,
Speaker 2: a familiar voice from afternoons here at KFI suddenly picked
Speaker 2: up a new shift carrying the airwaves in the overnight hours.
Speaker 12: By Am six forty.
Speaker 13: It's Conway Show, a little bit late to our early
Speaker 13: whatever wherever you are, but we are on There's First Respawn.
Speaker 4: Tim Conwley Junior knows LA well.
Speaker 12: On that Tuesday morning, I knew that we didn't have.
Speaker 13: Helicopter footage because the President was in town, so I
Speaker 13: knew it was much worse than we were seeing, much
Speaker 13: much worse. Plus, I live in Burbank and I've grown
Speaker 13: up in the San Fernando Valley my entire life. I
Speaker 13: went to in Sino Elementary, Portola Junior High, Birmingham High School.
Speaker 13: I did the whole valley run, and I've been here,
Speaker 13: you know, greater than five decades, and I've never seen
Speaker 13: wind like that, and I've ever felt win like that.
Speaker 13: I felt like our house was going to be destroyed
Speaker 13: by the by just the wind, not the fire, the wind.
Speaker 13: We lost five trees on our property. I'm not complaining
Speaker 13: a lot of people lost more, but I'm just telling
Speaker 13: you as a barometer, those trees are old, and they're tough,
Speaker 13: and they've never even shown any signs of being in
Speaker 13: any stress or blown and they were completely blown down, you.
Speaker 4: Know, the Palisades.
Speaker 2: And even during the aftermath when the fires had kind
Speaker 2: of gone out, going to cover it and driving on PCH,
Speaker 2: you could see, like, ah, I understand why people want
Speaker 2: to live here. I mean, like that is the California
Speaker 2: people's minds, right right. I mean that's the palm trees,
Speaker 2: It's the beaches, it's the little shacks that people are
Speaker 2: eating in there on the on the waterfront. What does
Speaker 2: it mean to have that California kana taken away from
Speaker 2: La Well?
Speaker 12: I think that.
Speaker 13: I don't really I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 13: I don't think I've ever said this on the air.
Speaker 13: I never felt comfortable in Palisades. I always thought that
Speaker 13: those people were wealthier than I was, They had nicer
Speaker 13: cars than I did. They were just like an upper
Speaker 13: class people that I felt uncomfortable around. And I remember
Speaker 13: going to a New Year's party there, no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 13: a Fourth of July party there last year, and I
Speaker 13: just felt like everybody around there was super wealthy and
Speaker 13: I felt like a scumbag in my twenty eighteen Lincoln Navigator.
Speaker 13: So I go to the track all the time, which
Speaker 13: is out in the Arcadia. I relate to those people.
Speaker 13: More guys would go to you know, Kmart, Walmart, you know,
Speaker 13: Standard shoes, Orange Julie is the old school guys. You know,
Speaker 13: that's where my dad would be more comfortable hanging out.
Speaker 13: And I think, as you know, as his kid, I
Speaker 13: feel more comfortable with the people in the flats in Arcadia,
Speaker 13: past the DNA and Alta Dina.
Speaker 2: I mean to that end, though, there's something equalizing about
Speaker 2: watching a neighborhood like that brought to the ground that
Speaker 2: you've been here a long time, and LA is sort
Speaker 2: of I mean, this is my perspective, but it seems
Speaker 2: like a disconnected place. You've got your part of LA
Speaker 2: and you know it well, and you don't necessarily know
Speaker 2: what's going on on the other side of town.
Speaker 4: You don't even necessarily care. There aren't a lot.
Speaker 2: Of opportunities for the so called La strong. You know,
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of let's come together, La. What
Speaker 2: have you seen as an LA guy in that respect?
Speaker 2: Is are you noticing some sort of neighborliness that has
Speaker 2: never existed here before?
Speaker 12: Well that's a good point. I remember.
Speaker 13: Look, I still if I were to get in the
Speaker 13: car right now and you'd say, hey, take me to Colt,
Speaker 13: and I'd be like, what, I.
Speaker 12: Don't know where Colton is.
Speaker 13: But I hear Colton on commercials when like a waterbed
Speaker 13: store is going out of business, or a Futon store.
Speaker 4: You know, Colton, Colton, Colton water.
Speaker 12: Bed store after fifty four years going out of business.
Speaker 13: I'm like, good, So I don't know where a lot
Speaker 13: of these areas are. I only know, you know, La,
Speaker 13: I'm familiar. I'm now getting familiar with the Inland Empire
Speaker 13: because we go. I go up to Marongo so often
Speaker 13: that I can like buzz around there. But I think
Speaker 13: there is a and I hope it stays a sense of,
Speaker 13: you know, the wealthy people and the poor people, the
Speaker 13: people have been burned out, all getting together and helping
Speaker 13: each other out. But as you know, this is LA
Speaker 13: and that lasts for a very short period of time,
Speaker 13: and then guys with money come in.
Speaker 12: And they buy everybody out.
Speaker 13: It's starting to happen in Pasadena, Altadena and the Palisades well.
Speaker 2: Broadcasting live as the fires cleaned countless homes, Tim helped
Speaker 2: people understand the magnitude of what was going on.
Speaker 13: What a day in Los Angeles. Everybody will remember where
Speaker 13: they were, if you're old enough, what you were doing,
Speaker 13: and what a nightmare this was for a lot of people,
Speaker 13: a ton of people, and a lot of people are
Speaker 13: gonna wake up tomorrow and have the one thing that
Speaker 13: we all cherish taken from them and beyond it, it's
Speaker 13: beyond their control. It's a fire. It's the worst thing
Speaker 13: that can happen to your home. It happened so suddenly.
Speaker 2: Tim's knowledge of LA helped him understand the impact on
Speaker 2: the people who saw everything they own go up in flames.
Speaker 13: It was the worst because you know these people who
Speaker 13: are you know, look when we do news and you
Speaker 13: know this, monks, when we do news on KFI, if
Speaker 13: it's a Wednesday afternoon, and there's a house on fire
Speaker 13: in Pasadena. All four helicopters are over it, you know, two, four, five, seven,
Speaker 13: nine eleven. Everybody's over it, talking about it. You can
Speaker 13: see the smoke forever. It's the lead story on every newscast.
Speaker 13: The home, nice home in Pasadena burned up. Well, multiply
Speaker 13: that by fourteen thousand and we've never experienced anything like
Speaker 13: that before.
Speaker 12: Nobody knows how to handle it.
Speaker 13: And even after the fires, nobody knows what to do
Speaker 13: with the debris, with all the you know, with all
Speaker 13: the trash and all the you know, they the the
Speaker 13: what is it called the debris and the toxic chemicals,
Speaker 13: nobody knows what to do with it.
Speaker 2: And with more fires erupting, even as the Palisades and
Speaker 2: Alta Dina continued to burn, kfi's regular voices found themselves
Speaker 2: in the host chair much later or earlier than usual.
Speaker 13: You'd be surprised how many people were listening overnight, you know,
Speaker 13: from midnight to five am.
Speaker 12: And one particular incident I thought was.
Speaker 13: I hate to use the term powerful, because you know,
Speaker 13: I sound like an a hole, but when the fire
Speaker 13: broke out in the Hollywood Hills, I think they called
Speaker 13: the Sunset Fire and it broke out in Hollywood Hills.
Speaker 13: Chris Christy is the first guy over it on Channel seven,
Speaker 13: and there's no fire trucks around, and we kept telling everybody,
Speaker 13: if you're on Gardener or Le Brea or Fountain or Franklin, you.
Speaker 12: Got to get out of that area. You know, this
Speaker 12: is this fire is coming to you.
Speaker 13: And then we heard back from people saying that they
Speaker 13: listened to that and they got out of their home,
Speaker 13: they got in their car and they started driving because
Speaker 13: they heard that.
Speaker 12: I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2: Up next, we talk with folks from right here in
Speaker 2: our studios who lost homes in the Palisades and Alta Dina.
Speaker 11: It's really hard to describe the loss because there's certain
Speaker 11: things that you'll just you know, you can remember, but
Speaker 11: you'll never get back.
Speaker 2: And then the landmarks, we all lost a complete erature
Speaker 2: of historic destinations.
Speaker 7: It's sort of unfathomable to even still get your arms
Speaker 7: around what was here and what is now gone.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is La Fires
Speaker 2: a path forward, our special look at what happened and
Speaker 2: what happens next. The wildfires that engulf Pacific Palisades and
Speaker 2: Alta Dina burned about thirty miles from each other, torching
Speaker 2: different examples of life in La County. The Palisades the
Speaker 2: quintessential southern California postcard image, waves crashing into the sand,
Speaker 2: palm trees blowing in the breeze, Stately homes casting their
Speaker 2: silhouettes towards the famous Pacific Coast Highway. Alta Dina showcased
Speaker 2: day's small town existence and in otherwise mega city, old
Speaker 2: school business districts, cozy homes on tree lined streets with
Speaker 2: mountains on the horizon. But the experience during the fires
Speaker 2: were wildly similar, including the holding onto hope that the
Speaker 2: forecasts would prove wrong or any fires would pass by.
Speaker 9: I wasn't thinking about losing the house, or losing the neighborhood,
Speaker 9: anything like that. I'm just thinking, just in case his life.
Speaker 9: I have to be gone for the weekend. Sure, I'll
Speaker 9: grab a few thieves, I grab a week's worth of stuff,
Speaker 9: and I said, Okay, I'm gonna go back to work.
Speaker 2: Let me know if anything happened to Walla. Sharp is
Speaker 2: the producer of Leader with Mo Kelly here at KFI.
Speaker 2: His family has lived in Altadena for decades. David Howard,
Speaker 2: vice president of sales here at iHeartMedia, was also hopeful
Speaker 2: at his home in the Palisades.
Speaker 11: We knew that this one felt a little bit different.
Speaker 11: My wife came home and she so we got to
Speaker 11: get out of here. And I wasn't ready to go
Speaker 11: yet because the wind. I wasn't trying to be a hero,
Speaker 11: but the wind had shifted, and you know a couple
Speaker 11: of us, like women, trying to stay and to our
Speaker 11: best to save the property.
Speaker 2: But the worst did happen, and both communities were nearly
Speaker 2: entirely leveled. So much was taken that both men say
Speaker 2: they got lost driving on streets they'd been down countless times.
Speaker 11: There were you know, houses and burning on both sides
Speaker 11: of sunset, embers flying, and we kind of paused for
Speaker 11: a second and asked ourselves, is this a good idea as
Speaker 11: it's safe? And my younger one asked me that, and
Speaker 11: I said, you know, it's safe until we have to
Speaker 11: turn around. And so we got through and I made
Speaker 11: a sharp ride on Chatauqua which is the street that
Speaker 11: takes us up to our house. And I literally lost
Speaker 11: my I had no frame of reference as to where
Speaker 11: I was, and I was like, where are we? Like
Speaker 11: I felt, you know, almost lost, and I realized that
Speaker 11: there wasn't a structure as far as I could see
Speaker 11: in any direction. So it was like, holy gosh, this
Speaker 11: is this is a this is a total loss.
Speaker 9: When I first re entered the city, I did not
Speaker 9: know where I was because there were no recognizable landmarks
Speaker 9: for me to know what street was what. I didn't
Speaker 9: even recognize my own street because the different houses that
Speaker 9: I know, I don't have to have a street sign.
Speaker 9: I know where I'm at just by the houses or
Speaker 9: or the car wash or whatever. To see all of
Speaker 9: that gone, it tears the very hard out of me
Speaker 9: each and every time.
Speaker 2: And now David Howard and Touwalla Sharp are reckoning with
Speaker 2: the immense loss.
Speaker 11: It's amazing because literally every day, every night you'll kind
Speaker 11: of wake up and go, oh my god, that's gone
Speaker 11: to or you know, how do I replace that? Or
Speaker 11: maybe I don't replace it, So that part is, you know,
Speaker 11: it's hard to It's so overwhelming because there's just so
Speaker 11: many things to take care of in addition to remembering
Speaker 11: the things that you lost.
Speaker 9: There's no way by the time the warning, the sun
Speaker 9: rose on the next day and we got the reports
Speaker 9: that everything was gone. Even still there's no I couldn't
Speaker 9: believe it. I could not believe it. Everything is gone.
Speaker 2: And they both have questions for the government about preparation
Speaker 2: and response.
Speaker 9: Those of us who have been impacted are suffering, you know,
Speaker 9: and so that that's the part that sucks. And it's
Speaker 9: like even now we're having conversations where they're like, by
Speaker 9: the end of February, phase one of the cleanup removal
Speaker 9: of debris should be done. By hopefully end of March,
Speaker 9: we should be done with phase two as far as
Speaker 9: cleaning up a lot of the toxic debris and all
Speaker 9: of that. But then then you should be able to
Speaker 9: be like, we should be able to what we should
Speaker 9: be able to move in and be right to mac
Speaker 9: dab in the middle of what looks like a DMZ.
Speaker 9: What are you talking about that's going to be having
Speaker 9: ongoing construction.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, yeah, no, no, thanks.
Speaker 11: No thanks. You know, said that they were ready for
Speaker 11: you know, several days, and they weren't ready at all.
Speaker 11: So it just its just I feel like I think
Speaker 11: everybody feels it. As bad as it was, it could
Speaker 11: have been less bad because but there was just no fight.
Speaker 11: There was no resources at all, and it just it's
Speaker 11: hard to comprehendo that happened. That makes this whole thing
Speaker 11: even more difficult. And you know, if I know that
Speaker 11: homes would have burnt, the wind was insane, and you know,
Speaker 11: the structure protection, you know, it would have been a
Speaker 11: challenge in any way, shape or form. But to let
Speaker 11: the city just burn and not have anybody trying to
Speaker 11: save that part and there was no one saving it.
Speaker 11: It was burning, and that they just kind of let
Speaker 11: it burn. So it's hard to hard to get your
Speaker 11: head around that.
Speaker 9: Now. Of course, there's all types of governmental organizations that
Speaker 9: are saying we will help, but you know what they're
Speaker 9: helping us with. They're helping us to get stuck in
Speaker 9: red tape and bureaucracy and oh, you've got to call
Speaker 9: this department, and this department says you got to call
Speaker 9: this depart and then you get the run around. I
Speaker 9: love all the politicians who out in front of the
Speaker 9: cameras saying we are here to help help us do
Speaker 9: what help us to get a busy signal, or help
Speaker 9: us to be called back.
Speaker 2: As they navigate the aftermath to Wallace Sharp and David
Speaker 2: Howard keep their happy memories.
Speaker 9: Every every memory I have of life is in Alta Dina.
Speaker 9: Every memory that I have, my my fondest childhood memories.
Speaker 9: The things that make me who I am come from
Speaker 9: living in Alta Deena. If you've ever heard me on
Speaker 9: Later with mo Kelly or the mo Kelly Show, you
Speaker 9: hear me go on and on and on about the
Speaker 9: Pasadena Alta Dina area, because it is so just etched
Speaker 9: into the very fibre of my being.
Speaker 4: Take us to a better time.
Speaker 2: When you first moved into that house, what was it
Speaker 2: about it that let you know that was going to
Speaker 2: be home?
Speaker 11: I mean it was, you know, it was was everything
Speaker 11: you could ever dream of, you know, the incredible town,
Speaker 11: incredible unity, people that really cared about each other, people
Speaker 11: that took care of each other and still are by
Speaker 11: the way, And it was just an amazing place to
Speaker 11: raise kids.
Speaker 2: And there was one happy discovery in the pile of
Speaker 2: ashes that was once David Howard's home.
Speaker 11: My wife had left your wedding ring in the safe
Speaker 11: that we had in our bedroom.
Speaker 2: He found the safe but couldn't open it the handle
Speaker 2: had melted away.
Speaker 11: Frustrated, he gave up, like I said, I can't do
Speaker 11: this anymore. And I sat down on the cement on
Speaker 11: the driveway and I picked up the safe and I
Speaker 11: tilted it on its side, and by the grace of God,
Speaker 11: I don't even know how it safe door opened. I
Speaker 11: was like, oh my God. I looked up at the
Speaker 11: sky and I said, really, I really, like, is this
Speaker 11: really happening? I said, was God, please let me find
Speaker 11: this ring, and please let it be intact. And after
Speaker 11: a few minutes of pulling out you know, debris, ash
Speaker 11: and stuff that probably you know, just burnt, I felt
Speaker 11: the I felt the ring and I pulled it out,
Speaker 11: and I was like, oh my God, and it was
Speaker 11: there intact. And I started just bawling, you know, just shaking.
Speaker 4: And now the focus returns to building again. Somehow.
Speaker 11: Every time I drove home, I literally but I think,
Speaker 11: would be so thankful and so appreciative that I had
Speaker 11: the opportunity to, you know, to build a home there
Speaker 11: and raise my kids there.
Speaker 9: I truly, truly, truly hope and pray that Altadena can rebuild,
Speaker 9: and that that character and and that thing that I
Speaker 9: grew up with can be there for future generations to see.
Speaker 4: I just, I just, I just. I don't know.
Speaker 2: In our next hour the government response, if trust has
Speaker 2: been damaged in this disaster, can it be regained? But first,
Speaker 2: the place is lost in the fires that we all.
Speaker 7: Know, the places you know, we're anchored in terms of
Speaker 7: why people loved being in the Pupa or Altadena.
Speaker 4: When La Fires.
Speaker 2: A Path Forward continues after this report for the KFI
Speaker 2: twenty four hour News Room.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on.
Speaker 2: Demand, KFIAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is La Fires
Speaker 2: A Path Forward, our special look at what happened and
Speaker 2: what happens next. The images, especially the ones from the
Speaker 2: sky showing what used to be Alta, Dina or the Palisades,
Speaker 2: are shocking to see the scenes of devastation up closes
Speaker 2: a different experience altogether. Once vibrant neighborhoods, loving homes, active churches,
Speaker 2: and busy tourist destinations turn to a heap of smoldering
Speaker 2: ash in a matter of moments, fireplace chimneys, all that
Speaker 2: remain on many lots, standing in rows like gravestones in
Speaker 2: a neighborhood cemetery. To lose one's home is a tragedy
Speaker 2: most of us will thankfully never know. But we've all
Speaker 2: experienced the loss of a favorite restaurant, a quirky shot,
Speaker 2: we loved, a landmark that meant something to us, And
Speaker 2: that's what's relatable in the case of these wildfires. Even
Speaker 2: if we didn't live in the Palisades or Altadena, we
Speaker 2: probably knew something there or wanted to know something there soon,
Speaker 2: and now we can't. Will Rogers Ranch House, Moonshadows, Altadena
Speaker 2: Community Church, the Bunny Museum. Those are just some of
Speaker 2: the landmarks taken by the fires.
Speaker 7: These places help you know, we're anchors in terms of
Speaker 7: why people love to be in the life. Loved being
Speaker 7: in the Palisades or Altadena. But it's really a stronger
Speaker 7: sense of community and the people, and we always say
Speaker 7: people plus places in terms of our work. It's not
Speaker 7: just about saving historied buildings, about the stories and the
Speaker 7: people that are connected to those places. So when you
Speaker 7: lose an entire neighborhood like James Hillage, in Altadena. Yes,
Speaker 7: it's a loss for every one of those wonderful, sweet
Speaker 7: little nineteen twenties and thirties houses, but it's really about
Speaker 7: the loss of the community and what that represents, how
Speaker 7: important that is to both of these places that you know,
Speaker 7: experience such profound and incalculable losses.
Speaker 2: Adrian Scott Fine is the president and CEO of the
Speaker 2: LA Conservancy, which documents the history of old buildings and
Speaker 2: landmarks and often fights to preserve them. I know that
Speaker 2: your organization works hard to preserve historic landmarks across LA.
Speaker 2: They face a variety of challenges, maybe neglect, maybe the
Speaker 2: threat of development, but it's not often that we have
Speaker 2: a disaster of this magnitude that takes so many beloved
Speaker 2: properties all at once. I mean, just share with me
Speaker 2: from a preservationist perspective what these fires were like.
Speaker 7: Well, we've never had anything like this in terms of
Speaker 7: the sheer number of places that have all been lost
Speaker 7: at one point in time. In preservation, we're used to
Speaker 7: working to help save places, but you know, usually it's
Speaker 7: a building by building situation. In this case, you know,
Speaker 7: in a manner of hours, so many were lost, So
Speaker 7: it's sort of unsaddenable to even still get your arms
Speaker 7: around what was here and what is now gone and
Speaker 7: the kind of places that told stories that about the
Speaker 7: Palisades and Altadena that there are no other places that
Speaker 7: can impart that story.
Speaker 2: The list of historic properties, tourist destinations, and community centers
Speaker 2: reads like an obituary for the spirit of Altadena and
Speaker 2: the Palisades.
Speaker 7: It was just, again, just seeing so many places disappear.
Speaker 7: I would say that part of it was for myself,
Speaker 7: and certainly I was hearing from others. And since then,
Speaker 7: is this understanding that we take historic places for granted,
Speaker 7: that we're learning about places that we didn't know were
Speaker 7: there before and that we now wish we had visited
Speaker 7: and seen an experience before they were gone. So I
Speaker 7: think part of that is is what we're dealing with that,
Speaker 7: I would say everyone, whether you lost your you know,
Speaker 7: your individual house or business, or it's a very significant
Speaker 7: historic place, it's a profound sense of loss in terms
Speaker 7: of what collectively we're all experiencing.
Speaker 2: The wife of legendary funny man Will Rogers, donated their
Speaker 2: Palisades property to the state of California. It's now known
Speaker 2: as Will Rogers State Historic Park, but ninety years after
Speaker 2: Will Rogers' death, his ranch, house and other structures were
Speaker 2: lost in the Palisades fire.
Speaker 7: This was his ranch. This is a place that he
Speaker 7: was very you know, firmly connected to in terms of
Speaker 7: his persona, and it's been a beloved place for generations
Speaker 7: of Angelinas and others visiting to go to experience. We
Speaker 7: just had a we do a heritage project with high
Speaker 7: school kids, and we just had our most recent class
Speaker 7: out there, you know, visiting the ranch and learning how
Speaker 7: the lasso and other kinds of things that you know,
Speaker 7: without that house, without the barn and the stable and
Speaker 7: other buildings, it's less real. The land is still there
Speaker 7: and you know the ranch, but you know, those physical
Speaker 7: built aspects are now missing in terms of being able
Speaker 7: to illustrate his full story.
Speaker 2: Zane Gray may not have reached the same level of
Speaker 2: fame as his contemporary Will Rogers, but the novelist also
Speaker 2: owned a home lost in the wildfires, a sprawling estate
Speaker 2: in Altadena.
Speaker 7: This house was very much, you know, the gem of
Speaker 7: Altadena in terms of, you know, just a really seminal
Speaker 7: place in terms of that community. And it's been a
Speaker 7: private residence and it was in the process of being
Speaker 7: restored by you know, owners that loved this house, and
Speaker 7: for that to be gone is again just one more,
Speaker 7: you know, as these losses add up, but this is
Speaker 7: certainly a big one in terms of early Altadena in
Speaker 7: Los Angeles history.
Speaker 2: Fine says, the profound loss of so many landmarks, all
Speaker 2: all at once can impact a community sense of self.
Speaker 7: Then you have places that make up our fabrics of
Speaker 7: our communities, the places that we come to love and
Speaker 7: we expect to see on a daily basis. They are
Speaker 7: the legacy businesses like Altadena Hardware, or like the Bunny Museum.
Speaker 7: You know, kind of a colectic, very unusual. Only Altadena
Speaker 7: had a bunny museum. So it's these kinds of places
Speaker 7: that really form and are the essential ingredients to what
Speaker 7: makes community special and you know unique. It's about the people,
Speaker 7: but it's also about the community that formed around these
Speaker 7: kind of institutions, from churches to semagogues to you know, museums,
Speaker 7: all these different aspects and certainly restaurants that you know,
Speaker 7: are all part of the fabric that are is now
Speaker 7: missing in any way.
Speaker 4: He says.
Speaker 2: One of the other important pieces of fabric the community
Speaker 2: that made Altadena and Pacific palis As home must be
Speaker 2: put at the center of the rebuilding effort.
Speaker 7: I think that is one of the biggest concerns that
Speaker 7: we have, is that people will get pushed out or
Speaker 7: displaced and it will become something entirely different than it
Speaker 7: ever was before. Certainly there are efforts to you know,
Speaker 7: think about pattern books and guides to streamline reviews and
Speaker 7: offer you know, off the shelf kind of designs for
Speaker 7: houses that had some semblans of what was there before.
Speaker 7: And then that's part of this. But again it goes
Speaker 7: back to community and people and making sure that they're
Speaker 7: they're they're front and center and any rebuilding effort.
Speaker 2: In our next hour, the government response is it fast enough,
Speaker 2: is it efficient enough?
Speaker 4: And the estimated cost.
Speaker 2: Of the damage has skyrocketing and is forecast to hit
Speaker 2: all of us in various ways. When LA fires may
Speaker 2: pass forward continuous KFI A M six
Speaker 1: Forty KFI A six on demand