Speaker 1: You're listenings KFI AM six forty, the Bill Handles Show
Speaker 1: on demand on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: F or the break KFI is on it. Keep it
Speaker 2: here for updates on KFIM six more stimulating talk.
Speaker 1: All right, Bill Handle here and the morning crew. As
Speaker 1: we've been listening to the press conference.
Speaker 2: Really good stuff.
Speaker 1: We've heard from the police, We've heard from La County,
Speaker 1: the county officials, the fire officials, all of it.
Speaker 2: Now we're into.
Speaker 1: The political end of it, the elected officials thanking everybody,
Speaker 1: and we're all together and we love each other, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that, and I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot more to talk about. When the question and answer
Speaker 1: period starts. We are going to cut to the question
Speaker 1: and answer period because we're going to get some really
Speaker 1: good information and hopefully we'll have a chance scheduled as
Speaker 1: Captain Sheila Kelleher and that's thea Fire Department public information
Speaker 1: officer who I have a few questions. One of the
Speaker 1: things that was mentioned is while this is going on
Speaker 1: and all assets that are available are being thrown on this,
Speaker 1: fire police, especially fire departments from county and city and
Speaker 1: other adjacent areas from Oregon, Washington, Nevada. They're being brought in.
Speaker 1: They are sending fire personnel to fight these fires that
Speaker 1: are growing like crazy, nine to one one services. What
Speaker 1: if your house is on fire and it's another area
Speaker 1: your standard fire department call.
Speaker 2: What are they doing?
Speaker 1: Is it a skeleton crew that has left? How about
Speaker 1: the paramedics? Is everybody at the fire? So the planning
Speaker 1: that has to go on is just extraordinary and it
Speaker 1: leaves a lot of questions wide open.
Speaker 2: So it eight fifty.
Speaker 1: I think we're scheduled with the Public Information officer for
Speaker 1: LA Fire Department. Now a recap if you've just tuned in,
Speaker 1: we have fires that are out of control. I don't
Speaker 1: think we have containment of any fires. Zero containment, and
Speaker 1: it is it's scary stuff.
Speaker 2: Aircraft are not up in the air.
Speaker 1: And we talked to Chuck Lovers, who is a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who worked with a county fire department for
Speaker 1: thirty years, and he was giving us the inside story
Speaker 1: and I asked aircraft, how how much are they relied on?
Speaker 1: And he said extraordinarily certainly. When I started, it was different.
Speaker 1: Now it's critical to fighting fires. We don't have assets
Speaker 1: in the air. The wind is too strong. Amy let's
Speaker 1: do a quick recap of the fires, the evacuations, what's
Speaker 1: going on, the size of the fires, where they are.
Speaker 3: Okay, So starting with the Palisades fire, which was the
Speaker 3: first one that started, hearing from La County Fire Chief
Speaker 3: Anthony Maroney that as many as a thousand structures have
Speaker 3: been destroyed. After that, La City Fire Chief Christian Crowley
Speaker 3: came on and said, we're going to verify the assessment
Speaker 3: on that, so we're going to double check those numbers.
Speaker 3: Not sure if he misspoke, also saying that we have
Speaker 3: confirmed three thousand acres. Chief Maroney said five thousand acres,
Speaker 3: and on all of our sources they're still saying three thousands,
Speaker 3: So we're double checking all of those numbers. A high
Speaker 3: number of significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate it.
Speaker 3: According to La County Fire Chief Morony, the cause of
Speaker 3: the fire still unknown. They have a thousand firefighters on
Speaker 3: the Palisades fire. More than one hundred structures that's buildings, businesses, homes, churches,
Speaker 3: as we know, have been destroyed in the Eton fire
Speaker 3: burning in Altadna, it's actually burning in the Angelus National
Speaker 3: Forest in Altadena and in parts of Pasadena, that's at
Speaker 3: twenty two hundred twenty seven acres, about five hundred firefighters
Speaker 3: on the lines, and we're hearing that there are two
Speaker 3: fatalities we do not know the cause of them yet,
Speaker 3: and then also a number of significant injuries. There's then
Speaker 3: the Silmar fire. LA City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said
Speaker 3: that that fire is actually burning within the footprint of
Speaker 3: the Saddle Ridge fire. It is five hundred acres. That's
Speaker 3: the latest large one to start. It started last night
Speaker 3: about ten thirty and that is burning north of the
Speaker 3: two ten freeway. There are evacuations in place. The top priority,
Speaker 3: according to fire officials is saving lives. And I think
Speaker 3: one of the most incredible things that was said today
Speaker 3: by La County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney is at all
Speaker 3: residents of La County, all residents of La County are
Speaker 3: in danger as these fires continue to burn out of control.
Speaker 3: As we mentioned, there's no containment and fire danger is
Speaker 3: still really really high. Red flag warnings are in effect
Speaker 3: until tomorrow night at six.
Speaker 1: Is none of it is particularly good news in this fire,
Speaker 1: and we've heard from the authorities at that they have
Speaker 1: at least the ones that we're speaking have not seen
Speaker 1: anything like this. Ever, Now keep in mind the actual
Speaker 1: acreage that's involved is actually small. It's relatively small. We're
Speaker 1: talking maybe six thousand acres. And if it were up
Speaker 1: in the hills, if it was an area where you hear,
Speaker 1: we can't get to it. The fire crews are not
Speaker 1: able to get into those areas because it's too rugged.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be much of a story. It would be
Speaker 2: a blip.
Speaker 1: The problem, of course, with this fire, it's in congested areas,
Speaker 1: it's in residential areas, and you have houses that are burning,
Speaker 1: and we don't know how many houses and businesses have
Speaker 1: been destroyed. From the news, the news on television, what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is, for example, on Sunset Boulevard there was
Speaker 1: a piece of it where businesses and houses on both
Speaker 1: sides of the streets were burning. And on ridges where
Speaker 1: there are homes, which by the way, are multimillion dollar homes.
Speaker 1: Specific Palace Age is a very high end area there.
Speaker 1: We saw homes that have been burnt we don't know
Speaker 1: how deep.
Speaker 2: And there's housing all through that.
Speaker 1: How we don't know how many homes have been destroyed.
Speaker 1: The way we find out is the aircraft goes up.
Speaker 1: The planes go up. The helicopters go up, and not
Speaker 1: only are they used for throwing water dumping water on
Speaker 1: the fires, they're also used for mapping, determining where the
Speaker 1: fire is going, where the fire is hottest. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's all done by aircraft, and they look and they
Speaker 1: do surveys of how.
Speaker 2: Many homes have been destroyed.
Speaker 1: We find that out, and as Chuck Lovers have explained,
Speaker 1: that's why it's so critical to have aircraft in the air.
Speaker 1: But as Amy is reporting, and I believe that there
Speaker 1: are no aircraft in the air.
Speaker 2: Do I have that right? Amy?
Speaker 3: You have that correct. They've been grounded since last night.
Speaker 3: I believe about five point thirty. The wind conditions were
Speaker 3: too strong even for the helicopters to get up. And
Speaker 3: officials are saying this morning that as soon as the
Speaker 3: weather conditions allow for it, we will get the helicopters
Speaker 3: and hopefully the planes up in the air again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and even if they do get up in the air.
Speaker 1: This morning, we talked to Alex Stone who's ABC News correspondent,
Speaker 1: and he was at the Altadena fire and he had
Speaker 1: mentioned there are certain helicopters. Chuck had told us there
Speaker 1: the I think Seahawk or Blackhawk helicopters that you see.
Speaker 1: Those are the ones that you see going in on
Speaker 1: rescue missions in the movies on TV when the army
Speaker 1: goes in and they repel down a big, big ones,
Speaker 1: those which are own and operated by certain agencies. Those
Speaker 1: can go into areas where there's a lot of wind
Speaker 1: where other aircraft cannot. Helicopters, for the most part can't.
Speaker 1: You've got the fixed wing, they can't. And he said,
Speaker 1: and he explained. The other problem that we are having,
Speaker 1: or the fire department authorities are having, is even when
Speaker 1: they were dumping water over a fire, the water dissipated immediately.
Speaker 1: It basically became water vapor.
Speaker 2: It was done.
Speaker 1: There was no water there that would go on the fire.
Speaker 1: He actually described one helicopter, one of the big ones,
Speaker 1: dumping water over a fire and literally the water went sideways,
Speaker 1: made a hard left turn. So there's a huge disadvantage
Speaker 1: going on. And we are into a mess. And I
Speaker 1: am hearing I'm getting texts from family that lives all
Speaker 1: over the country. Was supposed to come in this weekend
Speaker 1: and visit, and we're supposed to go to lunch on Sunday,
Speaker 1: and she was going to buy, so I was pretty
Speaker 1: excited about that.
Speaker 2: She canceled. She said, no, not at all. We're not coming.
Speaker 1: We're not coming, And she texted me, it's terrifying. The
Speaker 1: last time I remember it being this crazy. She now
Speaker 1: lives in the New York area. The last time I
Speaker 1: remember it being this crazy was two thousand and three maybe,
Speaker 1: And we heard from one of the fire chiefs say
Speaker 1: he has never seen it this bad in terms of
Speaker 1: the wind and Amy, let me go back to you.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the weather forecast, what we are looking
Speaker 1: for in the next few days, both humidity wise, which
Speaker 1: has a great deal to do with how this fire
Speaker 1: is moving, and the winds, which is virtually everything all
Speaker 1: the news of this fire.
Speaker 3: Right so, we still have read flag warnings in place.
Speaker 3: Red flag warnings are for high fire danger when the
Speaker 3: winds are blowing very strong and the humidity levels are
Speaker 3: very low, which is the condition that we have now
Speaker 3: in southern California. The red flag warnings are expected to
Speaker 3: continue until at least tomorrow night. At six o'clock of
Speaker 3: the National Weather Service is saying the wind gusts not
Speaker 3: quite as strong as they have been for the last overnight,
Speaker 3: when we were hitting up to one hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 3: eighty miles an hour. Seeing that, they're saying that it's
Speaker 3: still going to be blowing thirty forty miles per hour,
Speaker 3: and of course higher gusts are possible, so the winds
Speaker 3: are still going to be blowing very hard in certain areas.
Speaker 3: And again that humidity level is low. The ground is
Speaker 3: very dry. We haven't had a lot of rain, so
Speaker 3: we are ripe for fires, ripe for fires.
Speaker 1: There's so many questions, and I'll be asking that of
Speaker 1: Captain Sheila Kelleher, who is I believe still scheduled and
Speaker 1: still scheduled to join us in just a few minut
Speaker 1: She is running. She runs LA Fire Department, which has
Speaker 1: I believe helicopters, which has aircraft.
Speaker 2: And she'll answer that question.
Speaker 1: La County, I believe, has most of the assets. And
Speaker 1: this morning with Chuck Lovers, he explained Chuck Lovers, being
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, having been in La County La
Speaker 1: County Fire for over thirty years, explained what happens right
Speaker 1: there on the fire line, and frankly, it's.
Speaker 2: The fires like this you just get out of the way.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: It hit me Bill as we're watching and listening to
Speaker 5: the press conference when the first responders are saying, listen,
Speaker 5: we're nowhere, nears out of the way of harm and
Speaker 5: all of Los Angeles. Things can shift at any time.
Speaker 5: You're talking about embers being able to travel miles, and
Speaker 5: that can so it's not even oh, the fires close
Speaker 5: to me, or it's not close to me, It could
Speaker 5: be close to you in a heartbeat with these winds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with the embers.
Speaker 1: And this is Dean Sharp who talks about this regularly
Speaker 1: on his show. One of the most dangerous things about
Speaker 1: fires like this because embers can blow miles. So here
Speaker 1: you are looking at a fire that's five miles away
Speaker 1: or four miles away, and you basically get a view
Speaker 1: of a disaster. It's nowhere near you. You feel bad
Speaker 1: about any structures, any homes that are going down, but
Speaker 1: you know it's over there.
Speaker 2: It's four miles away.
Speaker 1: And Dean explains, you don't understand that those embers, and
Speaker 1: especially when you're talking about winds of this speed, can
Speaker 1: travel and they go into the vents. That is the danger.
Speaker 1: The embers hitting the stucco on your house is no
Speaker 1: big deal. The embers hitting the roof of your house
Speaker 1: is no big deal because all of us have asphalt
Speaker 1: or concrete shingles.
Speaker 2: We don't have wood shingles anymore in our house.
Speaker 1: But going through the vents up in the attic, that's
Speaker 1: just open space between those flaps of the vents, and
Speaker 1: the embers get in there, and there there's lots of wood.
Speaker 1: There's lots of just lots of kindling, if you will.
Speaker 2: It's a real danger.
Speaker 1: And that is, as Dean explained, a real problem where
Speaker 1: so many homes are lost simply for lack of a
Speaker 1: proper vent that he explains the kind of venting you
Speaker 1: need and how they have him out there.
Speaker 2: And I just did that.
Speaker 1: As you know, I bought a house that didn't have
Speaker 1: proper venting and one of the first calls I made
Speaker 1: was to the roofing peoples.
Speaker 2: Yes, go ahead, Amy Bill.
Speaker 3: I want to dip back into the news conference. We've
Speaker 3: got a representative from DWP talking about reports that there
Speaker 3: was water pressure decrease and how they're trying.
Speaker 2: To get Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's got to talk about.
Speaker 6: Eight thirty pm and the third tank about three am
Speaker 6: this morning. Those tanks help with the pressure on the
Speaker 6: fire hydrants and the heels of palisades. And because we
Speaker 6: were pushing so much water in our trunk line and
Speaker 6: so much water was being used before it can't get
Speaker 6: to the tanks. We were not able to fill the
Speaker 6: tent fast enough. So the consumption of water was faster
Speaker 6: than we can provide water in our trunk line. So
Speaker 6: I want to make sure that you understand there's water
Speaker 6: on the trunk line, it just cannot get off the
Speaker 6: hill because we cannot fill the tanks fast enough, and
Speaker 6: we cannot lower the amount of water that we provide
Speaker 6: to a fire department in order to supply the tanks,
Speaker 6: because we're balancing firefighting with water, so we have we
Speaker 6: have our operations people on the water side at the
Speaker 6: command post with the fire department helping them with tactics
Speaker 6: to an sure that we can provide as much water
Speaker 6: as we can find to our first responders. What are
Speaker 6: we doing now. We're sending about twenty water tanks for
Speaker 6: our construction crews full of water to support the fire department.
Speaker 6: We identify other areas in our system where our tanks
Speaker 6: our tankers can refill. It takes about thirty minutes to
Speaker 6: refil about four thousandallons of water and we're constantly moving
Speaker 6: that water to the fire department to get them as
Speaker 6: much water as we can. I would also ask for
Speaker 6: the people on stip cut nine zero two seven to two,
Speaker 6: because we're pushing the water system so hard, our water
Speaker 6: quality is decreasing. So we're going to be issuing a
Speaker 6: boil water notice this morning and I will extend for
Speaker 6: about forty eight hours. The water quality is low. We
Speaker 6: have a lot of ash and system and so please
Speaker 6: if you're going to be drinking water, you need to
Speaker 6: boil the water. Those boil waters will continue to increase
Speaker 6: us the system starts restoring. We're also managing a power
Speaker 6: outer restoration. Our water emergency has been the number one
Speaker 6: primary issue, but the power issues are continue to increase.
Speaker 6: The winds picked up at around eleven PM last night
Speaker 6: and that's when we saw the majority of our outages
Speaker 6: coming in. As of seven am today, we have one
Speaker 6: hundred and thirty five thousand customers out of power. We
Speaker 6: have restored about seventy eight thousand customers since the start
Speaker 6: of the outage. Thirty two customers have been out of
Speaker 6: power for more than ten hours, and seven for over
Speaker 6: eighteen hours. If you are out of power, I urge
Speaker 6: you to call us, call nine on one, let us
Speaker 6: know so that we can get to you as fast
Speaker 6: as safely as possible. We are on a severe emergency
Speaker 6: activation at the EOC for both water and power. It's
Speaker 6: taking us twenty four to forty eight hours to get
Speaker 6: to all of the outers. That's why we're going to
Speaker 6: start increasing our mutual eight requests to get more crews
Speaker 6: on here to reduce that restoration time. But we cannot
Speaker 6: do that until it's safe for our crew. And I'm
Speaker 6: happy to report we have high no safety incidents for
Speaker 6: either the water or the power cruise, which we need
Speaker 6: all the crews safely operating in our system. Forty percent
Speaker 6: of our otages were due to us having to energize
Speaker 6: the circuits for public safety, and we cannot energize them
Speaker 6: until it's safe to do so, and we have put
Speaker 6: eyes on our system. Twenty percent is because of wire downs,
Speaker 6: and six point five percent because our system has protected
Speaker 6: itself from further outages, and so we have to patrol
Speaker 6: every line before we come back online. With that, I
Speaker 6: just want to thank everybody and.
Speaker 7: Love I'm sure, thank you so much we want to transition.
Speaker 7: We're five minutes over. We do want to give a
Speaker 7: few a little bit of time for a question answer
Speaker 7: with the press. I'm going to call on you. Please
Speaker 7: identify yourself, your name, and which media outlet you're with.
Speaker 7: I see a hand up here, We'll go with you first.
Speaker 8: Because this press conference called One Voice, is bringing together
Speaker 8: some of our city leaders, are town any leaders here
Speaker 8: together for this incredible tragedy, this crisis that we're experiencing
Speaker 8: right now, and a lot of our viewers are asking
Speaker 8: how can other Angelinos help? Because people want to volunteer,
Speaker 8: people want to help. What's the best way that other
Speaker 8: folks out there that want to help? What can they do?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, thank you for that question, because
Speaker 4: I think this does speak volumes to the fact that
Speaker 4: it's not just at the local level, it's at the
Speaker 4: state and the federal level as well, and it is
Speaker 4: one voice. We're seeing these fires taking place county wide,
Speaker 4: which is stretching our resources.
Speaker 8: But to the public.
Speaker 4: I mentioned All Saints in Pasadena that's opened up it's
Speaker 4: church to people that are evacuating, people that are not
Speaker 4: only part of their parish, but also people that are
Speaker 4: seeking refugee. I would encourage and we will work with
Speaker 4: our office Emergency Management to put together a list of
Speaker 4: what you can do to help. I know at Pasting
Speaker 4: a convention center they're looking for resources, food and blankets.
Speaker 4: Red Cross is putting that together, but we can always
Speaker 4: use more.
Speaker 2: So this is the time for us all to come together.
Speaker 4: I mean we're trying to wrap our heads around just
Speaker 4: getting this fire under control, but make no mistake, we
Speaker 4: will put something together so that people can offer their support.
Speaker 4: You are seeing the goodness and I know suho As
Speaker 4: or Horrorbac mentioned it. With all these horrific stories you hear,
Speaker 4: you also hear stories of people that are doing amazing
Speaker 4: things to help their neighbors in their community.
Speaker 7: Thank you for that and go ahead in the green shirt.
Speaker 9: Yeah. The DDBP was talking about the problems with the
Speaker 9: water supply and I was wondering if either the DDBP
Speaker 9: or the Fire department has any kind of numbers to
Speaker 9: talk about, what is the number of hydrants that could
Speaker 9: not get water because of these pressure issues. What percentage
Speaker 9: of the system in Pacific Palisades wasn't getting serviced at
Speaker 9: that point? And given the type of things you're describing
Speaker 9: this morning. Do you think there needs to be an
Speaker 9: overhaul of the system given these increasing number of urban fires,
Speaker 9: and also when does the mayor.
Speaker 7: Return and name and media outlet needs.
Speaker 9: David's on iiser with the Los Angeles Times.
Speaker 6: So chief please correct me if I'm wrong. But we
Speaker 6: were trying to keep water at all altitudes on the Palisades,
Speaker 6: and I think about three in the morning dusk when
Speaker 6: the hydrants went dry above the Brainwood area. We are
Speaker 6: able to push water on that on that trunk line
Speaker 6: on the east side of that, and we have some
Speaker 6: water on higher elevations sixteen to eighteen thousand, but at
Speaker 6: three thousand, all of the at three am, all of
Speaker 6: the fire hydrants went dry and the Palisades. To your
Speaker 6: question of climate resiliency and how do we need to
Speaker 6: update the system, I would say that that is true.
Speaker 6: We were talking with the county supervisor and Mark on
Speaker 6: how are we going to change the way we operate
Speaker 6: our water systems for events like this. This is an
Speaker 6: unprecedented event. I think the twenty eleven winds was significant
Speaker 6: from a power our perspective, but the fires have really
Speaker 6: increased the response complexity of this. We had crews trying
Speaker 6: to mitigate this and we had to evacuate. We worked
Speaker 6: with fire department to try to get back in and
Speaker 6: try to fill the tanks. Again it wasn't safe to do.
Speaker 6: So you're managing the fires, you're managing the power outage,
Speaker 6: and you're managing the water needs because there was an
Speaker 6: urban wildfire firefighting. So yes, we have to look at
Speaker 6: our system from a climate resiliency as a region, and
Speaker 6: it's going to be more than just the WP. It's
Speaker 6: all the water agencies here, including the county.
Speaker 7: Thank you over here in the Burgundy with a mask
Speaker 7: name and media outlet please.
Speaker 10: Real quick, I can speak on the operational side of
Speaker 10: the hydrants. We don't have a specific number to the hydrants.
Speaker 10: We do know that it came in phases. Now, our
Speaker 10: firefighters always have a primary plan, a backup plan, contingency
Speaker 10: and emergency plan. So oftentimes just so that the public
Speaker 10: is aware, in large brush fires, water supplies are normally limited.
Speaker 10: So with that our apparatus do have that ability to
Speaker 10: draft water if we need to out of pools, ponds,
Speaker 10: any type of water resource. We also utilize the water
Speaker 10: tenders in which we spoke about.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue with the press conference, obviously, and
Speaker 1: so I'm out of here. Gary and Shannon now starred
Speaker 1: and they're taking over for me. I'll catch you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show Catch My
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