October 30, 2025 • 30 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (10/30) - New information has come out about firefighters being told to leave the Lachman Fire burn area despite seeing areas of smoldering. More on the air traffic controllers not showing up for work because they aren't getting paid due to the government shutdown.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We are here for you, we're here to serve you,
and we're on every day from one until four o'clock,
and after four o'clock, whatever you missed is on the podcast.
John Cobelt's Show on demand. Thousands and thousands downloaded every day,
and that's how you keep up with what we do here,
because it may be hard to listen for the whole
three hours, so after four o'clock we always post the
(00:30):
entire show. All right, We've got a lot of big
news today. I'm going to start right with what I
saw first thing this morning in the Los Angeles Times,
which we're all the terrible but accurate things I say
about the Times, they have shined like I haven't seen
a news outlet shine in a long time, covering what
(00:53):
caused the fire, and how incompetent the fire management was
at the Los Angeles Fire Department, and how incompetent all
the public officials were in politicians, and today you know,
slowly the story is coming out. They tried hard to lie, lie,
cover up, deny, but slowly the onion gets peeled. And
(01:18):
here's today. Take you back to January first. The original
fire started by that weird, creepy guy that they rested
recently starts the fire. They put it out on January first,
January second, there were firefighters still mopping up. They call
(01:44):
it the Lockman fire. And they said, and they told
this to their battalion chief. The ground was still smoldering,
the rocks are still hot. The battalion chief, who's not named, said,
we're going anyway, We're leaving. He ordered the firefighters to
(02:07):
roll up their hoses and pull out. This is on
January second, five days before it exploded into the Palisades fire.
The fire had been declared contained the day before. And
now the battalion chief said, everybody up. He did not
want to stay and make sure there were no hidden
numbers that could spark a new fire. How do we
(02:30):
know this well, the La Times got a hold of
a series of text messages that the firefighters sent to
each other and also some mysterious third party, so they
have it in writing. They quote the writing here. A
firefighter who was at the scene on January second, wrote
(02:51):
that the battalion chief that we told him we told
the battalion chief it was a bad idea to leave
the burn scar unprotected because everybody could see the smoldering.
So it wasn't just hikers who kept calling in smoldering
and wisps of white smoke in the air. It was
(03:14):
the firefighters themselves saw it, and they're telling the battalion chief.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And this is right here.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
This is at the heart of the incompetence, the heart
of this mistake. Why would a battalion chief tell everybody
to go home? It makes no sense. Later on, I'll
tell you there are several former firefighters by name. They
(03:42):
were leaders in the fire department who said, well, no,
you don't do that. So what's with this guy? And
he ought to be named. This is going to be
at the centerpiece of the lawsuits. LA Times called the
(04:04):
La Fire Department. They declined to comment. LA Fire Department
chief Ronnie Vanueva. He's the one who replaced Kristin Crowley.
He said in a statement just a few weeks ago
that the Palisades fire was not due to failed suppression
of the original fire. He said it was the result
(04:27):
of undetectable and undetectable holdover fire that lived deep within
the roots, except it didn't live deep within the roots.
It was right there at the surface with smoke coming out,
and the rocks were giving off heat.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So what Van Auevas said was false.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Going back to the text messages, the firefighters complained that
the commanders failed to make certain that the bop up
was finished. A second firefighter said that the crews at
stationed sixty nine in the Palisades were surprised they were
told to roll up their hoses.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Firefighters told them the tree stumps were still hot.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And the hoses had been left there in case hidden
embers sparked a flare up. But apparently the battalion chief
maybe there were other others in management, I don't know,
but they said, no, we're going. The firefighter also wrote
(05:38):
that he and his colleagues knew immediately that the January
seventh fire was a rekindling of the January first blaze.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Now why did the firefighters leave?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
What?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
You know, why did they Why did they stay? Anyway?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, the firefighters were upset when they were told to
pack up and leave, but they couldn't ignore orders.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
There's something wrong with that. I understand all.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
These you know, the military, the police, the fire department.
You got to obey your orders, but somebody at the
very least make a public stink. And how about warning
everybody in the neighborhood. Somebody's got to go rogue. Somebody's
got to have some courage. I don't agree with this
(06:24):
whole thing. Well, I was following orders. You know that
that was an excuse given by that those two idiot
cops when Derek Chauvin was was murdering George Floyd.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well you can't. You can't contradict your elite officer. There
no here.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
The firefighters should have made a big stink out of this,
and it should have been public. You go to every
person in the palace ades today. I bet they wish
one of the firefighters had blown the whistle on this.
Put a message online. You don't need that puts your
name to it. Just spread it around the next door
(07:07):
app would have gotten a lot of attention. The battalion
chief listed on being The LA Times says that the
battalion chief who is listed as being on duty on
January two was a battalion chief named Mario Garcia. He's
(07:30):
not commenting, he's not responding. Now, these are pretty heavy
charges against Mario Garcia. The accusations point towards extreme incompetence,
tragic decision. And when we come back, I'll tell you
(07:52):
what other former LA Fire Department officials have said should
have been done. And also I want to point out
more lies, more false information at the very least that
the interim chief, Ronnie Villanueva, has been selling after Kristin
(08:15):
Crowley got fired. By the way, they called Kristin Crowley,
she didn't respond. They called Karen Bass, she didn't respond.
Mary Garcia didn't respond. Nobody responds. And it turns out
the LA Fire Department, especially the commanders, really really screwed
this up badly, a huge, deadly botch, which is what
(08:40):
everybody suspected. And the apologists came out and said, no, no, no,
we have the finest firefighter. You know, It's like when
people defend teachers even though three quarters of the kids
graduate without being able to read. Oh yeah, you know,
the teachers or national research. You know, just because you
(09:01):
wear a uniform, you're well trained, you have an important
job teaching your kids, protecting lives, doesn't mean that there's
not a culture of incompetence, especially in management.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Talk more about it.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Next you're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
A powerful story here in Los Angeles Times, and it's
about the massive incompetence of LA Fire Department management in
handling the Palisades fire. Just to briefly run it down
again if you're just joining us, there was an original
(09:44):
New Year's Day fire on January first that was put out,
so the LA Fire Department said, But on January second,
firefighters found that the rocks were still hot, the ground
was smoldering, the tree stumps were hot, and that they
(10:05):
should stay on duty and continue monitoring the land there
that was clearly smoldering. Clearly there was smoke coming out,
and a battalion chief, according to the firefighters, said no,
roll up your hoses. Everybody go home. This is according
to text messages that the LA Times has seen and
(10:29):
was quoting in this story. It's a great story, Paul
Pringle and Eleen check Mitian, and this is the way
you do it. The crew members were upset, but they
wouldn't ignore orders. That's a no no. So by listening
to a bad order, people died and thousands of homes
(10:52):
burned down. I don't get that I really don't understand that.
I don't understand the salutes that everybody's supposed to give
to your commanders when clearly something dangerous and bad can happen.
Kind of tired of hearing that over the years. That's
what they said, That's what the commander said. The battalion
(11:16):
chief is Mario Garcia. He did not respond to requests
for comment. I'm going to go through this again. Ronnie
van Aweva, the interim chief, did not respond to a
detailed list of questions from The Times. Karen Bass did
not respond to written questions or an interview request. Former
fire chief Kristin Crowley, who was in charge at the time,
(11:38):
did not respond to an email request for comment. Vienna Weeva,
the interim chief, said that the firefighters stayed in the
area for more than thirty six hours and cold trailed it,
meaning they used their hands to feel for heat, dug
out hotspots, and chopped.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
The line around the perimeter. Apparently that's false.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
He also claimed that the firefighters return on January third
for another round of cold trailing after a report of
smoke in the area. We went back there again. We
dug it all out, We did everything we could cold
trail again, we did all that. Well, Uh, many hikers
have proven otherwise. They've got video they called nine one
one nine one one told them to pound sand really
(12:19):
unless they see flames? Where did that rule come from?
Unless you see flames? After a pretty big fire in
New Year's Day nine one one, we've even passed a
call through.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Again.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
You know what you got to do is you got
to go right up to the fire station there. You
got to start calling a call here, call our show
called intelevision stations. Go on social media, for goddeness sakes,
you go on social media and there's endless nonsense of
people sticking their rear ends out in the air, twerking
(12:53):
and dancing.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
You don't like that, no, well depends. Uh, this is
what normally goes on.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
And nobody wants to spend five minutes and put out
a message. It's like, hey, look here, now there's smoke
coming out.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Of the ground.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Hey look at these hot stumps and hot rocks. And
is nobody going to talk? Is again Karen Vass and
now this Mario Garcia and Ronnievianueva and Kristin Crowley. Everyone
is now going to go into hiding and we're not
going to respond.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Why is it taking this long for all this information
to even come out. It's almost been a year.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, you know what's amazing is even the federal investigation
didn't produce this information, although they said the fire smolded
and burned for days underground. All right, Now, here's some
of the people who used to work for the LA
Fire Department. Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, he said, based on
his experience fighting wildfires, we're talking about something that was
(13:53):
just beneath the service surface.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Rather. He retired last year. He now works for the
US Capital.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And he says the federal agency prefers the term holdover
to rekindle because rekindle implies that you didn't do your job.
Holdover suggest it was beyond our control. You see, they've
changed the language to cover up their incompetence because how
would we know. But it's the same thing, according to
(14:24):
Rick Crawford, He goes, you can get into semantics, but
the bottom line is whether the department used all the
tools available to put out the January first fire.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Out and it did not. It did not.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And then you have Patrick Butler, former LA Fire Department
Assistant chief. He now is the fire chief in Redondo Beach.
It is common practice for firefighters to check on past
wildfires because you want to make sure it is dead out.
You don't leave until you have one hundred percent mop up,
because the fire can hide underground and reignite unexpectedly, even
weeks later. How come the guys who let the fire
(15:03):
department know this? And how come the people who work
for the fire department that day either didn't know this
or didn't care.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Did Kristin Crowley know this? Did Mario Garcia know this?
I mean, now you're having.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Testimony in real time. These are text messages firefighters talking
to each other saying, well, you know, we touched the rocks,
they were hot. We touched the tree stumps they were hot.
We felt the heat coming from the ground, We see
the smoke coming out.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
This is corroborated by how.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Many hikers who had videos who called nine to one one.
Those messages are part of the public record, and now
Bass Rowley Vienaeva, Mario Garcia no comment, no comment. The
Times calls no comment, They emailed, no comment, They text
(15:57):
no comment, written questions, verbal questions, no comment, no comment.
Thousands of homes gone, lives, upended forever, dozen people dead,
burned or crisp no comment. Why wouldn't you keep For
God's sakes, you didn't have to keep that many firefighters there,
(16:21):
they'd already identified the problem. This is massive, deadly, tragic incompetence.
This should be criminal negligence, criminal incompetence. Honestly, people who
made these decisions really ought to go to prison for this.
There shouldn't be any protection, any immunity for this.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And for God's sakes, if.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
You work in law enforcement, you work for the fire department,
and you see this kind of stuff going on, somehow
get the message out. It's not like we don't have
any communication channels these days. Good lord, this is this
is a travesty, absolute incompetence. And look at the cover up.
(17:06):
Look at the criminal cover up here by Karen Bassett,
her whole administration and the city council. This this, this,
this cannot go on. This should be it now, this
is proof. When we come back, Gavin Newsom, he's got
Diary of the Mouth, went on with Jonathan Carl who's
(17:29):
this hack correspondent for ABC News.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
We've got some stuff to play.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from kf I
Am six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
We spent the first half hour on this. This this
blockbuster story. Major credit to the La Times. They got
to hold the text messages of LA firefighters who were
telling the battalion chief the day after the New Year's fire,
it's a bad idea for us to leave. They were
(18:01):
smoldering going on. The rocks were hot, the tree stumps
were hot. It's clear the fire wasn't completely out. It
was still burning underground. It was still eminating a lot
of heat and fire policy normally would be you stick
around to put out in case it resurges. And they
say the battalion chief, Barrio Garcia, pulled everyone out, and
(18:25):
former La f Fire Department commanders say, that's a mistake.
You're supposed to stay. I've got something to add before
we get into the new some stuff because this report
you should listen to. This was from ABC seven. The
(18:47):
reporter is Kevin Osbeck, and he interviewed a Palisades fire
incident commander, Chief Deputy Joe Everett about the mistakes that
might have been made in this.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
To the people of the city who've lost trust in
their fire department, what do you want to say to them, we're.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
Going to use this as a blueprint for change and
we're going to be better.
Speaker 7 (19:11):
And that starts by looking at the Lockman fire that
sparked on January first, and, according to federal investigators, smoldered
underground for a week before the fierce wings whipped it
into the devastating Palisades Fire January sixteenth.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Then LAFD assisted.
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Chief Joe Everett for the West Bureau, which includes the Palisades,
spoke at a community meeting saying he was out of
town on New Year's but was on the phone with
the firefighters at the Lochman scene.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
That fire was dead out. If it is determined that
was the cause, it would be a phenomenon. I had
full faith and belief that they did a good job,
and I do today and I stand by that word phenomenon.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
According to this hose and equipment recovery memo obtained by
seven on your Side, the hose left on the Lockman
site in case of a flare up was taken back
on January third.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Was that a mistake?
Speaker 7 (20:07):
Should those hoses have been kept in place longer? Should
firefighters been checking on that.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Burn scar longer?
Speaker 6 (20:14):
Well? I mean in retrospect. I think that yes, But
I mentioned that question knowing about the devastation of the
January seventh fire. Did I feel confident with the officers
that were on seeing, with the firefighters and their boots
on the ground, with the work they did. Absolutely no.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
Chief Everett says, to his knowledge, all.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Map up procedures for the Lockman fire were followed. But
from now on the LAFD will be flying heat detecting
drones over burn scars. Chief Everett was the incident commander
for the Palisades fire, calling many of the shots and
making critical decisions like evacuations.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
But you notice he was out of the city too.
Did they say he was out of the city or
out of the country, out of town, out of town?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Okay, yeah, yeah it was Karen Bashier was out of
the country.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So he's out of town.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
This is his crew, and he's telling the the the
Palisades residents in that clip in mid January that the
fire was dead out. This really would be a phenomenon.
Then the FEDS come in and say, well, that's what happened,
and it's not a phenomenon. You should have left a
(21:30):
crew there, and everybody who used to work for LA
Fire Department that's being interviewed by the La Times said, yeah,
there should have been a crew there because this is
what happens. The battalion chief Rick Crawford, and also the
UH former assistant chief Patrick Butler. So why did the
(21:51):
battalion chief pull the crew? Nobody's nobody's explained this yet, Joe,
every kind of UH, don't give you that Hide and
Sight twenty twenty nonsense. I can't stand that you are trained,
You are educated, you had the experience. I think if
(22:11):
you put me in Deborah and Eric and Ray out
in the field and we see hot stumps and hot
rocks and smoke coming out of the ground, even we'd say, wow,
maybe we should have a fire crew sticking around here.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
I get pissed off when people flick their ashes from
their cigarette in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
That yeh's right. If you flick ashes, that's enough to
start a five.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
Yes, some people do that all the time, and I
get pissed off.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I don't understand how could that not be a risk
when clearly it was so hot, it was emanating heat
and sending up wisps of smoke.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And then you had all that video by all those hikers.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I don't understand they're saying, oh, well, you know in hindsight,
but I have confidence we all did the.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
No, you didn't. You didn't do the best you could.
You did a terrible job. I mean, really, this was.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
If this wasn't a disastrous job, what is a disastrous job.
You stayed at the scene, you would have put it
out on January seventh. Oh yeah, even we don't even
put it in the context of Now we're in the
middle of all these red flag warnings, these dire predictions
from the National Weather Service eighty to one hundred mile
(23:22):
an hour winds, right, extreme fire conditions, extreme wind conditions,
and so but firefighters know this, all these commanders and
battalion chiefs and whatever the hell their titles are, they
know this.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Just wan don't understand.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
They know this better than the National Weather Service is
saying red flag warning, extreme fire danger, extreme wind danger.
And then you have this hot spot with the stumps
and the rocks and the smoke whisping up.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
You leave.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I I don't understand this, you know. I call it incompetence.
I just can't believe anybody could be that incompetent. How
could you be that incompetent. That's that's mind boggling. That's impossible.
It's impossible when you have all this evidence that you
have a serious hot spot here and you have that
extreme forecast, that anybody in their right mind would walk away.
(24:29):
I think even little kids and pets would figure it out.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And how come everybody walked away? And everybody's judgment was
at a commission? Well, I mean it does say some
of the firefighters pushed back.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Who we have to fall orders?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And one guy's out of town and basses out of
the country, and everybody denies it. Afterwards, every you said,
oh no, this was unprecedented and we did everything.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
We could never seen anything like it. What a phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh my wow, you're all liars. You're a bunch of
ass covering wars. And you know it. Who's the first
person who's going to walk forward and say you're right?
We really fed up? We screwed this up so badly.
We were. We were incompetent, negligent, admit it. Every every
(25:30):
single person in the Palisades knows it. Anybody paying attention
to this story knows it. I know it, and you
guys know it. Admit it already, your lawyers know it.
This is this is beyond a reasonable doubt evidence the
firefighter's own words.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
All right, you're listening to John Cobbels on demand from
kf I Am six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
We'll do the new some stuff because there's just too
much of it in the two o'clock hour after Carl Demiel.
Carl is going to come on first because if this
Prop fifty passes, it's going to set up some of
the representatives in California that voted for it. It's going
to create protected congressional seats for them, and Carl wants
(26:20):
to do something about that. So we'll talk to Carl
after Debra's news, and then we've got Newsom on ABC
News getting his body oiled up by Jonathan Carl, who's
this hacked political reporter.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
In fact, I have a list. I think I wrote
down twenty issues that Jonathan Carl could have asked about
Newsom's performance here in the state. Instead, they spent most
of the time on Trump, and Newsom liede like hell
about many things.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Anyway, unbelievable. They're all in it together now. Yesterday we
mentioned that the air traffic controllers are calling in sick.
They're upset they're not getting paid because of the government shutdown.
This is the idiocy of the federal government here that
(27:18):
if you're going to do a shutdown, you do a
carve out for air traffic controllers. You think, well, they
didn't so they only got partial payments on the fifteenth
of October. They're getting no payments this week, and then
if you go another two weeks, there were these these
families are really going to be in trouble. It goes
without saying the traffic controllers. Not only that, the TSA
(27:41):
agents they are also calling in sick by the hundreds.
So you got long security lines at the airports, and
you have flights all over the country yesterday delayed or canceled.
As of six o'clock last night, there were three thousand,
(28:04):
one hundred and fifteen flights delayed, three one hundred and fifteen.
They had a ground stop at Newark Airport. Delays were
at fifty six minutes in Boston, thirty two minutes at
Washington National, forty five minutes in San Diego. And the
controllers have been calling in sick more often, and what
(28:25):
they're doing is going and working at their second job
that they took to cover during this period.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
This is chaotic and we have Thanksgiving coming up next
month and then Christmas.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, the controllers are working mandatory overtime six days a week,
ten hours a day.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
They're not getting paid and they have nothing to pay
their bills with.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You're going to do a shutdown, you got to prepare
for the consequences.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I mean, that's that's just extreme incompetent.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Well, we said yesterday that members of Congress they should
not be paid pay the air traffic controllers and the
TSA agents. They're the ones that should be paid.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
These shutdowns would never happen if their pay was cut.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Absolutely every day that the shutdown continues, there should be
some kind of lost in pay.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I mean, I mean there are you know, the and
the deduction. I should say, yeah, I mean I just don't.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I don't understand the idiocy at every level of government.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
We've got hundreds of thousands of people up in the air.
What are you doing? This is what people ought to
be taken to the streets about. For all the dumb
ass protests we all have to endure, does anybody call
a congressman or a Senator and say what the bleep
(29:58):
is going on here?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah? Thanksgivings coming up?
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Yes, can you imagine.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
This? This is like third world stuff? It really is.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
When we come back, Carl demile, because part of the
Prop fifty scam is that some of the some of
the Democratic representatives voted for Prop fifty, got it on
the ballot, and now they're going to get a cushy
congressional seat waiting for them, a safe congressional seat because
(30:31):
some of them are getting turned out of the legislature.
Carl de Myle, Republican Assemblyman, is on next, and Deborah
Mark is live in the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Hey,
you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You
can always hear the show live on KFI AM six
forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We are here for you, we're here to serve you,
and we're on every day from one until four o'clock,
and after four o'clock, whatever you missed is on the podcast.
John Cobelt's Show on demand. Thousands and thousands downloaded every day,
and that's how you keep up with what we do here,
because it may be hard to listen for the whole
three hours, so after four o'clock we always post the
(00:30):
entire show. All right, We've got a lot of big
news today. I'm going to start right with what I
saw first thing this morning in the Los Angeles Times,
which we're all the terrible but accurate things I say
about the Times, they have shined like I haven't seen
a news outlet shine in a long time, covering what
(00:53):
caused the fire, and how incompetent the fire management was
at the Los Angeles Fire Department, and how incompetent all
the public officials were in politicians, and today you know,
slowly the story is coming out. They tried hard to lie, lie,
cover up, deny, but slowly the onion gets peeled. And
(01:18):
here's today. Take you back to January first. The original
fire started by that weird, creepy guy that they rested
recently starts the fire. They put it out on January first,
January second, there were firefighters still mopping up. They call
(01:44):
it the Lockman fire. And they said, and they told
this to their battalion chief. The ground was still smoldering,
the rocks are still hot. The battalion chief, who's not named, said,
we're going anyway, We're leaving. He ordered the firefighters to
(02:07):
roll up their hoses and pull out. This is on
January second, five days before it exploded into the Palisades fire.
The fire had been declared contained the day before. And
now the battalion chief said, everybody up. He did not
want to stay and make sure there were no hidden
numbers that could spark a new fire. How do we
(02:30):
know this well, the La Times got a hold of
a series of text messages that the firefighters sent to
each other and also some mysterious third party, so they
have it in writing. They quote the writing here. A
firefighter who was at the scene on January second, wrote
(02:51):
that the battalion chief that we told him we told
the battalion chief it was a bad idea to leave
the burn scar unprotected because everybody could see the smoldering.
So it wasn't just hikers who kept calling in smoldering
and wisps of white smoke in the air. It was
(03:14):
the firefighters themselves saw it, and they're telling the battalion chief.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
And this is right here.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
This is at the heart of the incompetence, the heart
of this mistake. Why would a battalion chief tell everybody
to go home? It makes no sense. Later on, I'll
tell you there are several former firefighters by name. They
(03:42):
were leaders in the fire department who said, well, no,
you don't do that. So what's with this guy? And
he ought to be named. This is going to be
at the centerpiece of the lawsuits. LA Times called the
(04:04):
La Fire Department. They declined to comment. LA Fire Department
chief Ronnie Vanueva. He's the one who replaced Kristin Crowley.
He said in a statement just a few weeks ago
that the Palisades fire was not due to failed suppression
of the original fire. He said it was the result
(04:27):
of undetectable and undetectable holdover fire that lived deep within
the roots, except it didn't live deep within the roots.
It was right there at the surface with smoke coming out,
and the rocks were giving off heat.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So what Van Auevas said was false.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Going back to the text messages, the firefighters complained that
the commanders failed to make certain that the bop up
was finished. A second firefighter said that the crews at
stationed sixty nine in the Palisades were surprised they were
told to roll up their hoses.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Firefighters told them the tree stumps were still hot.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And the hoses had been left there in case hidden
embers sparked a flare up. But apparently the battalion chief
maybe there were other others in management, I don't know,
but they said, no, we're going. The firefighter also wrote
(05:38):
that he and his colleagues knew immediately that the January
seventh fire was a rekindling of the January first blaze.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Now why did the firefighters leave?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
What?
Speaker 1 (05:50):
You know, why did they Why did they stay? Anyway?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Well, the firefighters were upset when they were told to
pack up and leave, but they couldn't ignore orders.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
There's something wrong with that. I understand all.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
These you know, the military, the police, the fire department.
You got to obey your orders, but somebody at the
very least make a public stink. And how about warning
everybody in the neighborhood. Somebody's got to go rogue. Somebody's
got to have some courage. I don't agree with this
(06:24):
whole thing. Well, I was following orders. You know that
that was an excuse given by that those two idiot
cops when Derek Chauvin was was murdering George Floyd.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well you can't. You can't contradict your elite officer. There
no here.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
The firefighters should have made a big stink out of this,
and it should have been public. You go to every
person in the palace ades today. I bet they wish
one of the firefighters had blown the whistle on this.
Put a message online. You don't need that puts your
name to it. Just spread it around the next door
(07:07):
app would have gotten a lot of attention. The battalion
chief listed on being The LA Times says that the
battalion chief who is listed as being on duty on
January two was a battalion chief named Mario Garcia. He's
(07:30):
not commenting, he's not responding. Now, these are pretty heavy
charges against Mario Garcia. The accusations point towards extreme incompetence,
tragic decision. And when we come back, I'll tell you
(07:52):
what other former LA Fire Department officials have said should
have been done. And also I want to point out
more lies, more false information at the very least that
the interim chief, Ronnie Villanueva, has been selling after Kristin
(08:15):
Crowley got fired. By the way, they called Kristin Crowley,
she didn't respond. They called Karen Bass, she didn't respond.
Mary Garcia didn't respond. Nobody responds. And it turns out
the LA Fire Department, especially the commanders, really really screwed
this up badly, a huge, deadly botch, which is what
(08:40):
everybody suspected. And the apologists came out and said, no, no, no,
we have the finest firefighter. You know, It's like when
people defend teachers even though three quarters of the kids
graduate without being able to read. Oh yeah, you know,
the teachers or national research. You know, just because you
(09:01):
wear a uniform, you're well trained, you have an important
job teaching your kids, protecting lives, doesn't mean that there's
not a culture of incompetence, especially in management.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Talk more about it.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Next you're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
A powerful story here in Los Angeles Times, and it's
about the massive incompetence of LA Fire Department management in
handling the Palisades fire. Just to briefly run it down
again if you're just joining us, there was an original
(09:44):
New Year's Day fire on January first that was put out,
so the LA Fire Department said, But on January second,
firefighters found that the rocks were still hot, the ground
was smoldering, the tree stumps were hot, and that they
(10:05):
should stay on duty and continue monitoring the land there
that was clearly smoldering. Clearly there was smoke coming out,
and a battalion chief, according to the firefighters, said no,
roll up your hoses. Everybody go home. This is according
to text messages that the LA Times has seen and
(10:29):
was quoting in this story. It's a great story, Paul
Pringle and Eleen check Mitian, and this is the way
you do it. The crew members were upset, but they
wouldn't ignore orders. That's a no no. So by listening
to a bad order, people died and thousands of homes
(10:52):
burned down. I don't get that I really don't understand that.
I don't understand the salutes that everybody's supposed to give
to your commanders when clearly something dangerous and bad can happen.
Kind of tired of hearing that over the years. That's
what they said, That's what the commander said. The battalion
(11:16):
chief is Mario Garcia. He did not respond to requests
for comment. I'm going to go through this again. Ronnie
van Aweva, the interim chief, did not respond to a
detailed list of questions from The Times. Karen Bass did
not respond to written questions or an interview request. Former
fire chief Kristin Crowley, who was in charge at the time,
(11:38):
did not respond to an email request for comment. Vienna Weeva,
the interim chief, said that the firefighters stayed in the
area for more than thirty six hours and cold trailed it,
meaning they used their hands to feel for heat, dug
out hotspots, and chopped.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
The line around the perimeter. Apparently that's false.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
He also claimed that the firefighters return on January third
for another round of cold trailing after a report of
smoke in the area. We went back there again. We
dug it all out, We did everything we could cold
trail again, we did all that. Well, Uh, many hikers
have proven otherwise. They've got video they called nine one
one nine one one told them to pound sand really
(12:19):
unless they see flames? Where did that rule come from?
Unless you see flames? After a pretty big fire in
New Year's Day nine one one, we've even passed a
call through.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Again.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
You know what you got to do is you got
to go right up to the fire station there. You
got to start calling a call here, call our show
called intelevision stations. Go on social media, for goddeness sakes,
you go on social media and there's endless nonsense of
people sticking their rear ends out in the air, twerking
(12:53):
and dancing.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
You don't like that, no, well depends. Uh, this is
what normally goes on.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
And nobody wants to spend five minutes and put out
a message. It's like, hey, look here, now there's smoke
coming out.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Of the ground.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Hey look at these hot stumps and hot rocks. And
is nobody going to talk? Is again Karen Vass and
now this Mario Garcia and Ronnievianueva and Kristin Crowley. Everyone
is now going to go into hiding and we're not
going to respond.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Why is it taking this long for all this information
to even come out. It's almost been a year.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, you know what's amazing is even the federal investigation
didn't produce this information, although they said the fire smolded
and burned for days underground. All right, Now, here's some
of the people who used to work for the LA
Fire Department. Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, he said, based on
his experience fighting wildfires, we're talking about something that was
(13:53):
just beneath the service surface.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Rather. He retired last year. He now works for the
US Capital.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
And he says the federal agency prefers the term holdover
to rekindle because rekindle implies that you didn't do your job.
Holdover suggest it was beyond our control. You see, they've
changed the language to cover up their incompetence because how
would we know. But it's the same thing, according to
(14:24):
Rick Crawford, He goes, you can get into semantics, but
the bottom line is whether the department used all the
tools available to put out the January first fire.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Out and it did not. It did not.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And then you have Patrick Butler, former LA Fire Department
Assistant chief. He now is the fire chief in Redondo Beach.
It is common practice for firefighters to check on past
wildfires because you want to make sure it is dead out.
You don't leave until you have one hundred percent mop up,
because the fire can hide underground and reignite unexpectedly, even
weeks later. How come the guys who let the fire
(15:03):
department know this? And how come the people who work
for the fire department that day either didn't know this
or didn't care.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Did Kristin Crowley know this? Did Mario Garcia know this?
I mean, now you're having.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Testimony in real time. These are text messages firefighters talking
to each other saying, well, you know, we touched the rocks,
they were hot. We touched the tree stumps they were hot.
We felt the heat coming from the ground, We see
the smoke coming out.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
This is corroborated by how.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Many hikers who had videos who called nine to one one.
Those messages are part of the public record, and now
Bass Rowley Vienaeva, Mario Garcia no comment, no comment. The
Times calls no comment, They emailed, no comment, They text
(15:57):
no comment, written questions, verbal questions, no comment, no comment.
Thousands of homes gone, lives, upended forever, dozen people dead,
burned or crisp no comment. Why wouldn't you keep For
God's sakes, you didn't have to keep that many firefighters there,
(16:21):
they'd already identified the problem. This is massive, deadly, tragic incompetence.
This should be criminal negligence, criminal incompetence. Honestly, people who
made these decisions really ought to go to prison for this.
There shouldn't be any protection, any immunity for this.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And for God's sakes, if.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
You work in law enforcement, you work for the fire department,
and you see this kind of stuff going on, somehow
get the message out. It's not like we don't have
any communication channels these days. Good lord, this is this
is a travesty, absolute incompetence. And look at the cover up.
(17:06):
Look at the criminal cover up here by Karen Bassett,
her whole administration and the city council. This this, this,
this cannot go on. This should be it now, this
is proof. When we come back, Gavin Newsom, he's got
Diary of the Mouth, went on with Jonathan Carl who's
(17:29):
this hack correspondent for ABC News.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
We've got some stuff to play.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from kf I
Am six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
We spent the first half hour on this. This this
blockbuster story. Major credit to the La Times. They got
to hold the text messages of LA firefighters who were
telling the battalion chief the day after the New Year's fire,
it's a bad idea for us to leave. They were
(18:01):
smoldering going on. The rocks were hot, the tree stumps
were hot. It's clear the fire wasn't completely out. It
was still burning underground. It was still eminating a lot
of heat and fire policy normally would be you stick
around to put out in case it resurges. And they
say the battalion chief, Barrio Garcia, pulled everyone out, and
(18:25):
former La f Fire Department commanders say, that's a mistake.
You're supposed to stay. I've got something to add before
we get into the new some stuff because this report
you should listen to. This was from ABC seven. The
(18:47):
reporter is Kevin Osbeck, and he interviewed a Palisades fire
incident commander, Chief Deputy Joe Everett about the mistakes that
might have been made in this.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
To the people of the city who've lost trust in
their fire department, what do you want to say to them, we're.
Speaker 6 (19:06):
Going to use this as a blueprint for change and
we're going to be better.
Speaker 7 (19:11):
And that starts by looking at the Lockman fire that
sparked on January first, and, according to federal investigators, smoldered
underground for a week before the fierce wings whipped it
into the devastating Palisades Fire January sixteenth.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Then LAFD assisted.
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Chief Joe Everett for the West Bureau, which includes the Palisades,
spoke at a community meeting saying he was out of
town on New Year's but was on the phone with
the firefighters at the Lochman scene.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
That fire was dead out. If it is determined that
was the cause, it would be a phenomenon. I had
full faith and belief that they did a good job,
and I do today and I stand by that word phenomenon.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
According to this hose and equipment recovery memo obtained by
seven on your Side, the hose left on the Lockman
site in case of a flare up was taken back
on January third.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Was that a mistake?
Speaker 7 (20:07):
Should those hoses have been kept in place longer? Should
firefighters been checking on that.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Burn scar longer?
Speaker 6 (20:14):
Well? I mean in retrospect. I think that yes, But
I mentioned that question knowing about the devastation of the
January seventh fire. Did I feel confident with the officers
that were on seeing, with the firefighters and their boots
on the ground, with the work they did. Absolutely no.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
Chief Everett says, to his knowledge, all.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Map up procedures for the Lockman fire were followed. But
from now on the LAFD will be flying heat detecting
drones over burn scars. Chief Everett was the incident commander
for the Palisades fire, calling many of the shots and
making critical decisions like evacuations.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
But you notice he was out of the city too.
Did they say he was out of the city or
out of the country, out of town, out of town?
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Okay, yeah, yeah it was Karen Bashier was out of
the country.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So he's out of town.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
This is his crew, and he's telling the the the
Palisades residents in that clip in mid January that the
fire was dead out. This really would be a phenomenon.
Then the FEDS come in and say, well, that's what happened,
and it's not a phenomenon. You should have left a
(21:30):
crew there, and everybody who used to work for LA
Fire Department that's being interviewed by the La Times said, yeah,
there should have been a crew there because this is
what happens. The battalion chief Rick Crawford, and also the
UH former assistant chief Patrick Butler. So why did the
(21:51):
battalion chief pull the crew? Nobody's nobody's explained this yet, Joe,
every kind of UH, don't give you that Hide and
Sight twenty twenty nonsense. I can't stand that you are trained,
You are educated, you had the experience. I think if
(22:11):
you put me in Deborah and Eric and Ray out
in the field and we see hot stumps and hot
rocks and smoke coming out of the ground, even we'd say, wow,
maybe we should have a fire crew sticking around here.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
I get pissed off when people flick their ashes from
their cigarette in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
That yeh's right. If you flick ashes, that's enough to
start a five.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
Yes, some people do that all the time, and I
get pissed off.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I don't understand how could that not be a risk
when clearly it was so hot, it was emanating heat
and sending up wisps of smoke.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
And then you had all that video by all those hikers.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I don't understand they're saying, oh, well, you know in hindsight,
but I have confidence we all did the.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
No, you didn't. You didn't do the best you could.
You did a terrible job. I mean, really, this was.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
If this wasn't a disastrous job, what is a disastrous job.
You stayed at the scene, you would have put it
out on January seventh. Oh yeah, even we don't even
put it in the context of Now we're in the
middle of all these red flag warnings, these dire predictions
from the National Weather Service eighty to one hundred mile
(23:22):
an hour winds, right, extreme fire conditions, extreme wind conditions,
and so but firefighters know this, all these commanders and
battalion chiefs and whatever the hell their titles are, they
know this.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Just wan don't understand.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
They know this better than the National Weather Service is
saying red flag warning, extreme fire danger, extreme wind danger.
And then you have this hot spot with the stumps
and the rocks and the smoke whisping up.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
You leave.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I I don't understand this, you know. I call it incompetence.
I just can't believe anybody could be that incompetent. How
could you be that incompetent. That's that's mind boggling. That's impossible.
It's impossible when you have all this evidence that you
have a serious hot spot here and you have that
extreme forecast, that anybody in their right mind would walk away.
(24:29):
I think even little kids and pets would figure it out.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And how come everybody walked away? And everybody's judgment was
at a commission? Well, I mean it does say some
of the firefighters pushed back.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Who we have to fall orders?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
And one guy's out of town and basses out of
the country, and everybody denies it. Afterwards, every you said,
oh no, this was unprecedented and we did everything.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
We could never seen anything like it. What a phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh my wow, you're all liars. You're a bunch of
ass covering wars. And you know it. Who's the first
person who's going to walk forward and say you're right?
We really fed up? We screwed this up so badly.
We were. We were incompetent, negligent, admit it. Every every
(25:30):
single person in the Palisades knows it. Anybody paying attention
to this story knows it. I know it, and you
guys know it. Admit it already, your lawyers know it.
This is this is beyond a reasonable doubt evidence the
firefighter's own words.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
All right, you're listening to John Cobbels on demand from
kf I Am six forty.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
We'll do the new some stuff because there's just too
much of it in the two o'clock hour after Carl Demiel.
Carl is going to come on first because if this
Prop fifty passes, it's going to set up some of
the representatives in California that voted for it. It's going
to create protected congressional seats for them, and Carl wants
(26:20):
to do something about that. So we'll talk to Carl
after Debra's news, and then we've got Newsom on ABC
News getting his body oiled up by Jonathan Carl, who's
this hacked political reporter.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
In fact, I have a list. I think I wrote
down twenty issues that Jonathan Carl could have asked about
Newsom's performance here in the state. Instead, they spent most
of the time on Trump, and Newsom liede like hell
about many things.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Anyway, unbelievable. They're all in it together now. Yesterday we
mentioned that the air traffic controllers are calling in sick.
They're upset they're not getting paid because of the government shutdown.
This is the idiocy of the federal government here that
(27:18):
if you're going to do a shutdown, you do a
carve out for air traffic controllers. You think, well, they
didn't so they only got partial payments on the fifteenth
of October. They're getting no payments this week, and then
if you go another two weeks, there were these these
families are really going to be in trouble. It goes
without saying the traffic controllers. Not only that, the TSA
(27:41):
agents they are also calling in sick by the hundreds.
So you got long security lines at the airports, and
you have flights all over the country yesterday delayed or canceled.
As of six o'clock last night, there were three thousand,
(28:04):
one hundred and fifteen flights delayed, three one hundred and fifteen.
They had a ground stop at Newark Airport. Delays were
at fifty six minutes in Boston, thirty two minutes at
Washington National, forty five minutes in San Diego. And the
controllers have been calling in sick more often, and what
(28:25):
they're doing is going and working at their second job
that they took to cover during this period.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
This is chaotic and we have Thanksgiving coming up next
month and then Christmas.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, the controllers are working mandatory overtime six days a week,
ten hours a day.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
They're not getting paid and they have nothing to pay
their bills with.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You're going to do a shutdown, you got to prepare
for the consequences.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
I mean, that's that's just extreme incompetent.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Well, we said yesterday that members of Congress they should
not be paid pay the air traffic controllers and the
TSA agents. They're the ones that should be paid.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
These shutdowns would never happen if their pay was cut.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Absolutely every day that the shutdown continues, there should be
some kind of lost in pay.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I mean, I mean there are you know, the and
the deduction. I should say, yeah, I mean I just don't.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I don't understand the idiocy at every level of government.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (29:37):
We've got hundreds of thousands of people up in the air.
What are you doing? This is what people ought to
be taken to the streets about. For all the dumb
ass protests we all have to endure, does anybody call
a congressman or a Senator and say what the bleep
(29:58):
is going on here?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah? Thanksgivings coming up?
Speaker 5 (30:02):
Yes, can you imagine.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
This? This is like third world stuff? It really is.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
When we come back, Carl demile, because part of the
Prop fifty scam is that some of the some of
the Democratic representatives voted for Prop fifty, got it on
the ballot, and now they're going to get a cushy
congressional seat waiting for them, a safe congressional seat because
(30:31):
some of them are getting turned out of the legislature.
Carl de Myle, Republican Assemblyman, is on next, and Deborah
Mark is live in the KFI twenty four hour newsroom. Hey,
you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast. You
can always hear the show live on KFI AM six
forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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