December 25, 2025 • 34 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 3 (12/25) - Best Of The John Kobylt Show. Attorney Mark Geragos comes on the show to talk about a new lawsuit he has filed on behalf of a Palisades Fire victim. A UCLA study says that the reservoir being full would not have made a difference in fighting the Palisades Fire. Attorney Roger Behle comes on the show to talk about the latest going on with the lawsuit he filed on behalf of Palisades Fire victims and why the state of California wanted to protect the milk vetch plant over homes in the Palisades.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobelt
podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We are on every day
from one until four o'clock. After four o'clock, it's John
Cobelt Show on demand. It's the podcast on the iHeart app. Now,
Mark Arragos is getting into the Pacific Palisades case. He
has a homeowner who's filing a lawsuit against City of
(00:23):
La County of La LA's DWP and Mayor Karen Bass
over all the failures before, during, and after the fire.
Let's get Mark Garragos on. How are you? Mark?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm wonderful. How about you? How are you today?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm doing well? What going on?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
What you're kidding?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Well, you're a client? What was his situation in the fire?
What happened to him?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, it's one of these situations where at least at
first you thought, well, at least the structure was spared,
but then you see what happened since and surrounding the area,
and what a disaster it's been, and then all of
the subsequent kind of looking at this thing and it
(01:11):
just looked like it was a lights were on and
nobody was home. In terms of minding the sort here
I don't even understand the gives credit to the FEDS
for doing a report, and credit to the fire department.
We're based in a fire station in downtown LA and
(01:32):
I've always pulling attention to them, and they were early
money on all of the problems with the city and
what the city wasn't doing. And it's just a I
would say it was a comedy of airs, but it's
been a complete tragedy for everybody involved at police, of
which is the mayor. And you've got them kind of
(01:52):
dealing with it. You've documented better than anybody.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, I am still stunned, even after talking about this
for a year, that those those weather warnings were so
strong for you know, five six days ahead, extreme fire warnings,
extreme wind warnings. They used all the apocalyptic language you
(02:16):
could find in the dictionary the National Weather Service did
in order to describe what potentially could happen. And I'm
not aware of any any preparation meeting that anybody in
the LA government had to address what.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Was comt I don't even understand it. I mean, I
really don't. You do you rely on the government. There's
some basic functions and the idea is that they're supposed
to protect you, and it's almost as if they did
everything possible to not protect and that's just very disconcerting.
And I'm looking forward to the discovery in this case.
(02:52):
I think the discovery getting people on their owns and requiring,
you know, the after reports and what was done in
real time, and the kinds of clearing balls that we're
done were ignored.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know. Had I got a lot of friends in
the Palisades. It's next door to me, and we were
affected to the extent that we lost our power and
we couldn't use the water, and then the thieves descended
on our neighborhood because there were no police. I mean,
there's no power, there's no water, there was no police.
But we didn't our neighborhood didn't burn. We were a
(03:25):
couple of miles away. But I remember thinking in the
middle of it, it's like, Wow, this is a complete
collapse of the government. You're really on your own. And
we had to hire a guy who was somebody's electrician
in the neighborhood, and he had a pistol and we
were paying him, along with a couple of neighbors, one
thousand dollars a day to stand outside and shoot any
(03:47):
of the looters that might come on our property. That's
what that's well, that was our reality.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I like you, I was out to DA adjacent and
we were evacuated. I my span of band godal Siri
or off the wall theory is the only reason that
the fire didn't jump and hit us is because JPL
was right there and they weren't going to let that burn.
But they be looting the home invasions immediately after, and
(04:14):
we did the same thing. All the neighbors banded together
and it's kind of air and narrow and private police
force in order to police the neighborhood. And you start
to realize that the social contract is very, very fragile.
And this exposed exactly all of the problems with the
government in not being prepared. It's the one thing that
(04:35):
they literally weren't doing.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Why do you think that is they don't care?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I will, I think to some degree now I just
can't accept the fact that people don't care, and just
I don't think that that is it. I think that
I think when you say lazy, I think of it
as intellectually. I think that it's that you have to
be prepared, you have to understand these things, and you
(05:06):
have to have go of systems and advicement was obvious
that there were no systems or whatever systems were in
place were completely ignored. It's the intellectually lazy or the
system challenges.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And everything failed, the preparation, the execution, and the reaction
to the fire afterwards, and on a state level and
county and city. I mean everything failed and I didn't
think that was possible.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, and you know the I often invoke Adam Corolla.
He's the longtime friend, one time the best partner of
mine and was invallable and has been documenting in his blogs.
But the predictions that he was making and they've all
basically come true. It's looked like kind of a profit
in some ways, saying when people understand the jump through
(06:01):
to get a permit, what you have to do in
order to get to kind of navigate the governmentals, it's
astonishing and it's played out exactly that way. Here we
are knocking on the door of a year, and where's
the rebot? Where is anything there? Just is now? Responsiveness
is appallen, and it's just I think people have to
(06:23):
be held accountables.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So who do you want to talk to? The most.
What departments or what officials do you want to depose
for your client's loss?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Really, I really think I want to get into the
fire department and the mayor's office and the emergency response.
I want to find out who actually was responsible, who
didn't want the triggers so to speak of getting some
to your point, I mean not only preparation, but right
in the after. And that is exactly what we want
(06:53):
to find out. What I think we've kind of detailed
in the lawsuit as to what we've seen so far,
what we've coddled together from the various reports, and we'll
plan on doing an expansive discovery, deep dive into this
and make it once we get through it as we're
(07:16):
doing it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
But why do your client decide to call you for
an individual lawsuit rather than join the thousands that are
working with the other attorneys.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, it's interesting because early on I was I
did what's called a nine to ten action for them
because they suspected that and others as well, that this
was a governmental failure like you thought, and so we
filed what it called nine ten actions early on, which
were denied nine tens or what the legislature is imposed
(07:50):
a duty that you file and you get denied doing
almost routinely by the governmental entities to hold them accountable.
They I think, because I got a history, is like
pulling up against the government, whether it's for civil rights
actions or other things. And this I think drink class
or umbermental sound earl. That's one of the things that
(08:12):
attracted me of new litigation.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
All right. Well, well, when you find things out, and
if you want to share anything from your investigations and depositions,
please always come on the air, because we're looking for
as much information as possible to explain why these people
did or didn't do everything. I mean, I can't think
of one thing that any level of government did right
(08:35):
and did competently in the whole mess.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And still take a look. Yeah, don't totally me. Don't
take a look. It's wild when you look at it.
We're almost a year out or a couple of weeks
away from the year anniversary, and the devastation is still unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
All right, Mark, thanks for coming on, Thank you bike.
All Right, Mark Geragos, who's got a client who's suing
everybody La City, County, the mayor, DWP over the damage
his house suffered from the fire, and when we come back,
would you believe this? I UCLA has something called the
(09:23):
Water Resources Group, and the researchers have done their own
study on whether the reservoirs would have made a difference.
If the one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir Sentienez
Reservoir in the Palace, would it have made a difference.
It was if it was full instead of bone dry empty.
(09:44):
You're not going to believe their answer. I'll tell you
about it we come back.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Follow us at John Cobelt Radio. On social media at
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putting longer segments on, and then it's at John Cobert
(10:16):
Radio for everything else. The UCLA has something called the
Water Resources Group. It's researchers led by Gregory Pierce, and
almost within I think I mentioned this. We had Rick
Caruso on the day after the fire very shortly thereafter,
(10:39):
and he said in passing, and I didn't even catch it,
but he was talking. He already had identified all a
lot of the stuff that had gone wrong with the
anticipation and execution of fighting the fire. And he said
something about the reservoirs were dry, and I didn't know
what that meant, and we just moved on to something
(10:59):
else else, And then it turned out he was talking
about the Santienez reservoir, one hundred and seventeen million gallons
it's supposed to hold, and it was empty. And that
became a huge focal point of the anger and the
outrage because the La Times did a big story detailing
how they drained it because the cover had torn and
(11:22):
it took them a year to replace. The cover didn't
cost very much money. It wasn't a difficult job. It
was just the inertia, the stupid laziness of government workers
at the DWP. I don't know else. We were just
talking with Mark Arragos, like, what is it? What is
it with the government workers? Nobody prepared for this, nobody executed.
(11:43):
This was all doable, this was all preventable. What's wrong
with you people? When you get up in the morning
you decide not to do anything, but periodically the reservoir
would come, you know, be a debate point and people,
you know, whatever plants the Beast administration had online in
(12:05):
the comments section. Let's say at the LA Times, Well,
the reservoir wouldn't have made a difference all the reservoir.
Of course, it would make a difference. And as I
talked to people involved in the fire, and I mentioned
the other day, I talked to a guy who prevented
his home and two other neighbors homes from burning because
he had two and a half inch hose and he
(12:27):
used I think swimming pool water and he kept the
roofs wet and they survived the fire, where other homes
in the neighborhood did not two and a half inch SHOs.
He'd had it because a fire had burned down his
family home back in the nineteen seventies when he was
a little kid, and so he always kept the fire
(12:51):
a hose on the property just in case. And he said,
nobody showed up to fight the fire, and firefighters would say, well,
we're out of water. We're out of water. So now
here comes Gregory Piers, director of the UCLA Water Resources
group that wanted to decide whether the intense focus on
(13:13):
the water supply meant that the dry hydrants had uniquely
hampered the Palisades firefight or whether this happened all the time.
And they claim that the hydrants often sputter out because
(13:34):
you lose pressure. You have the burning homes, hemorrhaging water
right the pipes are melting down and busting, and then
there's too many fire truck hoses and everybody else drawing
on a limited supply. And the report says fire hydrant
performance in the Palisades seems to represent the rule rather
(13:54):
than the exception. The only difference is that the hydrant
performance did not make the headlines of news stories of
other fires. Even though there's plenty of water available in
the system, it's not possible to pump enough water to
the fire area all at once to meet the flow
(14:15):
rate demand. Even if the Yes Santienez Reservoir had been full,
the hydrants could not have maintained pressure. I don't and
that last quote was from the state investigation. Now that
just makes no sense to me. If everybody's using the
(14:39):
water at the same time and that reduces the water pressure.
But if you have one hundred and seventeen million gallons
constantly flowing into the system. It's going to extend the
life of their fire fighting capabilities. And and if it is
(15:06):
the lack of water pressure, then how could Los Angeles
have for one hundred years and we've had a number
of fires over the years. How could you have a
system that doesn't work when you need it most. How
could that be the standard fire hydrant system that we've
been living with all this time? How does that happen?
(15:28):
Nobody ever designed a better system to supply enough water
for a major fire. Nobody ever thought of it, Nobody
drew it up, nobody voted to pay for it. Don't
I don't understand this. Well, then where would one hundred
(15:52):
and seventeen million gallons go, right, It would come out
of the reservoir, it would go through the system. They
had three million gallons available, three separate tanks that were full,
and they used that. And even if much of the
(16:13):
town would have burned anyway, they would have said somebody
that one hundred and seventeen million gallons would have saved somebody,
a lot of somebody's I'm just the reservoir was there,
it was built nineteen sixty four specifically for a fire.
(16:33):
So you're telling me that it built a reservoir, but
it didn't matter if it was filled or not. And
it didn't matter if we had ten reservoirs or twenty reservoirs.
It didn't matter. All the fire hydrants would have run
dry anyway. None of that makes sense to me. And
if it did make sense, then why didn't you get
(16:54):
a different system. And of course, if they had just
set the fire crew and kept it there from the
January first fire, they would have put out three kindling
right away, and it really wouldn't matter how many, if
the hydrants worked, or if the reservoir was full, it
wouldn't matter. They would have put out the fire right
up there immediately. All right, more coming up.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock. After
four o'clock John Cobelt's Show on demand on the Heart app,
and you could follow us on social media at John
Cobelt Radio, at John Cobelt Radio on all the social
media platforms. We're going to talk now with Roger Bailey.
Roger Bailey is one of the a team of attorneys
(17:48):
representing thousands of Palisades residents who got burned out in
the fire, and they're starting to do depositions state Park Reps.
They have texts between State Parks personnel which indicates that
(18:08):
the original fire on January first, and then the Palis
Saint's fire on the seventh both were in what is
called well. The January first fire created a fire perimeter,
and in that fire perimeter was an avoidance area where
they did not want the plant life disrupted. So when
(18:30):
the LA Fire Department went in with bulldozers to build
some kind of fire line for the first fire, that's
when they got chased out by the State Park Reps.
And so the second fire started in the middle of
the avoidance area. And this is actually in the text.
Let's get Roger Bailey on Roger, how are you?
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I'm doing well, John, how are you?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Every time you come on, I want to say, I
just don't believe this, but tell us you're you're now
doing depositions. Are these texts part of the document drop
for the depositions?
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Yeah, actually I'm I'm actually on the way back from
a deposition right now. We've got several of them scheduled
over the next several days. And the documents that we're
getting for the depositions include the text messages that you
see and the area avoidance map that I've sent over.
You may remember last time I was on the state
(19:29):
didn't give us those maps. Right, we knew where the
Palisades fire started, and we said, I wonder if the
reason they didn't give us those maps is because the
Palisades fire started in one of these areas that's off
limits to firefighters. And lo and behold when we got
the map showing where the firefighters were not allowed to go,
that's right where the Palisades fire started.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Ray Lopez, my producer, just handed me a couple of
the text Can I read them to the audience because
I have not read these outline. I just got there
and this is the night of the first fire, January first, two,
three am. And it says, Hi, Christy are you at
the fire? And CHRISTI wrights back. I will be. I'm
(20:14):
getting ready now. There is Federal endangered s astragalus along
Timesco fire Road. Would be nice to avoid cutting it
if possible. Do you have avoidance maps? I have a
couple of RIA ds on standby. I'll wait to deploy
them until you get unseen and assess the situation. Definitely
(20:36):
want to send them down if heavy equipment arrives. And
Christie rights back, well, yeah, Christi writes back, Okay, I'll
let you know. So I guess she was the state
Fire State Parks representative that we know started getting in
the way of the LA Fire Department and she was
(20:58):
being told to look at the avoidance because you've got
this astrogallus plant that has to be protected.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
That's right. That plant is also known as the milk vetch. Yes,
the milk vetch, so that maybe the name you know
more than the astrogallaus, but it's the milk.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Vetch, that's yeah. That was identified by in the LA
time stories early on, the milk bitch. Yes, that's right,
got it, This is all true.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yes. So so these avoidance areas are designated by the
state park to protect, among other things, plant species, and
they make these maps available to the firefighters, and they
also have these RAA ds are called resource advisors, and
(21:50):
they go up there and they interact with the firefighters
to say, well, here here's the map, here's where you
can't go. Can't use have the equipment over here their own,
their own operations. Manual says that, so everything that we
had been hearing is now being confirmed with these documents.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So the fire department couldn't use the bulldozers to create
a fire break.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Right there. The state's policy. Now, remember, once this was
determined to be the Lockman fire, the January one fire.
Once that was determined to be burning on state land,
the la FD calls for a state park repticum. And
that's where you see you know, Christy sayings he's on
(22:36):
And when they get there, their their job is to
interact with the firefighters. And then these raa ds come
in and make sure that these protected plants aren't disturbed
as a result of a firefight or the mop up.
And so you know you've got And by the way,
(22:58):
the state park reps are also saw smoldering it the
smoke coming from the hills and said, oh okay, well
the smoke coming from the hills, should we do anything
about it? They didn't do anything about It's their land.
That's after the fire is declared contains, smoke's coming out
of the ground, and nobody closes the park. Nobody's up
there to see how bad it is.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Oh, it just can't be. And this is in the
middle of the National Weather Service issuing all these extreme
fire warnings and extreme wind warnings.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
We were told days before the Palisades fire that these
heavy winds were coming. And if you've got smoke coming
out of the ground in a recent burn scar, that
would be your first clue that there may be a
risk of rekindling, So you'd want to be up there
making sure that didn't happen, or having crews on standby
(23:50):
right there in case it happened. Well, we know it
did happen. Atf confirmed the Palisades fire was a rekindling
of embers smoldering the ground after the Lockman fire, So
we know it happened. And now we know that the
state had areas that it wouldn't allow the firefighters to
go with their heavy equipment to protect this milk vetch plant.
(24:11):
And that's exactly where the Palistaates fire starts.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
What because I've talked with a number of people about
this and they always say, well, why was the milk
vetch plant so important? What do you know why they
were so bent on protecting this no matter how dangerous
the conditions were.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
I didn't know what a milk vetch was until this case,
but I've looked into it and it's a It's an
endangered plant species, but from what I can tell, interestingly,
it proliferates after wildfires. God, so yeah, I don't know. Look,
(24:55):
I'll say, I'm all for, you know, let's protect the environment,
but you kind of balance in the public safety. You've
got houses right next to this burn scar. I mean,
there's neighborhoods, hundreds and thousands of people, and why you
wouldn't consider their safety over the milk fetch plant is
beyond me.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Is it reasonable for people to think that if the
only fire department was allowed to do its mop up
and treat that hot spot and do the bulldozing and
any other treatment treatment protocol that they have, that then
the pal States would not have burned the way it burned.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Well, that's one part of it. But here's the second part.
And I know we talked about this last time. The
state's own operations manual says, and I quote, where areas
of a park unit have burned, those areas shall remain
closed until appropriate State department staff have inspected the area
(25:57):
and rectified any public safety issues. So even after the
laf they leaves, assuming they had been able to do
everything they wanted to do. The state's owned Policy and
Operations manual says you need to be up there, close
the park and when you got smoke coming out of
the hills that your reps can see, you should be
up there and rectifying the public safety issues. So had
(26:19):
followed their own operations manual, palistaates fire wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Wow. Oh, that's just so crazy.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
It's stunning, And I mean it's stunning every day. When
you can't you think it can't get more bizarre, it
gets more bizarre.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And you're only at the beginning of these depositions, right.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
The first one was today, and we've got sixteen more
lined up, you know, up through Christmas.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Can you hang on for a moment, you bet, all right?
Roger Bailey, he's the one of the attorneys for the
thousands of Palisades homeowners who got burned out in the fire.
And yeah, you're hearing this right in In order to
save the milkvetch plant, the State Parks Department said representatives
the night of the first fire, it was still burning.
(27:09):
To make sure that the milkvetch plant, which is endangered,
wasn't destroyed, and that's why the LA Fire Department was
prevented from doing the clean up the next day. The
mop up and bulldoze to create a fire break and
to try to tamp down the smoldering and the smoking
and the hot rocks and the hot tree stumps and
the whole bit. And the state was supposed to close
(27:31):
that park area and if they saw any action coming
from this fire, they were supposed to take care of
it too with CalFire. And then this doesn't happen. Oh
my god, this is so bad. This is so bad. Okay,
we've got more coming up on the John Cobelt Show.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock and
then after four o'clock John Cobelt's Show on demand right
now more with Roger Bailey, the attorney, along with others
representing thousands of Palisades residents. And the big bombshell today
is they're starting depositions of California State Parks employees. There
are texts they've gotten a hold of and the night
(28:17):
of the first fly fire on January first, they were
already sending down a State Parks rep to make sure
that the milk vetch plant wasn't destroyed by LA Fire
Department or anybody else. And that's why they didn't do
a fire break. That's why they didn't tamp down the
hot spot with the smoldering and the hot rocks, and
that's where the fire then reignited, rekindled and became the
(28:39):
Palisades fire Roger. What else are you looking for as
you go through these depositions? I think you've got the
milk vetch story here, or at least you know enough
to lead, because I know as you get more testimony
you're going to go down other roads. What's one of
your targets here? What do you want to know on
(29:00):
behalf of your clients?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Well, as I said before the break, the State's Owned
Operations Manual has a section that requires It's not optional,
it requires closure of any area of the state park
that has burned, and it's to remain closed until state
(29:22):
park representatives have been up and inspected the property to
the issues. And what we haven't heard yet from any
state park representative is why was the park not closed.
They've confirmed it wasn't closed because you clearly had the
Lockman fire that burned to Panka State Park State park land.
(29:44):
Why was the park not closed? Number one? Number two?
Why did the state not send its own inspectors up
there to check for the hotspots that were reported and
were videotaped by members of public And members of the
public were walking through this area days after the Lackman fire,
(30:05):
videoing smoldering embers and smoke coming out of the ground,
so we know there's something not right. So why we
want to know did the state not get up there
close the park as its own manual requires and then
dispatch inspectors, their own inspectors that go up and make
(30:26):
sure we didn't have the risk of a rekindling. We
know we had a rick kindling and it could have
been prevented. They followed their own manual, right, and.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Then send in firefighters state firefighters to take care of
the hotspots.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah, well right, send anybody in, but first you, as
the landowner, state, you should go up there and check
your land and make sure that risk isn't there and
if you find it, because it was there. If you
were there, you would have seen it. Send somebody, send
cow fires, send LAFD back, whatever, but get up there
and something. But there was nobody up there for days
(31:03):
before the Palisades fire reignited.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Is this incompetence, laziness? I mean, I can't imagine a
good reason for not doing what's a mandatory in their manual.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah, we're asking the same questions, and as yet there's
been no answer. The answer we were given by the
state initially was well, LAFD declared the Lockman fire fully contained. Okay, great.
What about your manual that says after the fire has burned,
you close the park and get up there and inspect it.
(31:35):
No answer to that question, And I'm eager to hear it,
because I think had they followed their own manual and
eliminated this dangerous condition, the smoldering embers, there would be
no Palisades fire. You wouldn't have had twelve people die
and seven thousand structures burned down.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And who makes that decision to close the park and
then send the inspectors in? Is that come from go ahead?
Speaker 4 (32:01):
It comes from somebody within the state, and from what
we know as of today, it's somebody up in the
management above the rangers but their manual, and the rangers
are all familiar with the operations manual, and they're aware
that when and they said, yeah, we know that when
you have a fire, you close the park. But why
(32:21):
this particular fire didn't prompt them to close the park
and go up there and inspect is anybody's guests? We
have no idea, but that's one of the you want
Roger there there and checked for dangerous conditions on its land.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, and newsome As first denied that the state had
any knowledge that this fire was going on the night
of January first.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Yeah, that's you know, he gave an interview back in
the springtime where he first said that the Palisades fire
ignited on federal land. Well, we know that's not true
because the audio record we obtained of those nine to
one one calls and then the radio communications between CalFire,
I mean, the State Park Dispatch and LAFT confirming this
(33:09):
fire Lackman's burning on state park property. So no federal
property involvement. And yes, we now know that the state
was notified twenty seven minutes after midnight on January one,
right after midnight New Year's Eve, the state got a call.
There's a fire burning on your land, so they knew
about it. They dispatched several park rangers. At least one
(33:34):
of those rangers and potentially others. When we depose them
in the next few days, we'll say we saw smoke
coming out of the ground. That's what we heard today.
State park ranger was up there and saw smoke coming
out of the ground after the fire department had left.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Roger, thank you for coming on with us, and as
you have information that you can give us, please come
back on and we'll keep we'll keep adding to the story.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Absolutely happy to do it all right.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Roger Bailey, one of the attorneys re presenting the thousands
of Palisade residents. I cannot imagine the pain and anger
and frustration that these people are feeling. 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.
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobelt
podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We are on every day
from one until four o'clock. After four o'clock, it's John
Cobelt Show on demand. It's the podcast on the iHeart app. Now,
Mark Arragos is getting into the Pacific Palisades case. He
has a homeowner who's filing a lawsuit against City of
(00:23):
La County of La LA's DWP and Mayor Karen Bass
over all the failures before, during, and after the fire.
Let's get Mark Garragos on. How are you? Mark?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm wonderful. How about you? How are you today?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm doing well? What going on?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
What you're kidding?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Well, you're a client? What was his situation in the fire?
What happened to him?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, it's one of these situations where at least at
first you thought, well, at least the structure was spared,
but then you see what happened since and surrounding the area,
and what a disaster it's been, and then all of
the subsequent kind of looking at this thing and it
(01:11):
just looked like it was a lights were on and
nobody was home. In terms of minding the sort here
I don't even understand the gives credit to the FEDS
for doing a report, and credit to the fire department.
We're based in a fire station in downtown LA and
(01:32):
I've always pulling attention to them, and they were early
money on all of the problems with the city and
what the city wasn't doing. And it's just a I
would say it was a comedy of airs, but it's
been a complete tragedy for everybody involved at police, of
which is the mayor. And you've got them kind of
(01:52):
dealing with it. You've documented better than anybody.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, I am still stunned, even after talking about this
for a year, that those those weather warnings were so
strong for you know, five six days ahead, extreme fire warnings,
extreme wind warnings. They used all the apocalyptic language you
(02:16):
could find in the dictionary the National Weather Service did
in order to describe what potentially could happen. And I'm
not aware of any any preparation meeting that anybody in
the LA government had to address what.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Was comt I don't even understand it. I mean, I
really don't. You do you rely on the government. There's
some basic functions and the idea is that they're supposed
to protect you, and it's almost as if they did
everything possible to not protect and that's just very disconcerting.
And I'm looking forward to the discovery in this case.
(02:52):
I think the discovery getting people on their owns and requiring,
you know, the after reports and what was done in
real time, and the kinds of clearing balls that we're
done were ignored.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know. Had I got a lot of friends in
the Palisades. It's next door to me, and we were
affected to the extent that we lost our power and
we couldn't use the water, and then the thieves descended
on our neighborhood because there were no police. I mean,
there's no power, there's no water, there was no police.
But we didn't our neighborhood didn't burn. We were a
(03:25):
couple of miles away. But I remember thinking in the
middle of it, it's like, Wow, this is a complete
collapse of the government. You're really on your own. And
we had to hire a guy who was somebody's electrician
in the neighborhood, and he had a pistol and we
were paying him, along with a couple of neighbors, one
thousand dollars a day to stand outside and shoot any
(03:47):
of the looters that might come on our property. That's
what that's well, that was our reality.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I like you, I was out to DA adjacent and
we were evacuated. I my span of band godal Siri
or off the wall theory is the only reason that
the fire didn't jump and hit us is because JPL
was right there and they weren't going to let that burn.
But they be looting the home invasions immediately after, and
(04:14):
we did the same thing. All the neighbors banded together
and it's kind of air and narrow and private police
force in order to police the neighborhood. And you start
to realize that the social contract is very, very fragile.
And this exposed exactly all of the problems with the
government in not being prepared. It's the one thing that
(04:35):
they literally weren't doing.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Why do you think that is they don't care?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I will, I think to some degree now I just
can't accept the fact that people don't care, and just
I don't think that that is it. I think that
I think when you say lazy, I think of it
as intellectually. I think that it's that you have to
be prepared, you have to understand these things, and you
(05:06):
have to have go of systems and advicement was obvious
that there were no systems or whatever systems were in
place were completely ignored. It's the intellectually lazy or the
system challenges.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And everything failed, the preparation, the execution, and the reaction
to the fire afterwards, and on a state level and
county and city. I mean everything failed and I didn't
think that was possible.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, and you know the I often invoke Adam Corolla.
He's the longtime friend, one time the best partner of
mine and was invallable and has been documenting in his blogs.
But the predictions that he was making and they've all
basically come true. It's looked like kind of a profit
in some ways, saying when people understand the jump through
(06:01):
to get a permit, what you have to do in
order to get to kind of navigate the governmentals, it's
astonishing and it's played out exactly that way. Here we
are knocking on the door of a year, and where's
the rebot? Where is anything there? Just is now? Responsiveness
is appallen, and it's just I think people have to
(06:23):
be held accountables.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So who do you want to talk to? The most.
What departments or what officials do you want to depose
for your client's loss?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Really, I really think I want to get into the
fire department and the mayor's office and the emergency response.
I want to find out who actually was responsible, who
didn't want the triggers so to speak of getting some
to your point, I mean not only preparation, but right
in the after. And that is exactly what we want
(06:53):
to find out. What I think we've kind of detailed
in the lawsuit as to what we've seen so far,
what we've coddled together from the various reports, and we'll
plan on doing an expansive discovery, deep dive into this
and make it once we get through it as we're
(07:16):
doing it.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
But why do your client decide to call you for
an individual lawsuit rather than join the thousands that are
working with the other attorneys.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
You know, it's interesting because early on I was I
did what's called a nine to ten action for them
because they suspected that and others as well, that this
was a governmental failure like you thought, and so we
filed what it called nine ten actions early on, which
were denied nine tens or what the legislature is imposed
(07:50):
a duty that you file and you get denied doing
almost routinely by the governmental entities to hold them accountable.
They I think, because I got a history, is like
pulling up against the government, whether it's for civil rights
actions or other things. And this I think drink class
or umbermental sound earl. That's one of the things that
(08:12):
attracted me of new litigation.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
All right. Well, well, when you find things out, and
if you want to share anything from your investigations and depositions,
please always come on the air, because we're looking for
as much information as possible to explain why these people
did or didn't do everything. I mean, I can't think
of one thing that any level of government did right
(08:35):
and did competently in the whole mess.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And still take a look. Yeah, don't totally me. Don't
take a look. It's wild when you look at it.
We're almost a year out or a couple of weeks
away from the year anniversary, and the devastation is still unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
All right, Mark, thanks for coming on, Thank you bike.
All Right, Mark Geragos, who's got a client who's suing
everybody La City, County, the mayor, DWP over the damage
his house suffered from the fire, and when we come back,
would you believe this? I UCLA has something called the
(09:23):
Water Resources Group, and the researchers have done their own
study on whether the reservoirs would have made a difference.
If the one hundred and seventeen million gallon reservoir Sentienez
Reservoir in the Palace, would it have made a difference.
It was if it was full instead of bone dry empty.
(09:44):
You're not going to believe their answer. I'll tell you
about it we come back.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Follow us at John Cobelt Radio. On social media at
John Cobelt and if you want to subscribe to our
YouTube channel, it's YouTube dot com slash at John Cobelt's show.
A little bit different YouTube dot com slash at John
Cobelt Show to subscribe to the YouTube channel where we're
putting longer segments on, and then it's at John Cobert
(10:16):
Radio for everything else. The UCLA has something called the
Water Resources Group. It's researchers led by Gregory Pierce, and
almost within I think I mentioned this. We had Rick
Caruso on the day after the fire very shortly thereafter,
(10:39):
and he said in passing, and I didn't even catch it,
but he was talking. He already had identified all a
lot of the stuff that had gone wrong with the
anticipation and execution of fighting the fire. And he said
something about the reservoirs were dry, and I didn't know
what that meant, and we just moved on to something
(10:59):
else else, And then it turned out he was talking
about the Santienez reservoir, one hundred and seventeen million gallons
it's supposed to hold, and it was empty. And that
became a huge focal point of the anger and the
outrage because the La Times did a big story detailing
how they drained it because the cover had torn and
(11:22):
it took them a year to replace. The cover didn't
cost very much money. It wasn't a difficult job. It
was just the inertia, the stupid laziness of government workers
at the DWP. I don't know else. We were just
talking with Mark Arragos, like, what is it? What is
it with the government workers? Nobody prepared for this, nobody executed.
(11:43):
This was all doable, this was all preventable. What's wrong
with you people? When you get up in the morning
you decide not to do anything, but periodically the reservoir
would come, you know, be a debate point and people,
you know, whatever plants the Beast administration had online in
(12:05):
the comments section. Let's say at the LA Times, Well,
the reservoir wouldn't have made a difference all the reservoir.
Of course, it would make a difference. And as I
talked to people involved in the fire, and I mentioned
the other day, I talked to a guy who prevented
his home and two other neighbors homes from burning because
he had two and a half inch hose and he
(12:27):
used I think swimming pool water and he kept the
roofs wet and they survived the fire, where other homes
in the neighborhood did not two and a half inch SHOs.
He'd had it because a fire had burned down his
family home back in the nineteen seventies when he was
a little kid, and so he always kept the fire
(12:51):
a hose on the property just in case. And he said,
nobody showed up to fight the fire, and firefighters would say, well,
we're out of water. We're out of water. So now
here comes Gregory Piers, director of the UCLA Water Resources
group that wanted to decide whether the intense focus on
(13:13):
the water supply meant that the dry hydrants had uniquely
hampered the Palisades firefight or whether this happened all the time.
And they claim that the hydrants often sputter out because
(13:34):
you lose pressure. You have the burning homes, hemorrhaging water
right the pipes are melting down and busting, and then
there's too many fire truck hoses and everybody else drawing
on a limited supply. And the report says fire hydrant
performance in the Palisades seems to represent the rule rather
(13:54):
than the exception. The only difference is that the hydrant
performance did not make the headlines of news stories of
other fires. Even though there's plenty of water available in
the system, it's not possible to pump enough water to
the fire area all at once to meet the flow
(14:15):
rate demand. Even if the Yes Santienez Reservoir had been full,
the hydrants could not have maintained pressure. I don't and
that last quote was from the state investigation. Now that
just makes no sense to me. If everybody's using the
(14:39):
water at the same time and that reduces the water pressure.
But if you have one hundred and seventeen million gallons
constantly flowing into the system. It's going to extend the
life of their fire fighting capabilities. And and if it is
(15:06):
the lack of water pressure, then how could Los Angeles
have for one hundred years and we've had a number
of fires over the years. How could you have a
system that doesn't work when you need it most. How
could that be the standard fire hydrant system that we've
been living with all this time? How does that happen?
(15:28):
Nobody ever designed a better system to supply enough water
for a major fire. Nobody ever thought of it, Nobody
drew it up, nobody voted to pay for it. Don't
I don't understand this. Well, then where would one hundred
(15:52):
and seventeen million gallons go, right, It would come out
of the reservoir, it would go through the system. They
had three million gallons available, three separate tanks that were full,
and they used that. And even if much of the
(16:13):
town would have burned anyway, they would have said somebody
that one hundred and seventeen million gallons would have saved somebody,
a lot of somebody's I'm just the reservoir was there,
it was built nineteen sixty four specifically for a fire.
(16:33):
So you're telling me that it built a reservoir, but
it didn't matter if it was filled or not. And
it didn't matter if we had ten reservoirs or twenty reservoirs.
It didn't matter. All the fire hydrants would have run
dry anyway. None of that makes sense to me. And
if it did make sense, then why didn't you get
(16:54):
a different system. And of course, if they had just
set the fire crew and kept it there from the
January first fire, they would have put out three kindling
right away, and it really wouldn't matter how many, if
the hydrants worked, or if the reservoir was full, it
wouldn't matter. They would have put out the fire right
up there immediately. All right, more coming up.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock. After
four o'clock John Cobelt's Show on demand on the Heart app,
and you could follow us on social media at John
Cobelt Radio, at John Cobelt Radio on all the social
media platforms. We're going to talk now with Roger Bailey.
Roger Bailey is one of the a team of attorneys
(17:48):
representing thousands of Palisades residents who got burned out in
the fire, and they're starting to do depositions state Park Reps.
They have texts between State Parks personnel which indicates that
(18:08):
the original fire on January first, and then the Palis
Saint's fire on the seventh both were in what is
called well. The January first fire created a fire perimeter,
and in that fire perimeter was an avoidance area where
they did not want the plant life disrupted. So when
(18:30):
the LA Fire Department went in with bulldozers to build
some kind of fire line for the first fire, that's
when they got chased out by the State Park Reps.
And so the second fire started in the middle of
the avoidance area. And this is actually in the text.
Let's get Roger Bailey on Roger, how are you?
Speaker 4 (18:50):
I'm doing well, John, how are you?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Every time you come on, I want to say, I
just don't believe this, but tell us you're you're now
doing depositions. Are these texts part of the document drop
for the depositions?
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Yeah, actually I'm I'm actually on the way back from
a deposition right now. We've got several of them scheduled
over the next several days. And the documents that we're
getting for the depositions include the text messages that you
see and the area avoidance map that I've sent over.
You may remember last time I was on the state
(19:29):
didn't give us those maps. Right, we knew where the
Palisades fire started, and we said, I wonder if the
reason they didn't give us those maps is because the
Palisades fire started in one of these areas that's off
limits to firefighters. And lo and behold when we got
the map showing where the firefighters were not allowed to go,
that's right where the Palisades fire started.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Ray Lopez, my producer, just handed me a couple of
the text Can I read them to the audience because
I have not read these outline. I just got there
and this is the night of the first fire, January first, two,
three am. And it says, Hi, Christy are you at
the fire? And CHRISTI wrights back. I will be. I'm
(20:14):
getting ready now. There is Federal endangered s astragalus along
Timesco fire Road. Would be nice to avoid cutting it
if possible. Do you have avoidance maps? I have a
couple of RIA ds on standby. I'll wait to deploy
them until you get unseen and assess the situation. Definitely
(20:36):
want to send them down if heavy equipment arrives. And
Christie rights back, well, yeah, Christi writes back, Okay, I'll
let you know. So I guess she was the state
Fire State Parks representative that we know started getting in
the way of the LA Fire Department and she was
(20:58):
being told to look at the avoidance because you've got
this astrogallus plant that has to be protected.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
That's right. That plant is also known as the milk vetch. Yes,
the milk vetch, so that maybe the name you know
more than the astrogallaus, but it's the milk.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Vetch, that's yeah. That was identified by in the LA
time stories early on, the milk bitch. Yes, that's right,
got it, This is all true.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Yes. So so these avoidance areas are designated by the
state park to protect, among other things, plant species, and
they make these maps available to the firefighters, and they
also have these RAA ds are called resource advisors, and
(21:50):
they go up there and they interact with the firefighters
to say, well, here here's the map, here's where you
can't go. Can't use have the equipment over here their own,
their own operations. Manual says that, so everything that we
had been hearing is now being confirmed with these documents.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So the fire department couldn't use the bulldozers to create
a fire break.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Right there. The state's policy. Now, remember, once this was
determined to be the Lockman fire, the January one fire.
Once that was determined to be burning on state land,
the la FD calls for a state park repticum. And
that's where you see you know, Christy sayings he's on
(22:36):
And when they get there, their their job is to
interact with the firefighters. And then these raa ds come
in and make sure that these protected plants aren't disturbed
as a result of a firefight or the mop up.
And so you know you've got And by the way,
(22:58):
the state park reps are also saw smoldering it the
smoke coming from the hills and said, oh okay, well
the smoke coming from the hills, should we do anything
about it? They didn't do anything about It's their land.
That's after the fire is declared contains, smoke's coming out
of the ground, and nobody closes the park. Nobody's up
there to see how bad it is.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Oh, it just can't be. And this is in the
middle of the National Weather Service issuing all these extreme
fire warnings and extreme wind warnings.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
We were told days before the Palisades fire that these
heavy winds were coming. And if you've got smoke coming
out of the ground in a recent burn scar, that
would be your first clue that there may be a
risk of rekindling, So you'd want to be up there
making sure that didn't happen, or having crews on standby
(23:50):
right there in case it happened. Well, we know it
did happen. Atf confirmed the Palisades fire was a rekindling
of embers smoldering the ground after the Lockman fire, So
we know it happened. And now we know that the
state had areas that it wouldn't allow the firefighters to
go with their heavy equipment to protect this milk vetch plant.
(24:11):
And that's exactly where the Palistaates fire starts.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
What because I've talked with a number of people about
this and they always say, well, why was the milk
vetch plant so important? What do you know why they
were so bent on protecting this no matter how dangerous
the conditions were.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
I didn't know what a milk vetch was until this case,
but I've looked into it and it's a It's an
endangered plant species, but from what I can tell, interestingly,
it proliferates after wildfires. God, so yeah, I don't know. Look,
(24:55):
I'll say, I'm all for, you know, let's protect the environment,
but you kind of balance in the public safety. You've
got houses right next to this burn scar. I mean,
there's neighborhoods, hundreds and thousands of people, and why you
wouldn't consider their safety over the milk fetch plant is
beyond me.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Is it reasonable for people to think that if the
only fire department was allowed to do its mop up
and treat that hot spot and do the bulldozing and
any other treatment treatment protocol that they have, that then
the pal States would not have burned the way it burned.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Well, that's one part of it. But here's the second part.
And I know we talked about this last time. The
state's own operations manual says, and I quote, where areas
of a park unit have burned, those areas shall remain
closed until appropriate State department staff have inspected the area
(25:57):
and rectified any public safety issues. So even after the
laf they leaves, assuming they had been able to do
everything they wanted to do. The state's owned Policy and
Operations manual says you need to be up there, close
the park and when you got smoke coming out of
the hills that your reps can see, you should be
up there and rectifying the public safety issues. So had
(26:19):
followed their own operations manual, palistaates fire wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Wow. Oh, that's just so crazy.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
It's stunning, And I mean it's stunning every day. When
you can't you think it can't get more bizarre, it
gets more bizarre.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And you're only at the beginning of these depositions, right.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
The first one was today, and we've got sixteen more
lined up, you know, up through Christmas.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Can you hang on for a moment, you bet, all right?
Roger Bailey, he's the one of the attorneys for the
thousands of Palisades homeowners who got burned out in the fire.
And yeah, you're hearing this right in In order to
save the milkvetch plant, the State Parks Department said representatives
the night of the first fire, it was still burning.
(27:09):
To make sure that the milkvetch plant, which is endangered,
wasn't destroyed, and that's why the LA Fire Department was
prevented from doing the clean up the next day. The
mop up and bulldoze to create a fire break and
to try to tamp down the smoldering and the smoking
and the hot rocks and the hot tree stumps and
the whole bit. And the state was supposed to close
(27:31):
that park area and if they saw any action coming
from this fire, they were supposed to take care of
it too with CalFire. And then this doesn't happen. Oh
my god, this is so bad. This is so bad. Okay,
we've got more coming up on the John Cobelt Show.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
We're on every day from one until four o'clock and
then after four o'clock John Cobelt's Show on demand right
now more with Roger Bailey, the attorney, along with others
representing thousands of Palisades residents. And the big bombshell today
is they're starting depositions of California State Parks employees. There
are texts they've gotten a hold of and the night
(28:17):
of the first fly fire on January first, they were
already sending down a State Parks rep to make sure
that the milk vetch plant wasn't destroyed by LA Fire
Department or anybody else. And that's why they didn't do
a fire break. That's why they didn't tamp down the
hot spot with the smoldering and the hot rocks, and
that's where the fire then reignited, rekindled and became the
(28:39):
Palisades fire Roger. What else are you looking for as
you go through these depositions? I think you've got the
milk vetch story here, or at least you know enough
to lead, because I know as you get more testimony
you're going to go down other roads. What's one of
your targets here? What do you want to know on
(29:00):
behalf of your clients?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Well, as I said before the break, the State's Owned
Operations Manual has a section that requires It's not optional,
it requires closure of any area of the state park
that has burned, and it's to remain closed until state
(29:22):
park representatives have been up and inspected the property to
the issues. And what we haven't heard yet from any
state park representative is why was the park not closed.
They've confirmed it wasn't closed because you clearly had the
Lockman fire that burned to Panka State Park State park land.
(29:44):
Why was the park not closed? Number one? Number two?
Why did the state not send its own inspectors up
there to check for the hotspots that were reported and
were videotaped by members of public And members of the
public were walking through this area days after the Lackman fire,
(30:05):
videoing smoldering embers and smoke coming out of the ground,
so we know there's something not right. So why we
want to know did the state not get up there
close the park as its own manual requires and then
dispatch inspectors, their own inspectors that go up and make
(30:26):
sure we didn't have the risk of a rekindling. We
know we had a rick kindling and it could have
been prevented. They followed their own manual, right, and.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Then send in firefighters state firefighters to take care of
the hotspots.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah, well right, send anybody in, but first you, as
the landowner, state, you should go up there and check
your land and make sure that risk isn't there and
if you find it, because it was there. If you
were there, you would have seen it. Send somebody, send
cow fires, send LAFD back, whatever, but get up there
and something. But there was nobody up there for days
(31:03):
before the Palisades fire reignited.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Is this incompetence, laziness? I mean, I can't imagine a
good reason for not doing what's a mandatory in their manual.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Yeah, we're asking the same questions, and as yet there's
been no answer. The answer we were given by the
state initially was well, LAFD declared the Lockman fire fully contained. Okay, great.
What about your manual that says after the fire has burned,
you close the park and get up there and inspect it.
(31:35):
No answer to that question, And I'm eager to hear it,
because I think had they followed their own manual and
eliminated this dangerous condition, the smoldering embers, there would be
no Palisades fire. You wouldn't have had twelve people die
and seven thousand structures burned down.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And who makes that decision to close the park and
then send the inspectors in? Is that come from go ahead?
Speaker 4 (32:01):
It comes from somebody within the state, and from what
we know as of today, it's somebody up in the
management above the rangers but their manual, and the rangers
are all familiar with the operations manual, and they're aware
that when and they said, yeah, we know that when
you have a fire, you close the park. But why
(32:21):
this particular fire didn't prompt them to close the park
and go up there and inspect is anybody's guests? We
have no idea, but that's one of the you want
Roger there there and checked for dangerous conditions on its land.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, and newsome As first denied that the state had
any knowledge that this fire was going on the night
of January first.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Yeah, that's you know, he gave an interview back in
the springtime where he first said that the Palisades fire
ignited on federal land. Well, we know that's not true
because the audio record we obtained of those nine to
one one calls and then the radio communications between CalFire,
I mean, the State Park Dispatch and LAFT confirming this
(33:09):
fire Lackman's burning on state park property. So no federal
property involvement. And yes, we now know that the state
was notified twenty seven minutes after midnight on January one,
right after midnight New Year's Eve, the state got a call.
There's a fire burning on your land, so they knew
about it. They dispatched several park rangers. At least one
(33:34):
of those rangers and potentially others. When we depose them
in the next few days, we'll say we saw smoke
coming out of the ground. That's what we heard today.
State park ranger was up there and saw smoke coming
out of the ground after the fire department had left.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Roger, thank you for coming on with us, and as
you have information that you can give us, please come
back on and we'll keep we'll keep adding to the story.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Absolutely happy to do it all right.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Roger Bailey, one of the attorneys re presenting the thousands
of Palisade residents. I cannot imagine the pain and anger
and frustration that these people are feeling. 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.
The John Kobylt Show News
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John Kobylt
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