January 7, 2025 • 39 mins
More on the fire in Pacific Palisades. Alex Stone comes on the show to talk about the fire in Pacific Palisades. Dominic, a Pacific Palisades resident comes back on the show to talk about the fire in the area.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We're on the air from one until four and then
after four o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand on the
iHeart app. And we are covering the Pacific Palisades fire.
It started as a brushfire and has exploded into an
absolute inferno. The entire town of Pacific Palisades has been
(00:26):
ordered evacuated and if people can't get out, they tell
you to stay in your home. A lot of people
can't get out because a fire started in a neighborhood
known as Pacific Highlands, which is north of the downtown
Pacific Palisades. And there's only one main road, two lanes
(00:47):
in each direction of boulevard style road, and it's been
so jammed with cars they opened all lanes to southbound traffic.
But there are palm trees that were burning along the
boulevard and some people panicked, and they should panic because
the trees were on fire, and people were afraid that
(01:08):
the burning trees were going to be falling on their cars.
The smoke is so thick, the air is unbreathable, and
so I was looking at one La Times story about
a woman she left. Her name is Daryl Goldsmith, and
(01:28):
her husband stayed behind to help with a disabled neighbor,
and they have not yet reunited. She was at her home,
she saw the fire had quickly ex exploded. She rushed
to evacuate, her husband tried to help the disabled neighbor.
Firefighters started directing traffic. Goldsmith ditched her car in the
grass and walked down to the beach, and as she's
(01:50):
waiting at Sunset Beach, her husband still stuck up the hill.
And there's a lot of stories like that. The Weather
Service says that you've got sustained wind of thirty five
to fifty miles an hour expected in the area, gusts
of fifty to eighty miles an hour. In some corridors,
the winds may reach one hundred miles an hour. There's
(02:13):
something there's a phenomenon called mountain wave winds, and that
can cause short lived but extremely destructive wind especially in
the San Gabriel foothills and valleys. It occurs when gusts
rapidly drop down mountain slopes, gain strength as soon as
it hits the flat landscape, and you have a brief
(02:33):
burst of very strong, dangerous winds. They had this about
thirteen years ago. There was a twenty eleven storm that
caused a lot of damage in Pasadena, Altadena and elsewhere
in the San Gabriel Valley and a knocked power out
for four hundred thousand people for days. So that's another fear,
and obviously that would move the fire tremendously. There's embers
(02:58):
that could be flying around, and even land in the
flatland areas of the Palisades and Brentwood. They're expecting trees
to fall over from the wind and the power outages.
The seas are really rough. There's really no escape, as
people are finding out because of the jam traffic, and
(03:20):
then even if you get down to the flatland area
you can't breathe.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You still got to keep going as best you can.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You know.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
I'm watching Channel five right now, John, and there are
a lot of cars parked on a sidewalk.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
I don't know what that street is.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
If you're looking at Channel five, it's live and you
can see that there are there are all these cars
just lined up on the sidewalk as well as the street.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean, everybody's ditched their cars wherever they can
because what else you're you going to do, which of
course makes it even more difficult for anybody to get out.
The evacuation area is the entire town of Pacific Powerades,
and that runs from to Panga, the Panga State Park,
(04:06):
all the way down south to pch and then to
the east to Sunset Boulevard and beyond Sunset Boulevard to
the flatland area of the Palisades into an area as
of Brentwoo up to twenty sixth Street. If you go down,
if you go down San Jacente and Sunset and then
(04:27):
to the west, it goes all the way to to
Panga Canyon Boulevard. So it's a mandatory evacuation and everybody's trying.
Population in the Palisades is about twenty three thousand people,
and twenty three thousand people trying to all leave at
the same time, you know, would produce these kinds of
traffic jams.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Apparently there's ash falling.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
You could see from the videos that it's impossible to see.
The wind's blowing very hard. Trees are bent over sideways.
In some cases, those.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Palm trees are frightening.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I mean when those when those are on fire and
those embers start flying. I mean they go so far away.
I think we need to get rid of all the
palm trees.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, and the eucalyptus trees.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Oh, those are terrible.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Those are the ones that explode because the eucalyptus trees
have oil in their leaves, yes, and they become like
a fireballs. And when when they when the trees explode
or you know, the tops of the trees explode, then
the embers go flying. Well, you know do the math
of their winds are fifty miles an hour very quickly.
(05:37):
You can you remember you remember the fire? Was it
in Santa Rosa some years ago? Yes, the flatland areas
which everybody thought was safe up in the San Francisco
area in Santa Rosa, Yeah, they lost, They lost hundreds
and hundreds of homes, completely devastated. It looked like the
surface of the moon after it was over. And that's
(05:57):
you know, that's what people who are living in the
flatland are are afraid of. Even though they're not in
the midst of the fire, you don't know when an
ember is going to start and burn down the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I'm looking at what is that on Channel eleven. You
have channel I don't.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I only have two TVs and I have.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I've got a glare because they didn't fix the shade
here in the studio, but it looked like it looks
like a Yeah, vehicle's on fire. Yeah that's that's like
a van, like a commercial van, completely ablaze. Now there
there's a guy pushing two sets of luggage and he's
carrying a backpack, and he's walking down the sidewalk, uh, leaving,
(06:35):
leaving the area on foot. Here's a here's another guy
who's loading up his car. He's got a dog, he's
got a bicycle. They're they're just running a montage of
shots on how people are packing up and the visibility
is next to nothing.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
It looks like it's nighttime.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah it does.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It does, and with with a weird orange glow, like
middle of the night with an orange glow.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
When they were showing the guy with the two pieces
of luggage, there was another group of people off to
the side in the background, and one of them I
could see was taking his shirt off and wrapping it
around his head to make a mask. So he's walking
around shirtless now with his shirt covering his face. So
he doesn't inhale all the smoke.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
You know, you really ought to just keep walking because
you can't inhale that smoke for very long.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You've got to keep walking.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I don't know how far you have to go before
the air cleans up, or maybe go towards the beach,
towards the water, because a long time ago I read
a book, actually I listened to it was an audiobook,
and it was about basic survival, and it really boiled
down to you put one foot in front of the other,
and every step you take away from the disaster is
(07:42):
a step closer to surviving. Like don't stop, don't look back,
don't look back, don't run back. You remember nine to
eleven the shots of the people running towards the World
Trade Center as it was collapsing. Because human nature is
you instantly become a Lukie lou and you want to
know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's like keep.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Walking or driving or biking away and and and be
single minded on that for as long as you need
to be. Don't stand because the air is not going
to get any better, The fire is not being put
out anytime soon, and every minute you're standing in that
kind of smoke is more and more damage. That's happening
to your lungs. I when when when nine to eleven happened.
(08:25):
My in laws had a friend in the neighborhood who
was in New York City and he was actually in
the bottom of the World Trade Center in the concourse
getting coffee when he felt the rumbling of the plane
hitting the building, and I had him on the air
we interviewed him. What he did is he knew something
was wrong. He had no idea what, but he got
out of there right. A rumbling tower is not good
(08:47):
and he ran out, didn't look back, and kept walking
and walking to the Hudson River, took a ferry across
the other to the to New Jersey cross Hudson River,
and then there he kept walking to Newark Airport, rented
a got into it, and drove south. The whole time
he had no idea what was going on, and he
never looked back. He just kept walking away from what
seemed like a terrible disaster. And that was like the
(09:11):
real life lesson of that survival book that I had
read years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Just keep going.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
But the problem is is if you have pets, or
you have family members that are still in your home.
You're going to want to write obviously your instinct is
to go and try.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
And you can here.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
No, that's the thing, you can't, you know, you think
about that for thirty seconds and call them up and
keep them on the phone and keep track as best.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
You canad I know, but there's just.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
A lot of people here did the right thing because
there were peoples fleeing the Palisades Highlands immediately, and they
weren't waiting for official word. They weren't waiting for the
mandatory evacuation or an announcement on TV or radio. They
just looked out the window and they know the terrain
they have, they know what the danger is.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
Well the spire.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
It happened so fast, and it grew so quickly that
I don't even think there was time for anybody to
send out any alerts. So people just said, you know what,
because now, I mean my phone is I mean, it's
lit up with tons of alerts.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Get out now. People need to evacuate now.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
But I think when this first started, it was so
smart of people to realize that this thing is going
to get really out of control.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
We need to go now.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, And it's the people who left it ten thirty
between ten thirty and eleven thirty, who are in the
best best shape right now because they reacted immediately. Ultimately,
you have to rely on your own senses because the
government's not going to save you. But by time, and
part of it's just logistics, right, It's not anybody's fault.
It's just you can only get the word out so quickly,
(10:42):
but by time the word goes out, you're already in
trouble in a case like this.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
But I do understand people's hesitance to leave because you're
sitting there thinking, Oh, my gosh, what do I pack?
Speaker 5 (10:54):
What do I take?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (10:55):
Where are my animals? Do I need? Where are my
important documents?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
I mean, you're it's such it's so overwhelming to think
about all the things that you need when you have
to flee.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, I know, you guess in the future, you really.
I think by now, important documents all should be online,
scanned and put online and stored away somewhere. And the
pets you just you grab the pets and do the
best you can. I mean, there's there's no perfect answer
in this, and there's no way to prevent these things.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You can't do anything about droughts. You can't. Well, I'd
like to find out though, what ignited this?
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Well, what can we do about these Santa Anna wins?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Nothing?
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I hate these wins.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
This is the price of living in a place like this.
You know this, this is these this is this is
not where like the Native Americans chose to live largely right, Yeah,
because you know that you live long enough in a
place like this and say, wow, this is crazy, I
got to move. And people because choose because of the
(11:57):
beauty of it, and they pay a lot of money
to live in beauty, but beautiful places often pay. They
have a steep price that you have to pay for it.
I mean the people in Malibu. I'm astonished anybody lives
in Malibu. I mean with all the with all the
fires and the earthquakes and the flooding and the mud
slides and people dying crashes on pch every day. Most
(12:22):
gorgeous place, imaginable.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
But my dream was always to live in Malibu, and
I mean, it's just it's unaffordable for me, so it
never will happen.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
But now I'm sort of glad.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Because it's it's anyway. If you if you get out, leave,
stay out, don't go back. Nothing good can happen, and
there's really nothing anybody can do about it. The firefighters
are going to do a hell of a job to
try to fight this thing. But how can you fight
a fire that might be blowing a fifty miles an
(12:52):
hour that it's simply not They can say maybe, you know,
in individual homes or neighborhood, but.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
The overall path of the blaze is going to do
what it's going to do.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Unfortunately, we're gonna take a break for news and continued
coverage of the fire in Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We're bringing the coverage of the Pacific Palisades fire, which
is huge.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
How fire Now?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
John is saying that the fire is burned seven hundred
and seventy two.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Acres, so that that thing almost quadrupled in size just
in the last what two hours? Yeah, that's that's like
I've just read another weather report that they're looking at
the worst is going to be tonight.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
That's what I was saying, which is which is crazy
because it's already been so.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Awful and they're looking at you know, sixty mile an
hour winds like sustained and they're looking at gusts in
certain canyons eighty to one hundred miles an hour. Also,
there's a report that the the Los Angeles Fire Department
stationed twenty three on Sunset Boulevard and Lost Lionis Drive
has been on fire and Cruise are responding to that
(14:09):
as well. Alex Stone ABC News standing on a rooftop somewhere, Alex.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Hey, you Excudney out here. Let me tell you John
and to that the fire department, the fire station that
you were just talking about. We understand the cruise got
there and it was not on fire that the reports
were coming into nine one one that people thought it was.
But there was fire around the fire station. They're in
Pacific Palisades, and then when cruise got there, it was
not on fire. But to your point about the forecast, yeah,
(14:38):
I mean, it's pretty incredible to think that it's going
to actually pick up tonight potentially based on what has
been going on all day today. But you guys have
been talking about it. The biggest issue in Pacific Palisades
has been the evacuation and the bumper to bumper situation
of getting people out and fire engines not able to
get in and understandable. People used all lanes of traffic,
(15:02):
even going the wrong way to try to get out,
and that made it where the engines couldn't get in,
so that that has been a tough part. We know
that holtens have been lost, we don't know how many yet.
LAFD says that they've got to try to figure it out.
But all of this has been complicated, even though they
got the Super Scoopers up and some of the helicopters
that in this wind, you can imagine what those pilots
(15:23):
are going through. And we've been watching the Super Scoopers
today just the wings rocking as they've been coming in
and trying to make those drops. So they are battling
intense conditions to try to get in and drop the
water on the flames. But this is going to be
a long night. This is you think about. Pacific Palisades
is a terrible fire right now, but we don't know
(15:44):
what is going to happen later on tonight. And if
we get through this through tomorrow afternoon without more fires,
if this really does continue on tonight, that's going to
be somewhat of a miracle. But this could be a
really rough night.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, and it's difficult just from I'm looking at like
four different teas feeds, it's difficult to tell what's going
on because the visibility is so bad, the smoke is
so thick.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah. Well, and you know, I think that's kind of
the problem too, with homeowners and residents not really knowing
where the fire is, if they should go or not.
And that's why LAFD has been saying, Look, if you
don't feel comfortable, get out. Somebody is not probably going
to come to your door and say it's time to
get out because it's been moving too quickly and they
haven't been able to do that. In fact, the LAPD
had at least one officer. They were calling for a helicopter,
(16:30):
a rescue helicopter to get in and help the LAPD
officer get out because the officer was trapped by flames.
So it has been erratic and the word of warning
to those in the area is to just get out
at this point, and the specific policy is under an
evacuation order. They want people to get out. And if
you think that the fire is too close for you,
(16:50):
and if you don't have a real good way to
get out, if you live down a windy road or
in the canyons and it's anywhere close to you. Best
idea is just get out of there.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, we do we know if the traffic is still
jammed getting out of Palisades Drive.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Last I saw it look like it was, but it
may have lightened up right now. I mean there were people,
like there was one guy that was having car trouble.
I don't know if he ran out of gas or
his car was malfunctioning, but people were pushing it along.
So there have been all kinds of different obstructions that
have played a role in that. But it's just a
lot of people trying to get out all at once
(17:27):
and the engines trying to get in and they've just
been sitting there with their lights on, unable to move.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, this is the this is the worst nightmare scenario.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
You've covered a lot of fires, and when you have
a situation where you've got somewhat isolated town and there's
very few exits to leave, you can only basically go
into one direction.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
In this case, it's to the south. It's just so terrifying.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And it really is. I mean people, yeah, people want
to get away from the and they've got really one
way out, and when that one way out is blocked
because of traffic, you get panicked. Now, luckily, it seems
like most people are calm. You know, We're not in
a situation like in Paradise, which we covered in northern California,
where people were unable to get out, But you do
(18:16):
worry about that, and I think that's going to be
a concern tonight in other areas, Not in Pacific Palisades
because that'll be emptied out, but in other areas where
there is going to be a big fire risk tonight.
These Santa Ana winds that are blowing, that have been
blowing since about eight o'clock this morning, are stronger than
what I can remember. And I've been covering fire here
for twenty years and then Colorado for five years before that,
(18:38):
to been northern California before that. These are some strew
I mean, this is about as close as we get
to a hurricane in southern California. You know, we get
those tropical storms to come through that just kind of
dump missed for a day or two. But this wind
today has just been incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
All right, Alex, stay safe. Maybe we'll talk with you later.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
You got it sounds good. Thanks John.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
All right, Alex Stone for maybe news on the Pacific
Palisades fire. We'll continue covering this if you are in
Pacific Palisades or you were there this morning or early
this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Tes did that not only was Lovecraft not creating things
out of his own imagination, but that he was hearing
from the same supernational.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Come on the air eight hundred five to two oh
one KFI. That's eight hundred five to oh one five
three four, eight hundred five to oh one five three four,
and you could tell us about your experiences with this
horrific fire today in the Palisades, and there are a
number of homes burning, There's no question about it. Every
(19:40):
screen I look at is isolating on a different house
on fire.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Massive fire and Pacific Palisades on the west side of
La almost eight hundred acres have it's burning right now.
I mean massive flames and lots of thick smoke, homes burning,
people fleeing. There are shots that people are posting on
(20:12):
x video and photos of what it looks like looking
to the west from or looking to the north from
Santa Monica or to the west from Brentwood, and it's
this huge black doomsday cloud hanging over here's some of
the latest news on this. The fire was first reported
(20:35):
about ten thirty in the morning in the area of
Piedro Morado and Monte Hermoso Drives, and this is according
to the Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman David Ortiz. Cruiz
showed up by eleven twenty and estimated that the size
of the fire was two hundred acres and now it's
(20:56):
at seven hundred and seventy two acres, and of course
that's going up by the minute. The evacuation orders cover
the entire town of Pacific Palisades from Merrimack Road on
the northeast, west of Tepanga Canyon Road south to Pacific
Coast Highway. There's about twenty three thousand people that live
(21:18):
in the Palisades, and also areas along that border in
Santa Monica and Brentwood. The City of Malibu issued evacuation
orders for an area north of pch and south of
Rambia Pacifica Street between Carbon Beach Terrace to the west,
whilst Flores Mason Drive on the east I saw video
(21:40):
of the embers flying through the air. There was one
shot of just an ordinary neighborhood, and you saw the
smoke being blown from in a sideways manner, the way
you'd see in a snowstorm or a sleet storm. And
then there were these bright embers flying through the air,
(22:01):
just dozens of them, and in a fifty mile an
hour wind, those embers can go a long way and
land and set fires far beyond the origination point.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
John, are you watching Channel five?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yes? I am.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Do you see that big fire t I.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Don't even know how to describe it, but it's pushing
cars out of the way.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
There's nobody in these cars.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I guess these cars are abandoned, but it's pushing them away.
I guess presumably to make a path.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Look at that, Yeah, because the words are jammed with
abandoned cars and the firefighters can't get up the hill.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I guess that's a bulldozer.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Yeah, that's what it is, and it's bulldozing cars. Yeah,
it's uh to the side of the road.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Because Alex Tone was talking about Palisades Drive, people, you know,
cross the double yellow line and you had four lanes
going now to the south north to south, which you
understand happening because two lanes isn't going to cut it.
Everybody is jammed in traffic, so.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
It's like a parking lot of cars going different ways.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
It means there's nobody in the cars, but there's no
rhyme or reason. I as people just literally just stopped
and just ran and they need a pathway.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Well, people had to flee because there were burning trees.
They were afraid going to fall on their car, and
then you could have the cars explode and fire. In fact, Eric,
can you find that when Kelly was on, because I'd
like to play that moment again. We had a woman
named Kelly who was the friend of a friend that
my wife knew, and she came on with us early
in the show and she's in the car in her
(23:40):
car on Palisades Drive and then the police I think,
came up to the window and told her to get
out because there was a palm tree on fire on
the corner of Sunset and Palisades about fifty feet from
where she was.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Play the clip of the yeah go ahead, What did
he say?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yes, yes, carr go.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Go okay, Oh my god, that's terrifying.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, that's that's really what it was like. You got
an officer banging on your car, and I don't know
if that was her dog or the police dog or
what was going on, But there's been there's been no
immediate reports of any injuries or deaths, but of course
it'd be very difficult to get inside those neighborhoods to
(24:32):
verify any of that.
Speaker 6 (24:33):
Well, what I think is happening with this bulldozer KTLA
zoomed in on a structure that was at the top
of the hill that looks like is we're at the
bottom of a road here where this bulldozer is, and
at the top of the hill there is a structure
on fire that KTLA zoomed in on. So I'm guessing
they're trying to get up to whatever structure that is.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, yeah, I imagine just dozens of maybe hundreds of
people abandoned their cars because everything was in gridlock.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It was it was impossible to uh, you know, you're.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You're trying to flee and and you hit a dead
stop and it doesn't move for a long time. That's
that's the only choice you have. That's the scariest thing
about living in these kind of I mean, we lived
up in the hills for a while, and I remember
we had a fire, uh not specifically in our neighborhood,
but maybe within a mile.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And I remember.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Just putting the kids in the car and driving downhill
with smoke swirling around all over the place, and my
wife's sister had to go get one of our kids
from preschool and rescue him out of the school. It's uh,
you know, it's it's it's just basic panic. It's it's literally, uh,
fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Dominic who had on earlier and he escaped down the hill.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Dominic you back, I'm back, John, Thanks for having me. Well,
what what's the latest we last left you? You had
ate it down the hill. I think you were near
the beach and with your dog looking for some air
to breathe and.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
What else. Do you know what's happened?
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, so, yeah, I'm happy to report I've made it
back to my office in Santa Monica. And I mentioned
earlier that what got me in the car to begin
with was the side of the smoke from my office window.
And you know, my office isn't particularly high. It's a
second story converted industrial space, but it gives you an
idea of how big the smoke is. I am staring
(26:33):
right now at what I would estimate to be flans
that are at least at least fifty feet tall, maybe
seventy five feet tall from where I am. Wow, and
I am extremely disturbed. I just had somebody in my
office looking at this with me. I'm really disturbed because
these flanes, and I defer to all the experts, they
(26:55):
look to me, John like they're moving in a new direction.
They look like they're moving towards the south east, which
is as you've noted earlier, sant Ana wins come from
the north, they come from the northeast, and in order
for this wind this fire to be swinging in the direction,
it then suggests that there's a wind ship somewhere. And
that makes me extremely nervous because even as we're talking,
(27:19):
this line of flames is growing, and it's got to
be a minimum, a minimum of a quarter of a
mile from the top of the ridge that I'm looking at,
down and to the left to the fire line. The
good news is that particular area is not inhabited as
(27:40):
far as I know. It's away from the developments, but
as far as I can tell, having been away from
here for a few hours and then back. You know,
the fire has grown in orders of magnitude, and I'm
extremely nervous. You know, I'm seeing open flames from seven
miles away.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
It's disturbing, and fifty to seventy five feet because I'm
watching you know, miniature pictures video on these TV screens.
And while they look massive, the flames, there's no way
to get a context of how tall they are. You know,
I can't tell you if it's ten feet or fifty feet,
(28:20):
but it's it's it's I can't remember the last time
I saw flames this high and this intense.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, the only thing that I can analogize it to
is the ninety five Malabus fires, and I think that
was ninety five, might have been ninety four, And that's
the last time I remember being able to see this
much open flame. And since we're talking, John, the hillside
has erupted and where flames are.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And geographically, can you estimate where the hillside is in
relation to you know, Pacific Highlands or the town of
Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It looks to me like it's in the foothills that
are essentially north of the Palisades and towards the Mandeville
Canyon area. And I just interrupting here. I saw a
very large drop of retardant right now from I can't
tell what kind of aircraft it is. It's a big
(29:21):
fixed wing aircraft, not the Super Scooper. It's the one
that drops retardant. And there are two of them in
the air right now, the big jets, and there's a
third aircraft that I can't till if it's helicopter something else.
I haven't seen helicopters over the fire today. My understanding
is it's far too windy for them, but the Scoopers
(29:41):
are apparently able to handle the wind, and the jets
are too. But this is it's beyond words. It's terrifying
to look at from where I am. So I think
the area that we're talking about is State Parkland. It
happens that I know the area really well from doing
a lot of hiking over the years, and has been
(30:03):
a resident in the area for as I said earlier,
fifteen years in our current house and twenty years in
the neighborhood. I haven't seen anything like this.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, you were talking about it, the winds blowing towards
the southeast and maybe this new flare up on the
hillside is to the east of the Palisades because they
have a mandatory evacuation zone stretching all the way down
Sunset Boulevard to the Riviera country Club and then all
(30:33):
the way as far east roughly to where twenty sixth
Street is an Allenford and there are right which is
now Brentwood. Those are Brentwood neighborhoods and it's in the
red zone, a mandatory evacuation.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Correct. We did hear from friends that Paul Revere Middle
School was evacuated and that's Allenford An approximately Sunset there
in Brentwood. I don't know if they're in session.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
So.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
As far as we know, our friends that are that
were ordered to shelter in place in the Highlands are
still there and still safe. But it does appear, you know,
when the prevailing when notwithstanding the fire is generating its
own air circulation. Yeah, and I know that that's the
fact that's known to a lot of people. It's amazing
(31:26):
to actually see it in action.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, that's very common in the in these huge fires.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's there, it's its own weather system, and you really
don't know which way the winds are going to blow
at any given point. Dominic, we got to do the news.
Thank you very much for coming on again. You've actually
been quite informative.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I'm happy to chat and thanks for hearing me out.
And again I hope everybody who can is safe and
their life limit paths, and we'll keep an eye on
things obviously.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
All right, Dominic, thanks again, Maybe we'll talk later. We're
gonna do the news now.
Speaker 7 (32:05):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
We're on the radio from one until four and after
four o'clock John co Belt Show on demand. And I
had to say this, but the worst could be yet
to come. I don't think that's going out on a
limb here, because the winds are supposed to increase tonight
and into tomorrow all day tomorrow, and they are raging
(32:31):
right now and on the west side of Los Angeles
and Pacific Palisades, it looks like fireballs are erupting.
Speaker 6 (32:40):
Do you see.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I don't know what channel you have on.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
I got channel four, I have five, and I only
have two TVs in here.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
I got four, and everybody's got a different look, and
actually I got five on now, but Channel four has
has like this fireball that's erupting behind the neighborhood, So
there's no context for any of these videos, so I
don't know what street I'm looking at and who's homes
and what direction it is. They're also running a lot
of rerun footage, so you cant even It gets very confusing,
(33:08):
I know, but let's just say it's apocalyptic no matter
what direction you do you look at. All we know
for sure is that the entire Pacific Palisades area is
under a mandatory evacuation offer or order, and it's covered
at least seven hundred and seventy acres, and that estimate
was from I don't know, sometime in the last hour,
(33:29):
so it's it's higher than that, and there's no sign
of its slowing down because the winds really are going
to be blowing steadily, you know, thirty five to fifty
miles an hour, and not just here and I'll get
to that in a second, and then the gusts in
certain canyons and passes could be sixty to eighty miles
an hour at times, depending on where you are, it
(33:50):
could crack one hundred miles an hour. And remember Hurricane
Forest winds are at about seventy five. So this is
this is unbelievable to look at, and the flames are
widespread and there really isn't anything anybody can do about it.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Let me read you some of the some of the
some of the latest here.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You know, these are the same conditions that are going
to be in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Orange Counties,
they're expecting huge winds as well. Everybody who lives anywhere
near mountains and foothills should be prepared, even if you're
in the flatlands adjacent, because you have no idea what's
(34:33):
going to happen in the middle of the night. It's
like maybe you got to designate somebody of the families,
you sit on the roof and be a fire spotter.
It's it's it's really the situation. And winds are going
to blow all day tomorrow as well. Let me see here,
I'm just looking at a series of bulletins that have
(34:54):
come in. They obviously don't know what started this fire,
and we don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
If anybody's been hurt, no or killed. We don't know
how many homes have burned. We know that homes have burned. Again,
we haven't had a news conference. I suspect we will
probably have one later tonight or tomorrow. But again, these
firefighters are busy doing their jobs, so we'd rather them
save people's lives and homes and pets and not talk
(35:23):
to us.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
And I don't think they have anything to tell us
that we can't see by turning around the TV or
listening to KFI.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Here.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
What you're hearing from us is everything that's out there,
based on all the news reports we have from our
staff and from wire services and from the TV, it's
like it's massive. Most people have fled and everything's out
of control in Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Mandatory evacuations for all of Pacific Palisades. And if you can't,
I guess there's some area that you're told just to
stay home. But people have abandoned their cars on the
roads because they have to.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
There was a.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Palm tree that was on fire, and now we had
this fire bulldozer having to bulldoze cars that were in
the way of a path. They're trying to have a path,
whether it's to go fight the fire. Eric had said
that KTLA had a shot of fire on the hillside.
But it's chaos and it's really sad to see that
(36:25):
people had to just abandon their cars and run for
their lives with a suitcase.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
This also could happen just about anywhere in southern California
because of the winds, the wind conditions, so everybody all
across the region is on alert. It just happened to
start with Pacific Palisades. Whatever the ignition point was was
in the Palisades, and they're the first ones to deal
with it.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
But it looks very devastating, and you know what's so
scary is that obviously they don't have a handle on
this fire. Right it's almost eight hundred acres, it's not
surrounded it all. And as we've said, the winds are
supposed to peak tonight and tomorrow morning. We have that
red flag warning going through Thursday. So the problem is
if more fires break out, I mean yeah, because there's people,
(37:13):
there's firefighters from all over, even coming from Northern California
that are helping the firefighters deal with this one in
the Palisade. So we're hoping that there's there's enough to
go around, right.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
No, this was our introduction to LA when Ken and
I first came here. Within the first year there were
there was fires in Malibu, Laguna Beach, and Alta Dina,
and they put us in a helicopter and we did
the whole show in a helicopter over the fires. And
we started in Laguna and then we floated over to
(37:46):
Altadena and then finally to Malibu. I think this was
probably nineteen ninety three. My wife is working for Fox
eleven at the time, and she was in a helicopter.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
We were both in helicopters and there was massive smoke
over Laguna and you couldn't see the other helllicopters, and
I thought, great, we're both going to collide in midair.
And I'd never been in a helicopter before. I'd never
seen wildfires before. Scott Rife, who's still flying I think
for Channel seven, he took us out in the helicopter
and he would take us out in the ocean so
(38:15):
we could get some oxygen to breathe because it was
so thick. And I remember seeing these gorgeous, multimillion dollar
homes built on the hillsides in Laguna Beach and I
was just absolutely overwhelmed. I mean, I didn't know there
was such a thing. You know, I grew up on
the East Coast and we didn't have much in the
way of mountains and wildfires and none of this.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Why are we living in LA and we also have
the earthquakes. I'm really rethinking that.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I don't know why you're living in your list of phobia.
Speaker 5 (38:48):
I know I may be moving soon. John, you go to.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Kansas, it's really flat and peaceful, but they have tornadoes.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Well I don't want tornadoes either.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
All Right, we got more coming up. Deborah Mark Live
in the KFI twenty four hour news room. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty.
Speaker 3 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobelt podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We're on the air from one until four and then
after four o'clock John Cobelt's show on demand on the
iHeart app. And we are covering the Pacific Palisades fire.
It started as a brushfire and has exploded into an
absolute inferno. The entire town of Pacific Palisades has been
(00:26):
ordered evacuated and if people can't get out, they tell
you to stay in your home. A lot of people
can't get out because a fire started in a neighborhood
known as Pacific Highlands, which is north of the downtown
Pacific Palisades. And there's only one main road, two lanes
(00:47):
in each direction of boulevard style road, and it's been
so jammed with cars they opened all lanes to southbound traffic.
But there are palm trees that were burning along the
boulevard and some people panicked, and they should panic because
the trees were on fire, and people were afraid that
(01:08):
the burning trees were going to be falling on their cars.
The smoke is so thick, the air is unbreathable, and
so I was looking at one La Times story about
a woman she left. Her name is Daryl Goldsmith, and
(01:28):
her husband stayed behind to help with a disabled neighbor,
and they have not yet reunited. She was at her home,
she saw the fire had quickly ex exploded. She rushed
to evacuate, her husband tried to help the disabled neighbor.
Firefighters started directing traffic. Goldsmith ditched her car in the
grass and walked down to the beach, and as she's
(01:50):
waiting at Sunset Beach, her husband still stuck up the hill.
And there's a lot of stories like that. The Weather
Service says that you've got sustained wind of thirty five
to fifty miles an hour expected in the area, gusts
of fifty to eighty miles an hour. In some corridors,
the winds may reach one hundred miles an hour. There's
(02:13):
something there's a phenomenon called mountain wave winds, and that
can cause short lived but extremely destructive wind especially in
the San Gabriel foothills and valleys. It occurs when gusts
rapidly drop down mountain slopes, gain strength as soon as
it hits the flat landscape, and you have a brief
(02:33):
burst of very strong, dangerous winds. They had this about
thirteen years ago. There was a twenty eleven storm that
caused a lot of damage in Pasadena, Altadena and elsewhere
in the San Gabriel Valley and a knocked power out
for four hundred thousand people for days. So that's another fear,
and obviously that would move the fire tremendously. There's embers
(02:58):
that could be flying around, and even land in the
flatland areas of the Palisades and Brentwood. They're expecting trees
to fall over from the wind and the power outages.
The seas are really rough. There's really no escape, as
people are finding out because of the jam traffic, and
(03:20):
then even if you get down to the flatland area
you can't breathe.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You still got to keep going as best you can.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You know.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
I'm watching Channel five right now, John, and there are
a lot of cars parked on a sidewalk.
Speaker 5 (03:31):
I don't know what that street is.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
If you're looking at Channel five, it's live and you
can see that there are there are all these cars
just lined up on the sidewalk as well as the street.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah, I mean, everybody's ditched their cars wherever they can
because what else you're you going to do, which of
course makes it even more difficult for anybody to get out.
The evacuation area is the entire town of Pacific Powerades,
and that runs from to Panga, the Panga State Park,
(04:06):
all the way down south to pch and then to
the east to Sunset Boulevard and beyond Sunset Boulevard to
the flatland area of the Palisades into an area as
of Brentwoo up to twenty sixth Street. If you go down,
if you go down San Jacente and Sunset and then
(04:27):
to the west, it goes all the way to to
Panga Canyon Boulevard. So it's a mandatory evacuation and everybody's trying.
Population in the Palisades is about twenty three thousand people,
and twenty three thousand people trying to all leave at
the same time, you know, would produce these kinds of
traffic jams.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Apparently there's ash falling.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
You could see from the videos that it's impossible to see.
The wind's blowing very hard. Trees are bent over sideways.
In some cases, those.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Palm trees are frightening.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I mean when those when those are on fire and
those embers start flying. I mean they go so far away.
I think we need to get rid of all the
palm trees.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, and the eucalyptus trees.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Oh, those are terrible.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Those are the ones that explode because the eucalyptus trees
have oil in their leaves, yes, and they become like
a fireballs. And when when they when the trees explode
or you know, the tops of the trees explode, then
the embers go flying. Well, you know do the math
of their winds are fifty miles an hour very quickly.
(05:37):
You can you remember you remember the fire? Was it
in Santa Rosa some years ago? Yes, the flatland areas
which everybody thought was safe up in the San Francisco
area in Santa Rosa, Yeah, they lost, They lost hundreds
and hundreds of homes, completely devastated. It looked like the
surface of the moon after it was over. And that's
(05:57):
you know, that's what people who are living in the
flatland are are afraid of. Even though they're not in
the midst of the fire, you don't know when an
ember is going to start and burn down the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I'm looking at what is that on Channel eleven. You
have channel I don't.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I only have two TVs and I have.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I've got a glare because they didn't fix the shade
here in the studio, but it looked like it looks
like a Yeah, vehicle's on fire. Yeah that's that's like
a van, like a commercial van, completely ablaze. Now there
there's a guy pushing two sets of luggage and he's
carrying a backpack, and he's walking down the sidewalk, uh, leaving,
(06:35):
leaving the area on foot. Here's a here's another guy
who's loading up his car. He's got a dog, he's
got a bicycle. They're they're just running a montage of
shots on how people are packing up and the visibility
is next to nothing.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
It looks like it's nighttime.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah it does.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
It does, and with with a weird orange glow, like
middle of the night with an orange glow.
Speaker 6 (06:56):
When they were showing the guy with the two pieces
of luggage, there was another group of people off to
the side in the background, and one of them I
could see was taking his shirt off and wrapping it
around his head to make a mask. So he's walking
around shirtless now with his shirt covering his face. So
he doesn't inhale all the smoke.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
You know, you really ought to just keep walking because
you can't inhale that smoke for very long.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You've got to keep walking.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I don't know how far you have to go before
the air cleans up, or maybe go towards the beach,
towards the water, because a long time ago I read
a book, actually I listened to it was an audiobook,
and it was about basic survival, and it really boiled
down to you put one foot in front of the other,
and every step you take away from the disaster is
(07:42):
a step closer to surviving. Like don't stop, don't look back,
don't look back, don't run back. You remember nine to
eleven the shots of the people running towards the World
Trade Center as it was collapsing. Because human nature is
you instantly become a Lukie lou and you want to
know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's like keep.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Walking or driving or biking away and and and be
single minded on that for as long as you need
to be. Don't stand because the air is not going
to get any better, The fire is not being put
out anytime soon, and every minute you're standing in that
kind of smoke is more and more damage. That's happening
to your lungs. I when when when nine to eleven happened.
(08:25):
My in laws had a friend in the neighborhood who
was in New York City and he was actually in
the bottom of the World Trade Center in the concourse
getting coffee when he felt the rumbling of the plane
hitting the building, and I had him on the air
we interviewed him. What he did is he knew something
was wrong. He had no idea what, but he got
out of there right. A rumbling tower is not good
(08:47):
and he ran out, didn't look back, and kept walking
and walking to the Hudson River, took a ferry across
the other to the to New Jersey cross Hudson River,
and then there he kept walking to Newark Airport, rented
a got into it, and drove south. The whole time
he had no idea what was going on, and he
never looked back. He just kept walking away from what
seemed like a terrible disaster. And that was like the
(09:11):
real life lesson of that survival book that I had
read years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Just keep going.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
But the problem is is if you have pets, or
you have family members that are still in your home.
You're going to want to write obviously your instinct is
to go and try.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
And you can here.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
No, that's the thing, you can't, you know, you think
about that for thirty seconds and call them up and
keep them on the phone and keep track as best.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
You canad I know, but there's just.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
A lot of people here did the right thing because
there were peoples fleeing the Palisades Highlands immediately, and they
weren't waiting for official word. They weren't waiting for the
mandatory evacuation or an announcement on TV or radio. They
just looked out the window and they know the terrain
they have, they know what the danger is.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
Well the spire.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
It happened so fast, and it grew so quickly that
I don't even think there was time for anybody to
send out any alerts. So people just said, you know what,
because now, I mean my phone is I mean, it's
lit up with tons of alerts.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Get out now. People need to evacuate now.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
But I think when this first started, it was so
smart of people to realize that this thing is going
to get really out of control.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
We need to go now.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah, And it's the people who left it ten thirty
between ten thirty and eleven thirty, who are in the
best best shape right now because they reacted immediately. Ultimately,
you have to rely on your own senses because the
government's not going to save you. But by time, and
part of it's just logistics, right, It's not anybody's fault.
It's just you can only get the word out so quickly,
(10:42):
but by time the word goes out, you're already in
trouble in a case like this.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
But I do understand people's hesitance to leave because you're
sitting there thinking, Oh, my gosh, what do I pack?
Speaker 5 (10:54):
What do I take?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (10:55):
Where are my animals? Do I need? Where are my
important documents?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
I mean, you're it's such it's so overwhelming to think
about all the things that you need when you have
to flee.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, I know, you guess in the future, you really.
I think by now, important documents all should be online,
scanned and put online and stored away somewhere. And the
pets you just you grab the pets and do the
best you can. I mean, there's there's no perfect answer
in this, and there's no way to prevent these things.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You can't do anything about droughts. You can't. Well, I'd
like to find out though, what ignited this?
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Well, what can we do about these Santa Anna wins?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Nothing?
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I hate these wins.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
This is the price of living in a place like this.
You know this, this is these this is this is
not where like the Native Americans chose to live largely right, Yeah,
because you know that you live long enough in a
place like this and say, wow, this is crazy, I
got to move. And people because choose because of the
(11:57):
beauty of it, and they pay a lot of money
to live in beauty, but beautiful places often pay. They
have a steep price that you have to pay for it.
I mean the people in Malibu. I'm astonished anybody lives
in Malibu. I mean with all the with all the
fires and the earthquakes and the flooding and the mud
slides and people dying crashes on pch every day. Most
(12:22):
gorgeous place, imaginable.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
But my dream was always to live in Malibu, and
I mean, it's just it's unaffordable for me, so it
never will happen.
Speaker 5 (12:30):
But now I'm sort of glad.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Because it's it's anyway. If you if you get out, leave,
stay out, don't go back. Nothing good can happen, and
there's really nothing anybody can do about it. The firefighters
are going to do a hell of a job to
try to fight this thing. But how can you fight
a fire that might be blowing a fifty miles an
(12:52):
hour that it's simply not They can say maybe, you know,
in individual homes or neighborhood, but.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
The overall path of the blaze is going to do
what it's going to do.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Unfortunately, we're gonna take a break for news and continued
coverage of the fire in Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 7 (13:11):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
We're bringing the coverage of the Pacific Palisades fire, which
is huge.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
How fire Now?
Speaker 4 (13:22):
John is saying that the fire is burned seven hundred
and seventy two.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Acres, so that that thing almost quadrupled in size just
in the last what two hours? Yeah, that's that's like
I've just read another weather report that they're looking at
the worst is going to be tonight.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
That's what I was saying, which is which is crazy
because it's already been so.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Awful and they're looking at you know, sixty mile an
hour winds like sustained and they're looking at gusts in
certain canyons eighty to one hundred miles an hour. Also,
there's a report that the the Los Angeles Fire Department
stationed twenty three on Sunset Boulevard and Lost Lionis Drive
has been on fire and Cruise are responding to that
(14:09):
as well. Alex Stone ABC News standing on a rooftop somewhere, Alex.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Hey, you Excudney out here. Let me tell you John
and to that the fire department, the fire station that
you were just talking about. We understand the cruise got
there and it was not on fire that the reports
were coming into nine one one that people thought it was.
But there was fire around the fire station. They're in
Pacific Palisades, and then when cruise got there, it was
not on fire. But to your point about the forecast, yeah,
(14:38):
I mean, it's pretty incredible to think that it's going
to actually pick up tonight potentially based on what has
been going on all day today. But you guys have
been talking about it. The biggest issue in Pacific Palisades
has been the evacuation and the bumper to bumper situation
of getting people out and fire engines not able to
get in and understandable. People used all lanes of traffic,
(15:02):
even going the wrong way to try to get out,
and that made it where the engines couldn't get in,
so that that has been a tough part. We know
that holtens have been lost, we don't know how many yet.
LAFD says that they've got to try to figure it out.
But all of this has been complicated, even though they
got the Super Scoopers up and some of the helicopters
that in this wind, you can imagine what those pilots
(15:23):
are going through. And we've been watching the Super Scoopers
today just the wings rocking as they've been coming in
and trying to make those drops. So they are battling
intense conditions to try to get in and drop the
water on the flames. But this is going to be
a long night. This is you think about. Pacific Palisades
is a terrible fire right now, but we don't know
(15:44):
what is going to happen later on tonight. And if
we get through this through tomorrow afternoon without more fires,
if this really does continue on tonight, that's going to
be somewhat of a miracle. But this could be a
really rough night.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, and it's difficult just from I'm looking at like
four different teas feeds, it's difficult to tell what's going
on because the visibility is so bad, the smoke is
so thick.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah. Well, and you know, I think that's kind of
the problem too, with homeowners and residents not really knowing
where the fire is, if they should go or not.
And that's why LAFD has been saying, Look, if you
don't feel comfortable, get out. Somebody is not probably going
to come to your door and say it's time to
get out because it's been moving too quickly and they
haven't been able to do that. In fact, the LAPD
had at least one officer. They were calling for a helicopter,
(16:30):
a rescue helicopter to get in and help the LAPD
officer get out because the officer was trapped by flames.
So it has been erratic and the word of warning
to those in the area is to just get out
at this point, and the specific policy is under an
evacuation order. They want people to get out. And if
you think that the fire is too close for you,
(16:50):
and if you don't have a real good way to
get out, if you live down a windy road or
in the canyons and it's anywhere close to you. Best
idea is just get out of there.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, we do we know if the traffic is still
jammed getting out of Palisades Drive.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Last I saw it look like it was, but it
may have lightened up right now. I mean there were people,
like there was one guy that was having car trouble.
I don't know if he ran out of gas or
his car was malfunctioning, but people were pushing it along.
So there have been all kinds of different obstructions that
have played a role in that. But it's just a
lot of people trying to get out all at once
(17:27):
and the engines trying to get in and they've just
been sitting there with their lights on, unable to move.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, this is the this is the worst nightmare scenario.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
You've covered a lot of fires, and when you have
a situation where you've got somewhat isolated town and there's
very few exits to leave, you can only basically go
into one direction.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
In this case, it's to the south. It's just so terrifying.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And it really is. I mean people, yeah, people want
to get away from the and they've got really one
way out, and when that one way out is blocked
because of traffic, you get panicked. Now, luckily, it seems
like most people are calm. You know, We're not in
a situation like in Paradise, which we covered in northern California,
where people were unable to get out, But you do
(18:16):
worry about that, and I think that's going to be
a concern tonight in other areas, Not in Pacific Palisades
because that'll be emptied out, but in other areas where
there is going to be a big fire risk tonight.
These Santa Ana winds that are blowing, that have been
blowing since about eight o'clock this morning, are stronger than
what I can remember. And I've been covering fire here
for twenty years and then Colorado for five years before that,
(18:38):
to been northern California before that. These are some strew
I mean, this is about as close as we get
to a hurricane in southern California. You know, we get
those tropical storms to come through that just kind of
dump missed for a day or two. But this wind
today has just been incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
All right, Alex, stay safe. Maybe we'll talk with you later.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
You got it sounds good. Thanks John.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
All right, Alex Stone for maybe news on the Pacific
Palisades fire. We'll continue covering this if you are in
Pacific Palisades or you were there this morning or early
this afternoon.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Tes did that not only was Lovecraft not creating things
out of his own imagination, but that he was hearing
from the same supernational.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Come on the air eight hundred five to two oh
one KFI. That's eight hundred five to oh one five
three four, eight hundred five to oh one five three four,
and you could tell us about your experiences with this
horrific fire today in the Palisades, and there are a
number of homes burning, There's no question about it. Every
(19:40):
screen I look at is isolating on a different house
on fire.
Speaker 7 (19:46):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Massive fire and Pacific Palisades on the west side of
La almost eight hundred acres have it's burning right now.
I mean massive flames and lots of thick smoke, homes burning,
people fleeing. There are shots that people are posting on
(20:12):
x video and photos of what it looks like looking
to the west from or looking to the north from
Santa Monica or to the west from Brentwood, and it's
this huge black doomsday cloud hanging over here's some of
the latest news on this. The fire was first reported
(20:35):
about ten thirty in the morning in the area of
Piedro Morado and Monte Hermoso Drives, and this is according
to the Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman David Ortiz. Cruiz
showed up by eleven twenty and estimated that the size
of the fire was two hundred acres and now it's
(20:56):
at seven hundred and seventy two acres, and of course
that's going up by the minute. The evacuation orders cover
the entire town of Pacific Palisades from Merrimack Road on
the northeast, west of Tepanga Canyon Road south to Pacific
Coast Highway. There's about twenty three thousand people that live
(21:18):
in the Palisades, and also areas along that border in
Santa Monica and Brentwood. The City of Malibu issued evacuation
orders for an area north of pch and south of
Rambia Pacifica Street between Carbon Beach Terrace to the west,
whilst Flores Mason Drive on the east I saw video
(21:40):
of the embers flying through the air. There was one
shot of just an ordinary neighborhood, and you saw the
smoke being blown from in a sideways manner, the way
you'd see in a snowstorm or a sleet storm. And
then there were these bright embers flying through the air,
(22:01):
just dozens of them, and in a fifty mile an
hour wind, those embers can go a long way and
land and set fires far beyond the origination point.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
John, are you watching Channel five?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yes? I am.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Do you see that big fire t I.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Don't even know how to describe it, but it's pushing
cars out of the way.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
There's nobody in these cars.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I guess these cars are abandoned, but it's pushing them away.
I guess presumably to make a path.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Look at that, Yeah, because the words are jammed with
abandoned cars and the firefighters can't get up the hill.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I guess that's a bulldozer.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Yeah, that's what it is, and it's bulldozing cars. Yeah,
it's uh to the side of the road.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Because Alex Tone was talking about Palisades Drive, people, you know,
cross the double yellow line and you had four lanes
going now to the south north to south, which you
understand happening because two lanes isn't going to cut it.
Everybody is jammed in traffic, so.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
It's like a parking lot of cars going different ways.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
It means there's nobody in the cars, but there's no
rhyme or reason. I as people just literally just stopped
and just ran and they need a pathway.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Well, people had to flee because there were burning trees.
They were afraid going to fall on their car, and
then you could have the cars explode and fire. In fact, Eric,
can you find that when Kelly was on, because I'd
like to play that moment again. We had a woman
named Kelly who was the friend of a friend that
my wife knew, and she came on with us early
in the show and she's in the car in her
(23:40):
car on Palisades Drive and then the police I think,
came up to the window and told her to get
out because there was a palm tree on fire on
the corner of Sunset and Palisades about fifty feet from
where she was.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Play the clip of the yeah go ahead, What did
he say?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yes, yes, carr go.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Go okay, Oh my god, that's terrifying.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, that's that's really what it was like. You got
an officer banging on your car, and I don't know
if that was her dog or the police dog or
what was going on, But there's been there's been no
immediate reports of any injuries or deaths, but of course
it'd be very difficult to get inside those neighborhoods to
(24:32):
verify any of that.
Speaker 6 (24:33):
Well, what I think is happening with this bulldozer KTLA
zoomed in on a structure that was at the top
of the hill that looks like is we're at the
bottom of a road here where this bulldozer is, and
at the top of the hill there is a structure
on fire that KTLA zoomed in on. So I'm guessing
they're trying to get up to whatever structure that is.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, yeah, I imagine just dozens of maybe hundreds of
people abandoned their cars because everything was in gridlock.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
It was it was impossible to uh, you know, you're.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
You're trying to flee and and you hit a dead
stop and it doesn't move for a long time. That's
that's the only choice you have. That's the scariest thing
about living in these kind of I mean, we lived
up in the hills for a while, and I remember
we had a fire, uh not specifically in our neighborhood,
but maybe within a mile.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And I remember.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Just putting the kids in the car and driving downhill
with smoke swirling around all over the place, and my
wife's sister had to go get one of our kids
from preschool and rescue him out of the school. It's uh,
you know, it's it's it's just basic panic. It's it's literally, uh,
fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Dominic who had on earlier and he escaped down the hill.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Dominic you back, I'm back, John, Thanks for having me. Well,
what what's the latest we last left you? You had
ate it down the hill. I think you were near
the beach and with your dog looking for some air
to breathe and.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
What else. Do you know what's happened?
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, so, yeah, I'm happy to report I've made it
back to my office in Santa Monica. And I mentioned
earlier that what got me in the car to begin
with was the side of the smoke from my office window.
And you know, my office isn't particularly high. It's a
second story converted industrial space, but it gives you an
idea of how big the smoke is. I am staring
(26:33):
right now at what I would estimate to be flans
that are at least at least fifty feet tall, maybe
seventy five feet tall from where I am. Wow, and
I am extremely disturbed. I just had somebody in my
office looking at this with me. I'm really disturbed because
these flanes, and I defer to all the experts, they
(26:55):
look to me, John like they're moving in a new direction.
They look like they're moving towards the south east, which
is as you've noted earlier, sant Ana wins come from
the north, they come from the northeast, and in order
for this wind this fire to be swinging in the direction,
it then suggests that there's a wind ship somewhere. And
that makes me extremely nervous because even as we're talking,
(27:19):
this line of flames is growing, and it's got to
be a minimum, a minimum of a quarter of a
mile from the top of the ridge that I'm looking at,
down and to the left to the fire line. The
good news is that particular area is not inhabited as
(27:40):
far as I know. It's away from the developments, but
as far as I can tell, having been away from
here for a few hours and then back. You know,
the fire has grown in orders of magnitude, and I'm
extremely nervous. You know, I'm seeing open flames from seven
miles away.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
It's disturbing, and fifty to seventy five feet because I'm
watching you know, miniature pictures video on these TV screens.
And while they look massive, the flames, there's no way
to get a context of how tall they are. You know,
I can't tell you if it's ten feet or fifty feet,
(28:20):
but it's it's it's I can't remember the last time
I saw flames this high and this intense.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, the only thing that I can analogize it to
is the ninety five Malabus fires, and I think that
was ninety five, might have been ninety four, And that's
the last time I remember being able to see this
much open flame. And since we're talking, John, the hillside
has erupted and where flames are.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And geographically, can you estimate where the hillside is in
relation to you know, Pacific Highlands or the town of
Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It looks to me like it's in the foothills that
are essentially north of the Palisades and towards the Mandeville
Canyon area. And I just interrupting here. I saw a
very large drop of retardant right now from I can't
tell what kind of aircraft it is. It's a big
(29:21):
fixed wing aircraft, not the Super Scooper. It's the one
that drops retardant. And there are two of them in
the air right now, the big jets, and there's a
third aircraft that I can't till if it's helicopter something else.
I haven't seen helicopters over the fire today. My understanding
is it's far too windy for them, but the Scoopers
(29:41):
are apparently able to handle the wind, and the jets
are too. But this is it's beyond words. It's terrifying
to look at from where I am. So I think
the area that we're talking about is State Parkland. It
happens that I know the area really well from doing
a lot of hiking over the years, and has been
(30:03):
a resident in the area for as I said earlier,
fifteen years in our current house and twenty years in
the neighborhood. I haven't seen anything like this.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, you were talking about it, the winds blowing towards
the southeast and maybe this new flare up on the
hillside is to the east of the Palisades because they
have a mandatory evacuation zone stretching all the way down
Sunset Boulevard to the Riviera country Club and then all
(30:33):
the way as far east roughly to where twenty sixth
Street is an Allenford and there are right which is
now Brentwood. Those are Brentwood neighborhoods and it's in the
red zone, a mandatory evacuation.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Correct. We did hear from friends that Paul Revere Middle
School was evacuated and that's Allenford An approximately Sunset there
in Brentwood. I don't know if they're in session.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
So.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
As far as we know, our friends that are that
were ordered to shelter in place in the Highlands are
still there and still safe. But it does appear, you know,
when the prevailing when notwithstanding the fire is generating its
own air circulation. Yeah, and I know that that's the
fact that's known to a lot of people. It's amazing
(31:26):
to actually see it in action.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, that's very common in the in these huge fires.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
It's there, it's its own weather system, and you really
don't know which way the winds are going to blow
at any given point. Dominic, we got to do the news.
Thank you very much for coming on again. You've actually
been quite informative.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I'm happy to chat and thanks for hearing me out.
And again I hope everybody who can is safe and
their life limit paths, and we'll keep an eye on
things obviously.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
All right, Dominic, thanks again, Maybe we'll talk later. We're
gonna do the news now.
Speaker 7 (32:05):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
We're on the radio from one until four and after
four o'clock John co Belt Show on demand. And I
had to say this, but the worst could be yet
to come. I don't think that's going out on a
limb here, because the winds are supposed to increase tonight
and into tomorrow all day tomorrow, and they are raging
(32:31):
right now and on the west side of Los Angeles
and Pacific Palisades, it looks like fireballs are erupting.
Speaker 6 (32:40):
Do you see.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
I don't know what channel you have on.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
I got channel four, I have five, and I only
have two TVs in here.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
I got four, and everybody's got a different look, and
actually I got five on now, but Channel four has
has like this fireball that's erupting behind the neighborhood, So
there's no context for any of these videos, so I
don't know what street I'm looking at and who's homes
and what direction it is. They're also running a lot
of rerun footage, so you cant even It gets very confusing,
(33:08):
I know, but let's just say it's apocalyptic no matter
what direction you do you look at. All we know
for sure is that the entire Pacific Palisades area is
under a mandatory evacuation offer or order, and it's covered
at least seven hundred and seventy acres, and that estimate
was from I don't know, sometime in the last hour,
(33:29):
so it's it's higher than that, and there's no sign
of its slowing down because the winds really are going
to be blowing steadily, you know, thirty five to fifty
miles an hour, and not just here and I'll get
to that in a second, and then the gusts in
certain canyons and passes could be sixty to eighty miles
an hour at times, depending on where you are, it
(33:50):
could crack one hundred miles an hour. And remember Hurricane
Forest winds are at about seventy five. So this is
this is unbelievable to look at, and the flames are
widespread and there really isn't anything anybody can do about it.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Let me read you some of the some of the
some of the latest here.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You know, these are the same conditions that are going
to be in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Orange Counties,
they're expecting huge winds as well. Everybody who lives anywhere
near mountains and foothills should be prepared, even if you're
in the flatlands adjacent, because you have no idea what's
(34:33):
going to happen in the middle of the night. It's
like maybe you got to designate somebody of the families,
you sit on the roof and be a fire spotter.
It's it's it's really the situation. And winds are going
to blow all day tomorrow as well. Let me see here,
I'm just looking at a series of bulletins that have
(34:54):
come in. They obviously don't know what started this fire,
and we don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
If anybody's been hurt, no or killed. We don't know
how many homes have burned. We know that homes have burned. Again,
we haven't had a news conference. I suspect we will
probably have one later tonight or tomorrow. But again, these
firefighters are busy doing their jobs, so we'd rather them
save people's lives and homes and pets and not talk
(35:23):
to us.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
And I don't think they have anything to tell us
that we can't see by turning around the TV or
listening to KFI.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Here.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
What you're hearing from us is everything that's out there,
based on all the news reports we have from our
staff and from wire services and from the TV, it's
like it's massive. Most people have fled and everything's out
of control in Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Mandatory evacuations for all of Pacific Palisades. And if you can't,
I guess there's some area that you're told just to
stay home. But people have abandoned their cars on the
roads because they have to.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
There was a.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Palm tree that was on fire, and now we had
this fire bulldozer having to bulldoze cars that were in
the way of a path. They're trying to have a path,
whether it's to go fight the fire. Eric had said
that KTLA had a shot of fire on the hillside.
But it's chaos and it's really sad to see that
(36:25):
people had to just abandon their cars and run for
their lives with a suitcase.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
This also could happen just about anywhere in southern California
because of the winds, the wind conditions, so everybody all
across the region is on alert. It just happened to
start with Pacific Palisades. Whatever the ignition point was was
in the Palisades, and they're the first ones to deal
with it.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
But it looks very devastating, and you know what's so
scary is that obviously they don't have a handle on
this fire. Right it's almost eight hundred acres, it's not
surrounded it all. And as we've said, the winds are
supposed to peak tonight and tomorrow morning. We have that
red flag warning going through Thursday. So the problem is
if more fires break out, I mean yeah, because there's people,
(37:13):
there's firefighters from all over, even coming from Northern California
that are helping the firefighters deal with this one in
the Palisade. So we're hoping that there's there's enough to
go around, right.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
No, this was our introduction to LA when Ken and
I first came here. Within the first year there were
there was fires in Malibu, Laguna Beach, and Alta Dina,
and they put us in a helicopter and we did
the whole show in a helicopter over the fires. And
we started in Laguna and then we floated over to
(37:46):
Altadena and then finally to Malibu. I think this was
probably nineteen ninety three. My wife is working for Fox
eleven at the time, and she was in a helicopter.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
We were both in helicopters and there was massive smoke
over Laguna and you couldn't see the other helllicopters, and
I thought, great, we're both going to collide in midair.
And I'd never been in a helicopter before. I'd never
seen wildfires before. Scott Rife, who's still flying I think
for Channel seven, he took us out in the helicopter
and he would take us out in the ocean so
(38:15):
we could get some oxygen to breathe because it was
so thick. And I remember seeing these gorgeous, multimillion dollar
homes built on the hillsides in Laguna Beach and I
was just absolutely overwhelmed. I mean, I didn't know there
was such a thing. You know, I grew up on
the East Coast and we didn't have much in the
way of mountains and wildfires and none of this.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Why are we living in LA and we also have
the earthquakes. I'm really rethinking that.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I don't know why you're living in your list of phobia.
Speaker 5 (38:48):
I know I may be moving soon. John, you go to.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Kansas, it's really flat and peaceful, but they have tornadoes.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
Well I don't want tornadoes either.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
All Right, we got more coming up. Deborah Mark Live
in the KFI twenty four hour news room. 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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