Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Yeah, no, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So the Palisades fire which started to rage in January,
and it was a major story. The video that we
were seeing was just awful and there were a lot
of questions as to how something like this could start,
and you know, was it electrical? How things went? And
now we have an arrest. Take me through what we
(00:23):
know right now.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Okay, So what we know is the guy that they arrested.
He's twenty nine years old. Apparently he was a disgruntled
uber driver and on the night of New Year's Eve
this past New Year's Eve, just after midnight, he dropped
off a couple of passengers or a couple of fairs,
if you will, and then he drove up to the
Pacific Palisades where he was living at the time. He
(00:49):
lit a fire somehow, some way. While he was doing that,
he's watching some YouTube videos of a French rapper and
these music videos apparently have some pyromania type of visual
you know, visuals. And he was also asking Chad GTP
(01:10):
about dystopian cultures and you know, you can you describe,
you know, what a neighborhood would look like if if
everything burned to the ground. So this fire that he led,
he tried called nine one one. It burned about eight
acres before firefighters were there to suppress the fire. They
did not extinguish the fire. They suppressed the fire. The
(01:33):
fire went underground and smoldered for a week. And then
what happened was we had a major wind event, wind
gust of up to one hundred miles an hour in
the Palisades and even higher than one hundred miles an hour,
and it caught some of these embers that then spread
across the Pacific Palisades, and that's what caused the total
(01:56):
devastation in that part of Los Angeles. So this guy,
he was in court yesterday, he understands what is happening.
And then he's in court this morning again. A judge
will decide if he's going to have to stay behind
bars and await trial or he can be released an
(02:17):
await trial on you know, a probationary period.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I don't want it to sound like I'm trying to
defend this guy, because I'm certainly not. But I guess
I was unfamiliar with the idea that a fire could
be underground for a week and then wind could just
basically restart a fire that looks like it's out, has
been suppressed by a fire department. Everybody leaves thinking that
(02:43):
it's over with, and then it's that same, like like
the same embers of that fire, all of a sudden
reignite underneath everything because of wind. Was that explained scientifically
exactly how they were able to, you know, explain how
they know that is exactly what happens here.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So the Department of Justice has claimed that they have
talked to the country's foremost fire experts on exactly that
how a fire can smolder in the root system of
a densely vegetative area of land, and how it's all possible,
how the wind can get somehow into those roots systems,
(03:27):
either through a you know, a mole, a hole or
you know, a snake hole in the ground, gets into
those roots systems and then flares that up, and then
the fire burns from underground and then emerges through wherever
those roots come out of into that vegetation, and then
the winds blow again and it just is constantly moving
(03:49):
and growing. Think of like the tip of a cigarette.
So when you light the tip of a cigarette and
it just burns slowly down. That's kind of what happens
underneath underground. Now connect seeing all the dots and this
ember connected to that ember connect, I don't I to me,
that seems impossible, right, But I'm not a fire researcher.
(04:10):
The Department of Justice says that they've talked to the
experts and they can do it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Okay, we're speaking with Jason Campadoni, who's a national correspondent
today about this Palisades fire arrest. So he sets a
fire and he calls nine one to one and the
fire department comes and puts the fire out. Was that
the end for this guy? Did they Was he in
trouble for starting this fire? Do they know he started
(04:35):
it or that he just reported it was? He just like, hey, okay,
sorry this it fought fire, that this burned eight acres.
We're just going to put this out and everybody can
go home. No big deal. I guess. Isn't that, in
and of itself something that he should have answered for
in January?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You're absolutely right. So they had to connect the dots first,
because if it's just an eight eight or eight acre
you know, vegetation fire where no homes destroyed, nobody dies
not really a cost to anybody except the firefighters going
out there. There's not much that they can charge you with.
There's not really much that they can do. The problem
(05:14):
with the problem that investigators ran into is that they
had they the Larchmont fire, which is what he's charged
with starting. They connected the dots to the Palisades fire
through some digital evidence, some video evidence that they saw
on some of the fire cameras that they have in
(05:38):
that area, and so they said, okay, let's blow down
this investigation. And so he's been arrested for starting the
smaller fire, and then he's going to be charged with
the devastation that was caused by the larger fire, that's
the Palisades fire, and that may lead to, you know,
twelve people dead. Murder usually has to have some sort
(06:00):
of intent, but you know, there's possibility of manslaughter charge.
So they really had to take their time. In the
Department of Justice says that they methodically went through all
of this evidence in order to pinpoint this individual and
that's how they were able to arrest him.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
It's very interesting, I know, and this may not be
the right time to ask this particular question, but I
know Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and his staff
been criticized as to how that kind of vegetation could
continue to grow not be taken care of, which would
allow something like this to get out of control. And
apparently that kind of vegetation can lead to a fire
(06:40):
surviving underground for a week before it kind of kicks
back up and creates even more damage. Has there been
any talk about how to maybe prevent something like this
from happening in the future, especially when a fire department
thinks they have something under control when obviously they do not.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So the fire experts that I've talked to over the past,
you know, several decades of covering wildfires in southern California,
is that when they have to put out a fire,
they have to dig up everything They've got to go
all the way down past the root system to the
mineral soil. And that's how you know a fire is out.
(07:20):
That did not happen. Why that didn't happen, That's a
Los Angeles Fire Department question. Kristen Crowley, who was a
fire captain at the time, was relieved of duty by
the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass due to her
response to the fire. And that's a whole big mess
that we That's another story for another day, but newsome.
(07:42):
Every once in a while, we'll send out a press release, Hey,
we've got CalFire crews that are cleaning up the forest
over here. We've got CalFire crews cleaning up the forest
over there. Very rarely do we get anything that is
like a forest mitigation or vegetation mitigation press release from
anyone out fire, any sort of local fire department or
(08:03):
the governor of them cleaning something up near a densely
populated area. Just think this was one of those spots
in California, because it is a massive state. Yeah, California
is huge, and it just you know, they fall to
the cracks and then this is what happened, you know,
and the guy who started the guy who they've arrested,
(08:24):
he started the larkmarkfire, accused of starting that fire. You know,
he was searching Chad gpt for like, hey, if my cigarette,
if I throw a cigarette out the window and it
starts a wildfire, am I responsible? You know? Like so
there were some signs early on that this guy might
be at fault here, and the DJ just kind of
(08:46):
followed the breadcrumbs leading him to that arrest.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, it's going to be tough to defend if he
was messing around and playing with fire. Even if you know,
just the single eight acre fire was enough, that still
would probably be a red flag. But if they can
line that up with the Palisades Fire, then certainly all
that destruction somebody needs to be responsible for. That last
thing for you, Jason, as it relates to I know,
(09:09):
the Palisades Fire was one of several fires. They all
had names in different locales. As it relates to the
wildfires in southern California when all this was happening over
several days, is this related to all of those fires
or just the one that we were calling the Palisades
Fire and the other fires that popped up in different
(09:31):
areas in southern California at the same time. Those are
separate from what he's being accused of here.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That is corrag the multiple fires burning at the same time.
He's not being accused of that. Here's the thing. Doesn't
California burn. It burns every year. We go through it
every year, and we have what's called an ember cat,
so a wildfire that starts in this part of southern California.
An ember from that fire can travel up to three
miles and start another fire somewhere else. I don't know
(10:01):
if there's any way to trace that directly, but that's
a possibility that's out there. The gentleman who's been arrested,
he has been arrested for starting the Lockbann fire which
caused the Palisades fire. So they're connecting those dots there.
There were multiple fires around the Eaton fire, which happened
in the Pasadena area, which is really close to the
(10:24):
Palisades fire, almost at the exact same time the Palisades
Fire was destroying homes. The Eaton fire that was largely
caused by equipment failure from one of the power companies
out here. They had an old line that was supposed
to be decharged and it wasn't, and so the wind,
(10:45):
these wind gouts of up to one hundred miles an hour
and whatnot through knock that power line down and it
caught some of the vegetation that wasn't being up kept
by the company, and that started that vegetation fire, which
again destroyed multiple homes and killed multiple people. That's going
to be a multi million if not you know, hundreds
of million dollar settlement with the people that were affected
(11:09):
by the Eaton fire. That's that's at least my prediction.
The hardest part right now is building back. You know,
thousands of homes destroyed, only a handful of permits have
been have been authorized to be handed out, So there's
only been I think like ten homes that have you know,
just a framework of a home that's been popped up
(11:30):
because they're just getting stuck with red tape. Politicians around
here say no, we're removing all the red tape, but
we've yet to see that in actual action on the ground.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It is a story that yeah, I mean, we were
watching it every single day in January, and now we're
starting to get a clearer picture of maybe how at
least one of those fires started. Great information today from
National correspondent Jason Campedonia. Jason, thanks so much for the
time today.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Thank you
Yeah, no, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So the Palisades fire which started to rage in January,
and it was a major story. The video that we
were seeing was just awful and there were a lot
of questions as to how something like this could start,
and you know, was it electrical? How things went? And
now we have an arrest. Take me through what we
(00:23):
know right now.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Okay, So what we know is the guy that they arrested.
He's twenty nine years old. Apparently he was a disgruntled
uber driver and on the night of New Year's Eve
this past New Year's Eve, just after midnight, he dropped
off a couple of passengers or a couple of fairs,
if you will, and then he drove up to the
Pacific Palisades where he was living at the time. He
(00:49):
lit a fire somehow, some way. While he was doing that,
he's watching some YouTube videos of a French rapper and
these music videos apparently have some pyromania type of visual
you know, visuals. And he was also asking Chad GTP
(01:10):
about dystopian cultures and you know, you can you describe,
you know, what a neighborhood would look like if if
everything burned to the ground. So this fire that he led,
he tried called nine one one. It burned about eight
acres before firefighters were there to suppress the fire. They
did not extinguish the fire. They suppressed the fire. The
(01:33):
fire went underground and smoldered for a week. And then
what happened was we had a major wind event, wind
gust of up to one hundred miles an hour in
the Palisades and even higher than one hundred miles an hour,
and it caught some of these embers that then spread
across the Pacific Palisades, and that's what caused the total
(01:56):
devastation in that part of Los Angeles. So this guy,
he was in court yesterday, he understands what is happening.
And then he's in court this morning again. A judge
will decide if he's going to have to stay behind
bars and await trial or he can be released an
(02:17):
await trial on you know, a probationary period.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I don't want it to sound like I'm trying to
defend this guy, because I'm certainly not. But I guess
I was unfamiliar with the idea that a fire could
be underground for a week and then wind could just
basically restart a fire that looks like it's out, has
been suppressed by a fire department. Everybody leaves thinking that
(02:43):
it's over with, and then it's that same, like like
the same embers of that fire, all of a sudden
reignite underneath everything because of wind. Was that explained scientifically
exactly how they were able to, you know, explain how
they know that is exactly what happens here.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So the Department of Justice has claimed that they have
talked to the country's foremost fire experts on exactly that
how a fire can smolder in the root system of
a densely vegetative area of land, and how it's all possible,
how the wind can get somehow into those roots systems,
(03:27):
either through a you know, a mole, a hole or
you know, a snake hole in the ground, gets into
those roots systems and then flares that up, and then
the fire burns from underground and then emerges through wherever
those roots come out of into that vegetation, and then
the winds blow again and it just is constantly moving
(03:49):
and growing. Think of like the tip of a cigarette.
So when you light the tip of a cigarette and
it just burns slowly down. That's kind of what happens
underneath underground. Now connect seeing all the dots and this
ember connected to that ember connect, I don't I to me,
that seems impossible, right, But I'm not a fire researcher.
(04:10):
The Department of Justice says that they've talked to the
experts and they can do it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Okay, we're speaking with Jason Campadoni, who's a national correspondent
today about this Palisades fire arrest. So he sets a
fire and he calls nine one to one and the
fire department comes and puts the fire out. Was that
the end for this guy? Did they Was he in
trouble for starting this fire? Do they know he started
(04:35):
it or that he just reported it was? He just like, hey, okay,
sorry this it fought fire, that this burned eight acres.
We're just going to put this out and everybody can
go home. No big deal. I guess. Isn't that, in
and of itself something that he should have answered for
in January?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You're absolutely right. So they had to connect the dots first,
because if it's just an eight eight or eight acre
you know, vegetation fire where no homes destroyed, nobody dies
not really a cost to anybody except the firefighters going
out there. There's not much that they can charge you with.
There's not really much that they can do. The problem
(05:14):
with the problem that investigators ran into is that they
had they the Larchmont fire, which is what he's charged
with starting. They connected the dots to the Palisades fire
through some digital evidence, some video evidence that they saw
on some of the fire cameras that they have in
(05:38):
that area, and so they said, okay, let's blow down
this investigation. And so he's been arrested for starting the
smaller fire, and then he's going to be charged with
the devastation that was caused by the larger fire, that's
the Palisades fire, and that may lead to, you know,
twelve people dead. Murder usually has to have some sort
(06:00):
of intent, but you know, there's possibility of manslaughter charge.
So they really had to take their time. In the
Department of Justice says that they methodically went through all
of this evidence in order to pinpoint this individual and
that's how they were able to arrest him.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
It's very interesting, I know, and this may not be
the right time to ask this particular question, but I
know Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and his staff
been criticized as to how that kind of vegetation could
continue to grow not be taken care of, which would
allow something like this to get out of control. And
apparently that kind of vegetation can lead to a fire
(06:40):
surviving underground for a week before it kind of kicks
back up and creates even more damage. Has there been
any talk about how to maybe prevent something like this
from happening in the future, especially when a fire department
thinks they have something under control when obviously they do not.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So the fire experts that I've talked to over the past,
you know, several decades of covering wildfires in southern California,
is that when they have to put out a fire,
they have to dig up everything They've got to go
all the way down past the root system to the
mineral soil. And that's how you know a fire is out.
(07:20):
That did not happen. Why that didn't happen, That's a
Los Angeles Fire Department question. Kristen Crowley, who was a
fire captain at the time, was relieved of duty by
the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass due to her
response to the fire. And that's a whole big mess
that we That's another story for another day, but newsome.
(07:42):
Every once in a while, we'll send out a press release, Hey,
we've got CalFire crews that are cleaning up the forest
over here. We've got CalFire crews cleaning up the forest
over there. Very rarely do we get anything that is
like a forest mitigation or vegetation mitigation press release from
anyone out fire, any sort of local fire department or
(08:03):
the governor of them cleaning something up near a densely
populated area. Just think this was one of those spots
in California, because it is a massive state. Yeah, California
is huge, and it just you know, they fall to
the cracks and then this is what happened, you know,
and the guy who started the guy who they've arrested,
(08:24):
he started the larkmarkfire, accused of starting that fire. You know,
he was searching Chad gpt for like, hey, if my cigarette,
if I throw a cigarette out the window and it
starts a wildfire, am I responsible? You know? Like so
there were some signs early on that this guy might
be at fault here, and the DJ just kind of
(08:46):
followed the breadcrumbs leading him to that arrest.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, it's going to be tough to defend if he
was messing around and playing with fire. Even if you know,
just the single eight acre fire was enough, that still
would probably be a red flag. But if they can
line that up with the Palisades Fire, then certainly all
that destruction somebody needs to be responsible for. That last
thing for you, Jason, as it relates to I know,
(09:09):
the Palisades Fire was one of several fires. They all
had names in different locales. As it relates to the
wildfires in southern California when all this was happening over
several days, is this related to all of those fires
or just the one that we were calling the Palisades
Fire and the other fires that popped up in different
(09:31):
areas in southern California at the same time. Those are
separate from what he's being accused of here.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That is corrag the multiple fires burning at the same time.
He's not being accused of that. Here's the thing. Doesn't
California burn. It burns every year. We go through it
every year, and we have what's called an ember cat,
so a wildfire that starts in this part of southern California.
An ember from that fire can travel up to three
miles and start another fire somewhere else. I don't know
(10:01):
if there's any way to trace that directly, but that's
a possibility that's out there. The gentleman who's been arrested,
he has been arrested for starting the Lockbann fire which
caused the Palisades fire. So they're connecting those dots there.
There were multiple fires around the Eaton fire, which happened
in the Pasadena area, which is really close to the
(10:24):
Palisades fire, almost at the exact same time the Palisades
Fire was destroying homes. The Eaton fire that was largely
caused by equipment failure from one of the power companies
out here. They had an old line that was supposed
to be decharged and it wasn't, and so the wind,
(10:45):
these wind gouts of up to one hundred miles an hour
and whatnot through knock that power line down and it
caught some of the vegetation that wasn't being up kept
by the company, and that started that vegetation fire, which
again destroyed multiple homes and killed multiple people. That's going
to be a multi million if not you know, hundreds
of million dollar settlement with the people that were affected
(11:09):
by the Eaton fire. That's that's at least my prediction.
The hardest part right now is building back. You know,
thousands of homes destroyed, only a handful of permits have
been have been authorized to be handed out, So there's
only been I think like ten homes that have you know,
just a framework of a home that's been popped up
(11:30):
because they're just getting stuck with red tape. Politicians around
here say no, we're removing all the red tape, but
we've yet to see that in actual action on the ground.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It is a story that yeah, I mean, we were
watching it every single day in January, and now we're
starting to get a clearer picture of maybe how at
least one of those fires started. Great information today from
National correspondent Jason Campedonia. Jason, thanks so much for the
time today.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Thank you
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