1-13-25 - 7am - Out of State Fire Trucks and California 100 Years Ago

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
If the stories are true that out of state fire
trucks must first go to Sacramento for a DOT infection
on their way to help with the fires in LA
and then that they must turn around and go back
to Sacramento for another inspection on their way out of state.
That is reason number seven hundred and ninety two Gavin

(00:21):
Newsom should never be in politics again. And as a
crappy leader, you either wave that requirement or move the
inspection to the LA area.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Now I've not heard that one, So let's think about
that for a second, because unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised
if that was true, because the one thing that we
seem to lack completely is this idea that we can

(00:51):
somehow waive a regulation, or that a regulation is so
absurd on its face that when it comes time to
follow the regulation, it's counterproductive to what we're trying to accomplish.
What are we trying to Now again, I don't know
whether that is. There's so many things when a natural

(01:13):
or man made disaster like this occurs that you don't
know whether they're true or not, And to run the
truth to the ground takes a lot of effort, and
obviously It's not something that I want to do on
air right now, but I do want to talk about
two aspects of it. It would not surprise me if

(01:36):
there was a regulation that required that, and that because
the regulatory agency that would be doing the inspections is
located in the state capitol. So if you're driving a
fire truck from Oregon or from Nevada or Arizona or Colorado,
that you first have to go to Sacramento to make

(01:58):
sure that it is compliant with whatever California rules and regulations.
Then you can go then you can head south to
the LA area. That is, on its face absurd, and
somebody within the hierarchy of the deep state of California

(02:18):
ought to be looking at that and saying this is absurd.
Let's move the inspections. Let's take you know, and think
about this. Go back to what I said at the
last at the end of the last hour. Under FEMA rules,
the President has said that they will reimburse one percent

(02:39):
of the cost of responding. Well, that's a cost in
responding is complying with your state regulations. So if you
want to move that inspection from Sacramento, say to somewhere
outside La so that you're closer to, so that the
trucks can be inspected outside the area of operations. Then

(03:02):
the costs incurred in moving those inspections is a in
my opinion at least, would be a reimbursable expense, so
you be covered one hundred percent. So pack up those people,
move them to southern California, find a place for them
to stay, find a facility that they can use where
they can do the inspections, and do the inspections. That

(03:24):
would be the first thing I would think of. Just
do that, But then think about the absurdity of the regulation,
because now if you had, for example, I know, there
are firefighters coming from Mexico, if there were fire trucks,
if there were fire engines, tanker trucks, whatever, coming from Mexico,

(03:48):
you might want those inspected to make certain that they
do comply with whatever is required. And here's why the
natural tendency would be to say, hey, listen, we need
all the help we can get. Who cares, because you
then don't want that fire truck and that fire engine
and all the people to go with it to then

(04:10):
fall apart, break down, or become a part of the
disaster itself. So you then have to worry about getting
them out of the way so you can continue to
fight the fire. So you do want some minimal standards,
and you want to make certain that they comply with it.
And I'd be more concerned about a fire truck and
a fire engine company coming from Mexico than I would

(04:31):
from Colorado, for example, or Oklahoma or Kansas.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
This does seem to stem from a social media post
that has been debunked that trucks from Oregon were being
turned around because of emissions. According to the cal Fire,
they say no vehicles have been turned away from Oregon.
They're just going through maintenance checks such as making sure

(05:00):
that they have the equipment that are needed and mechanically sound.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Which is a legitimate purpose. But let me back up
and deal with the rumor, because I dealt with similar
kinds of rumors, not necessarily about fire trucks, about response
assets being turned around at the Louisiana border, and I
remember screaming at my staff, what the hell are they

(05:26):
talking about? Well, it turns out those rumors were not true,
but they may have been partially true, because you don't
want all of these assets just coming in bogging down
the system. You want the assets systematically sent to where
they are most needed. So you have a hierarchy of

(05:48):
needs and you make certain that those needs are fulfilled.
But based on that hierarchy, because you've got a triage
a disaster, just like you would triage someone in a
car accident, you have multiple injuries in a car accident,
multiple people. You want to take care of those whose
lives need to be dealt with immediately or they're going

(06:08):
to lose that life, and those who have minor injuries,
make them go over and sit on the curb for
a while while you take care of somebody else. Somebody
sees that and they go, oh, look, there aren't enough
people to take care of everybody. Somebody's I'm sitting in
the curb. It drives me baddy, how we jump to
conclusions or hear those things and then automatically assume that

(06:29):
they're true. But then, as Dragon points out, there may
be some truth to it in that you want to
make certain that those assets are sent to where they
are most needed and can be best used, and that
the equipment is such that it's not going to fall apart,
and then end up being part of the problem to begin.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
With another One of those reasons why they wanted to
make those checks is that those trucks aren't really designed
to do long haul trips on freeways, so they wanted
to make sure that they are capable of working and
working efficiently and safely for the fires in California where
they ended up going.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Except think about that for a moment. Then how did
they make it from Chicago to Sacramento.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I'm just looking at the ones that are coming from Oregon, right,
and I'm just saying, even from Oregon, so they come
from Eugene to Sacramento.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I mean, I don't know what the distance is from
Portland or Eugene or someplace else to Sacramento, but that
means they made a long haul trip on an interstate
highway or some major highway to get to Sacramento. You see,
the rule itself can be absurd, but the deployment of

(07:46):
the asset. You want the deployment of the asset to
be put into your operations so that they are most
their highest and best use is utilized that operation. Everyone
wants to volunteer, and everybody wants to show up, and

(08:06):
everybody wants to do something, but that can actually slow
down the response. So you have to be very careful
in how you disperse the volunteers, whether that be equipment
or manpower that shows up, so that they're properly utilized.
We go back to the rumors. There was I forget

(08:31):
who it was. I have to go back to my
ex timeline and look, but there was somebody I'm pretty
sure I posted this on x There was somebody complaining
about the rumors and how the rumors are being spread
about who knows what, just pick your favorite rumor. And
my first reaction was, wait a minute. Every fire department,

(08:52):
every police department, the governor's office, the mayor's office, and
every department within that office has a PIO, a public
information officer, and every public information officer has generally speaking,
particularly in a large city like Los Angeles, is going
to have an entire team of public information officers, of

(09:13):
people that are running to ground rumors, running to ground stories,
responding to media inquiries, doing all of that. That is
something that goes on in the midst of these disasters
that requires a whole battalion of people to respond to
and fight off the rumors and respond to legitimate inquiries
from the media, whether that be from a freelance reporter

(09:38):
that's you know, out there trying to do a story
that's then going to go sell or offers to a
newspaper or a TV outlet somewhere. You still have to
deal with that, and they ought to be dealing with
it and trying to slap down rumors as quickly as possible.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
It is not a rumor that a drone crashed into
a Scooper plane that put that playing out of commission
for a while. Soh you morons with drones out there
flying into you know, please please don't.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Why is there some rumor about that?

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Just other social media posts that have been out there.
I just wanted to make sure that that that did happen.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yew, that did happen. But I'm talking about things that
don't happen, or questions that people are, things that people
have questions about. You know, what are you doing? How
are you responding? You know what? What do you need?
Or go back to the rumor we've heard that you know,
trucks are being spent sent to Sacramento. First, well, if

(10:40):
whoever is the incident commander ought to have on his
team someone who is looking at that because the incident
commander has too much on his plate to deal with
something like, you mean, there's a regulation that's requiring trucks
that are coming from Oregon to stop in Sacramento before
they can come on down here and help us. Well,
why there should be somebody on that incident Commander's team

(11:05):
that deals with that that says, Hey, we've got to
talk to the governor or someone in the governor's office
or whoever it might be, to waive that requirement, or
let's figure out a way to move that inspection closer
to the area of operations so we can actually do it. It
becomes an incredibly complex organism that's responding to something of

(11:27):
this magnitude, and that includes communications, fighting down the rumors,
and then understanding that the rumors may have a little
bit of truth to it, like the one does about inspections.
And so now let's figure out a way that, oh,
we do require inspections. Well, let's either wave the inspection
requirement or let's move where the inspections occur. If we

(11:48):
don't want to wave the requirement, and there may be
a legitimate reason not to remove the inspection requirement, but
let's make it more convenient so that then the people
on the ground who are making the logistical decisions about
where that particular equipment goes can make a snap decision
or a quicker decision about where to send that volunteer

(12:09):
equipment that came from out of state so that they
can be properly used to its maximum capacity to help
fighting the fires and to help responding to the disaster.
It was that Alexa that left that talk back. Yes,
I believe I'm not picking on you, but it's just
it's just a it's just a great example of how

(12:33):
we hear all. This is why whenever I hear about
these things going on, I don't believe any of it.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
And I know alexis a smart girl, so I'm sure
she just left that talk back to spark conversation.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Which which she obviously has because it took me off
from what I was going to start this segment out with.
But but that's fine, that's that's that's totally fine. I
want to help people understand the complexity of responding to
something as I don't. I don't want to use catastrophic

(13:05):
because I think catastrophic is way overused, but to something
that's as widespread and as devastating as this disaster is,
there will always be those rumors, some of which will
have some truth to it and some of which will
not have some truth to truth to it. But let's
let's now go to where I wanted to go. I

(13:26):
keep hearing from different outlets about how the climate, the
climate is the cause of these fires. When you use
the word climate, I can make an argument that, yes,

(13:50):
the climate is the cause of the fire, because the
Santa Ana winds as they start doing their clockwise circulation,
and then you know, they go flying up the mountain
and then they come crashing down into the valleys, and
then as they crash into the valleys, they go sweeping

(14:12):
down where those valleys are, and then they hit the
wildland urban interface. And if those if they pick up
a spark anywhere, or there's been a fire started back
up in the valley somewhere on the mountain, that's going
to be carried over into that urban area. So if
you want to argue that the Santa Anna wins, which
is part of the climate, then yes, you can make

(14:34):
a logical argument that the climate is the cause. But
when you tell me that climate change is the cause,
that's where I draw the line, because it's not climate
change that is causing the devastation. It is the increased

(14:55):
amount of infrastructure, the increased population, and and of course
there's also other human problems like you know, draining reservoirs,
not building the reservoirs that people pass the bond issue
for there's more concern about DEI and not caring about
whether you can carry a man an you're carrying my
husband out of the house. Remember that woman all You'll

(15:16):
hear it again if you want to. So let's think
about it in terms of, of course the climate causes it,
because if you have a thunderstorm and there's a lightning strike,
and you have done your proper forest management, that lightning
strike sparks a fire out in the middle of the
wilderness somewhere. Now you've got a wildfire going. But to

(15:37):
say that climate change is doing it is where I
draw the line the let's see, let me find my
right tap. The Yale University Press in nineteen thirty published

(16:02):
the Journal of William H. Brewer Up and Down California
in eighteen sixty to eighteen sixty four. William H. Brewer
lived from eighteen twenty eight to nineteen ten. Was a
professor at Professor of Chemistry at Washington College in Pennsylvania.

(16:25):
He joined the staff of California's first state geologist, Hosiah
Dwight Whitney, who served as the state geologist from eighteen
sixty eighteen sixty four. On returning back East, Brewer became
a professor of agg at Yale. He held that post
for nearly forty years. Up and down California collects Brewer's

(16:47):
letters and journal entries, recording his work with Whitney's Geological
Survey of California. Now you know that I'm an old
antique map collector, and one of the old antique maps
types of maps I'd like to collect are geological surveys,
because these geological surveys from the nineteenth and eighteenth century

(17:10):
tell us a lot historically about what the country was
like back before we had television and radio, and for
that matter, we had a lot of population centers in
those areas. So when we get back, I'm going to
read to you a brief entry from Professor's Brewer from
Professor Brewer's Geological Survey of California between eighteen sixty and

(17:34):
eighteen sixty four. I see if you don't find it
to be. Oh, that could be today, Michael.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
You said the fire truck inspection should be made user friendly.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
The regulations and policies you've worked in government.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Name one thing in government that's user friendly.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
The water cooler are used sometimes, the vending machines oftentimes.
I the cafeteria is pretty good. It's not too bad.
The parking garages aren't too bad. They're they're fairly good.
That's about it. It's about it real quickly to the

(18:16):
text messages, because forty five sixty three rights Michael. Mobile
inspection teams were a new effort by Florida in twenty
twenty four to improve response time and damage assessments. And
that's actually oh, actually, forty five sixty three says this too.
Oh you address that. Forty five sixty three says Mike.

(18:37):
Was part of Florida's efforts to automate eMac inspections as
assets came into Florida during the twenty twenty four hurricane season.
We use mobile teams. eMac assessments need to be inspected
on way in and out, so damage charges are accurate
and in need of support. Yes, because you go back
to the one hundred percent cost reimbursement. So you send,

(19:01):
you know, a team in to California. The cost of that,
I want you to think about that, the crescendo of
effects that this has. So Colorado sends a team to California,

(19:22):
that's part of the cost of the response. So that
will be reimbursed by taxpayers at one and again, you
do an inspection, you look at the equipment. You you
don't really praise the equipment. You just look at the
equipment and you know, yeah, windshield's not broken out, so

(19:43):
it's good, just as a stupid example. But on the
way out, the windshields cracked. So when that truck, before
that truck, that engine can go back into service, you
have to replace the windshield. Well, that goes into the
inspection because that two is part of the one hundred
percent of the response that is going to be reimbursed

(20:05):
because when that truck gets back to Colorado, if not before,
the windshield has to be replaced. But think about while
that truck is is in California and not in Colorado.
That means that you need particularly in the urban areas
like along the front range, that truck needs to be backfilled,

(20:25):
and that personal needs to be backfilled. So now that's
part of the indirect cost of the response, which will
also be reimbursed at one hundred percent. So taxpayers, get
ready to open your pocketbooks, because when the president says
one hundred percent, that's the one hundred percent. But again,

(20:49):
I'm focusing on the response, and the response is all
of those government assets that are used to respond. Now,
depending on whether not a private entity has a contract
with the State of California to respond, that may or

(21:10):
may not also be part of the response costs that
get reimbursed. So anytime, and much like FEMA has grown
in the types and size and scope of a disaster

(21:33):
that it responds to, so has this tendency of presidents
to say, yes, we'll cover a one hundred percent of
the costs, which to me is always I shouldn't say always,
but ninety percent of the time or more. I think
that's a mistake because once you say we're going to

(21:56):
cover one hundred percent of the costs, when it comes
to things like debris removal. Debris removal, all that debris
you see is going to be cleared. Now homeowners are
going to be responsible for getting the debris curb side,
so their insurance or they individually are going to have

(22:18):
to cover those costs now once it gets to the curb,
or it's public property that gets reimbursed. And debris removal
is one of the most I don't want to say corrupt,
but it's one of the most fraudulent prone activities in

(22:38):
a response and recovery phase of a disaster because private
companies are getting reimbursed by the state government and by
the FEDS to do all that debris removal. So how
much weight and what's the qbic tons that are being moved? Well,

(23:01):
when you have something of that size, it's very easy
to start committing fraud. If you require a seventy five
twenty five percent split, the state's going to be pretty
or you would think that the state's going to be
pretty interested in making certain that fraud is not involved
in debris removal, because that's an increased cost to them

(23:24):
that they shouldn't otherwise have to bear. So I just
I don't like this idea that every time there's a
freaking disaster that ought to be declared a presidentially declared
disaster and that the president ought to just automatically without
even asking FEMA about it, say yeah, we're going to
cover one hundred percent of the costs because that takes
away incentive for state and locals to really care about

(23:48):
watching their p's and ques that they get this stuff done.
Let's go back to Professor Brewer, because again, if you
want to say that climate itself, and I think, to
be more technically correct, whether itself may have been the
origin of the fire, that may be true, because we
know in Colorado that lightning strike skin start a wildfire. Now,

(24:12):
we don't know what started these fires, but let's assume
for a moment that it was the weather. Well, don't
try to cram down my throat that it's climate change
that is causing it. Now, if you listen to the
program last week and over the weekend, I gave you
an inordinate amount of information about climate change and how

(24:33):
climate change is not causing these fires to be larger,
more intense, spreading further, or anything else. The costs are increasing,
but that's not because of climate change. That's because we
have more people, more infrastructure, larger, more spread out cities,
there's more of the urban wildland interface. So those costs

(24:55):
are increasing, but it's not because of climate change. So,
as they said, the universe. The Yale University published this
these journals in what was the year publication, Well, it's
in theast nineteen thirty. So they gathered all of the
records of William Henry Brewer, who lived from eighteen twenty

(25:18):
eight to nineteen ten. Professor of chemistry at Washington College
in Pennsylvania. He joined the staff of California's first state geologist,
Hosiah Dwight Whitney. He was the state geologist from eighteen
sixty eighteen sixty four. Is I said, I collect these
kinds of maps, these geological surveys. So what they did
is they went into these territories, the Louisiana Territory, the

(25:43):
Indian Territory, Texas Territory, all of these places, and they
did all these They did all of these surveys of everything,
the geological formations, the weather, the climate, all of this stuff.
So yaleblished the Journal Up and Down California in eighteen

(26:06):
sixty to eighteen sixty four, The Journal of William H. Brewer. Now,
in his writings, he detailed his extensive travels across California.
He documented all the various natural phenomena. He described torrential rains,
that transformed the Central Valley into a vast lake, intense

(26:26):
heat that caused all their stored meats to spoil rapidly,
and significant earthquakes and wildfires. He wrote this, I have
witnessed torrential rains that turned the Central Valley into a
vast white caps lake, intolerable heat waves that made the
fats of our meats run away in spontaneous gravy, violet earthquakes,

(26:51):
and fires and I could and fires I could only
describe as great sheets of flames extending over acres. So
he when it comes to flooding, he observed heavy rains
that led to widespread flooding in the Central Valley, effectively
turning it into an expansive lake. If I hear one

(27:14):
more news report that California's been in a drought for
the past ten months or so, I'm going to scream,
because why don't you go back twelve months, thirteen months
when we had all the bomb cyclones. Remember we used
to joke about how you know the hyperbole of the
language bomb cyclones hitting California, torrential rainflaws, rainfall, flooding in

(27:39):
the same area that you now have the fires. Yet
for whatever reason, and immaterial to me right now. But
for whatever reason, for the purpose of this conversation, you
had an opportunity just twelve months ago to fill all
of the reservoirs. And if you go back to twenty fourteen,

(28:02):
ten years ago, the voters of California passed a bond
issue to build additional reservoirs. And it's kind of like building,
you know, the Department of Energy building additional charging stations none,
or doing rural broadband hookups none. How many reservoirs in

(28:23):
the past ten years after the California voters voted to
tax themselves additional taxes to build more reservoirs to use
not just for water consumption but for firefighting. How many
additional reservoirs have been built in a decade zip not

(28:44):
a one. So the flooding the Professor Brewer observed continues,
It was occurring more than one hundred years ago. The
heat waves, he noted, all these extreme conditions that I
love the language that caused the fats and our provisions

(29:04):
to melt like gravy. Spontaneous gravy is the way he
described it in his journal Earthquakes and Fires. He witnessed
violent earthquakes extensive wildfires, describing the wildfires as great sheets
of flame extending over fast acres. Oh well, now if

(29:26):
you have the same thing occurring one hundred plus years later,
except now you've got an in and out burger and
a Costco and one hundred and fifty homes and a
street and a public school and a hospital and gardens
and trees and grass and everything else. Oh yeah, when
that fire goes blowing through that area, the cost of

(29:49):
fighting the fire and the damage caused by the fire
expands exorbitantly.

Speaker 4 (29:56):
Brannie, up here in Idaho yesterday, I saw me flatbed
on the back of a low boy flatbed. That's how
they get them across the country.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Oh, I had not seen that. I didn't realize that.
I want you to listen in light of what I
just said, read to you from eighteen sixty to eighteen
sixty four about the climate in California. Listen to what

(30:28):
CNN continues to propagate and propaganda is about the climate.

Speaker 5 (30:35):
Right, just a few minutes ago, you heard FEMA Administrator
Diane Criswell talking about the role the climate changed as
in helping create the conditions for these wildfires burning out
of control. The most destructive in some ways that we've
ever seen.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
So automatically tie the level of destruction to climate change. No, actually,
the weather is what's exascer baiting the fires, plus our
you know, modernization.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
And around Los Angeles. So how do Americans feel about
climate change and the danger it poses? Do they feel
the same way that they used to? He knows the answer,
cens cleanered at a reporter, Harriet is here.

Speaker 6 (31:18):
Hey, John, Yeah, I mean, look, I don't think Americans
are making this connection. And the way we can see
this in right here and now take a look at
the monthly change in Google searches. Look at the searchers
for wildfire up twenty four hundred percent. My goodness, gracious,
this is the most amount of people searching for wildfires ever.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, gee, I wonder why, what the hell does that
have to do with absolutely anything? Well, hang on, he's
going to try to tie it just a second, everards.

Speaker 6 (31:48):
Going back since Google trends began back in two thousand
and four. But look at climate change. Look at the change.
It doesn't go hand in hand with wildfires. It's actually down,
it's down nine percent.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Well, because all you see on the news is the
wildfires so you're gonna be searching for wildfires? Are you
searching for climate change? Why is this guy so one?
So because you're not making the connection like they expect
you to.

Speaker 6 (32:15):
I also looked in California there has been no increase
in the number of searches for climate change. So the
bottom line is this, Americans are definitely interested in learning
about these wildfires, They're interested in following the news about
the wildfires, but they are not making that connection with
climate change.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
That's see, shame on you. You're not making the connection.

Speaker 6 (32:37):
That's the bottom line here.

Speaker 5 (32:38):
That's a really key metric you're looking at there, the
connection overall Americans being worried about climate change.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
What have we seen over time?

Speaker 6 (32:46):
Yeah, you know, we have seen a lot of extreme
weather events over the last few decades, right, hurricanes, heat waves, wildfires.
You might expect that Americans worry about climate change. With
climate change, worry a lot. You go back to nineteen
hundred and ninety one, it was thirty five percent. Now
it was a little bit higher in two thousand and seven,

(33:07):
a little bit higher in twenty twenty two. But look
at this, in twenty twenty three, the last time we
have dated thirty nine percent that is not statistically significantly
different from this thirty five percent back in nineteen hundred
and ninety one. So despite all these extreme weather.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
So despite all of our attempts at making you afraid
and making you believe there's some sort of causal link
between climate change and these wildfires, you're not doing your
job well. In nineteen ninety one, only thirty five percent
worried a lot about climate change.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
In ninety one, nineteen hundred.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Ninety one, No, nineteen ninety.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
One, nineteen hundred ninety one.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
But he says, it's ninety.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
One, right, But that's why we stated instead of nineteen
nineteen n ninety one, right, Taking on how he's say.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Well, but it is nineteen ninety one, and he's upset
because you are back to where you were in nineteen
ninety one, at barely a third for events.

Speaker 6 (33:58):
Americans are really no more worry about climate change than
they were. What is that now nearly thirty five years ago.
I mean, there's just no real trend line here, mister Burman.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
So there's just no trend line, you know. That gives
me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Now, if we can just
wake up the third of you who still believe there's
some sort of causal link. We might win this battle too. Yeah,
and they're losing. Why do you think the guy's so
upset because you can't believe you don't believe me.