Like a Blow Torch. Rick Dickert Talks to A&G

On the January 13, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Extra Large Podcast...

• Jack & Joe are joined by LA-based meteorologist Rick Dickert to talk about the rapid spread of the LA wildfires..and what's next.  

Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Armstrong and Getdy show.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
It was like a hurricane.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
This fire no water, but like eighty miles an hour
plus it felts a real.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's a fire like racing down the hill at that point. Yeah,
well that's what's scary about this.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
It just was shooting like a blow torch, like a
blow tort It was literally just shooting off of the mountain.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
Man, I just watched a video I hadn't seen this
doorbell camera captures early moments of the eating fire. That's
the one up by Altadena and Pasadena and these people.
She was coming home from work and she saw a
little orange glow off in the distance underneath the power lines.
That's why they're now reporting. The La Times is reporting
that they they get started under the power lines. But

(00:45):
it's got the minute by minute on here of how
fast it went from tiny little fire to a pretty
big fire to holy crap, and they loaded up their
car and got out of there. It's just crazy how
fast that happened. And also I found the the three
letter Warning for.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Today comes up with this stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
They declared it a PDS for Today Particularly Dangerous Situation. Okay,
that's like the official and I guess when you declare
something a PDS, then all.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Kinds of things happen. Do we need that, I don't know,
it's what I wonder.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
So I would say it's a pleasure to talk to
our next guest, and it is in a way, but
it's a terrible, a terrible topic. Rick Dickard is a
legend of LA Media Fox eleven Morning News, among other
credits for years, certified broadcast meteorologist, heard many, many, many
many times on our beloved affiliate seven to ninety KABC,

(01:42):
and he joins us, Now.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Rick, how are you, sir?

Speaker 1 (01:45):
I'm well, given what's happening here. Thank you for having me,
Jack Joe. And you mentioned the PDS, and that is
an official term used by the National Weather Service to
express the heightened risk of severe weather, and here it's
a wildfire or the potential of more wildfires that they
usue those PDS's force severe weather, hurricanes, tornadoes. So this

(02:09):
is an extreme situation. And unfortunately we're looking at another
powerful wind event, not quite what we saw last Tuesday,
but close to it in terms of wind velocities that
are anticipated over the next forty eight hours.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Wow, and I want to get to that in just
a second, But first, can you describe to folks what
the weather was like last week when the fires started?
Giving your perspective of reporting on this sort of thing
for years and years.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
And I worked in the broadcast media here in southern
California for thirty plus years, twenty of which I spent
up in an airborne capacity in a helicopter covering these events,
these wind driven events. This is the worst I have
ever seen, and I was on the ground for this one.
And essentially what happened dynamically in the atmosphere. Things came
together to produce these hurricane force wind guts in those

(02:58):
areas that we call the urban wildland interface here in
southern California, two of which above Pacific Pali States, above
that iconic shoreline if you're on the East coast you've
seen it in pictures and movies of Malibu. And then
the eaten fire above just to the north and northeast
of the iconic Rose Bowl and Colorado Boulevard where you
see the Rose Parade every year. Those two areas, there

(03:21):
was some sort of trigger in the wild land just
above those communities, those two sparks happen, and then dynamically utroologically,
we have this powerful wind event that allowed that fire
to spread. You heard what people in those areas said,
like a blowtors. It was a firestorm, eighty mine hour
wind deests burning that chaparral, that forest land, those dry tinder,

(03:44):
dry bloodshed. We had months of no precipitation essentially here
in southern California. That Breashcot fire, the winds ignited and
that fire spread directly down into those communities. They eaten
fire Pasadena over towards Altadena, Sierra Madre, and then the
Palisades fire incumbassy Pacific Palsas there even part of Santa Monica,

(04:05):
and then up the past towards Malabu.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, I thought I knew what these videos would be
like when I started watching them. But some of the
videos they had in sixty minutes last night, and somebody
saw this morning on my phone. It was so windy,
it was like it was like CGI special effects. I'd
never see anything like that anywhere, No wonder it's been
so difficult to fight, and it was like a machine

(04:29):
gun of embers being shot over tremendous distances miles.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
That those embers that Ember cast and the Ember intrusion
as we call it, it gets caught up in the
eaves of homes two miles away from the fire zones
because it was so dry out there, it ignited homes
well away from that major fire zone. And that's exactly
what happened for a good twelve to twenty four hour
period after these two fires started. The Palisades Fire started

(04:56):
at ten thirty am Pacific Standard time on Tuesday. The
Eaten Fire above the Rose Bowl north and east of
the Rose Bowl in the Angels National Fire that started
shortly after six pm on the same day. Worst case
scenario with the weather in play and where those two
fires ignited, allowing those fires fanned by those dusty, powerful

(05:17):
hurricane force windows out of the north and northeast towards
the south and southwest into those communities of Pacific Palisades
of Alcadina and Sierra.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Madre, including bizarre fire behaviors racing downhill driven by the wind,
which is something normally that doesn't happen. Rick Dickert, a
longtime meteorologist reporter in LA Online. Rick talk to us
about what's expected this week weatherwise.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Again, we set it that pds issued by the National
Weather Service heightened fire weather encompassing parts of southern California,
Ventura County, the Porto Ranch area, Simi Valley, San Fernando,
the West Santa Monica Mountains. That's very close to the
Palisades Fire from Pepperdine University over towards Point Mavie. Wind

(06:03):
guts again not as strong as what we saw last Tuesday,
but close to it. We're talking about wind gusts of
forty five to seventy miles per a sustained wind of
thirty nine miles an hour that's tropical storm force. A
sustained wind of seventy four miles an hour that is
a Category one hurricane. Those wind guts, in addition to
the relative humidity values of eight to fifteen percent, that's

(06:25):
what's going to produce the red flag conditions. When a
red flag warning is issued for southern California, you're watching
and listening from other parts of the country. That means
explosive fire growth potential, just like what we saw last
Tuesday into Wednesday, that blow towards effect. You get that
ignition and then the fire spreadent I do want to
mention that Jack and Jodd a fire. These fires aren't

(06:47):
started by the weather. They're driven by the weather. There's
some sort of ignition. It could be something in terms
of our infrastructure. Unfortunately, there's arson. People love startheas fires. Accidentally,
the trigger occurs, the atmosphere conditions are in play, and
that's what allow these fires to spread so rapidly and
create the devastation that we've seen.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
I'm really glad we had you on. What a great report.
Nice job, Yeah, terrific, Rick, We're big fans.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
I'm sorry it's under this circumstance that we talk to you,
but fabulous job.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
I hope we can stay in touch.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Absolutely, stay safe out everybody. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
It's interesting he brings that up about the obviously the
weather conditions don't start the fire, they spread the fire.
David Spade, the actor comedian, is offering five thousand dollars
for anybody with information on the arsonists to start the fire.
So clearly he's under the impression that some human beings
started this on purpose.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Is I've often wondered.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
This with with with our you know, you start a
you go into a building and start that on fire,
that's a you know, specific thing, but starting a fire
in an area that it catches on and then burns
and burns and burns and burns. You got you gotta
be prepared for that, whether it's an arsonist, a lightning strike,

(08:02):
an electric breakdown. You've got to have some way to
keep that from getting so out of control, don't you know,
the forest management we're having enough of water in your
fire hydrants to fight it or whatever, because there's always
going to be something a.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Lot more sparked or I don't think there is anything
you can do to be ready for that weather after
that long and drought and getting sparked. You have to
work like a maniac to make sure that in those
conditions nothing gets sparked, and there's super quick response if
it does. But with one hundred male par gusts, lots

(08:39):
and lots of seventy five mile prou gusts, you're just screwed.
To summarize, although, and we made this point a couple
of times, and it's worth making again because a particular
aspect of this cannot be blamed on bad governance. Is
no reason to not talk about the awful, awful governance

(08:59):
of California slash LA that was a contributor. Maybe it
doesn't explain it, but it should still be identified and
rooted out.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
I wish I could remember where I heard some fire
chiefs saying we could have had every fire truck in
America here last Thursday night and it wouldn't have made
any difference when it was gusting to one hundred miles
an hour, which makes sense.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Well, yeah, the one gent I heard, I think it
was on sixty minutes point doubt that if they have
a fully involved structure, they want three fire trucks there typically,
and that there were as of when they interviewed him,
something like twelve thousand structures had burned. He said, do
the math. There aren't that many fire trucks.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
I was trying to find the quote that man Gavin
got beat up for on Friday. It was similar to
what you're talking about. See if I can find it
real quick.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Oh, Gavin Newsom he was.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
He did an interview on a liberal outlet, which also
got him some pushback, like you didn't have the guts
to go on where he was going to be challenged
at all. He said, let's stop with the finger pointing.
I'm not interested in who's to blame. Oh really, that's
interesting because a lot of people are interested in who's
to blame, Like.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
A lot of people with no homes are pretty interested
in that. Yeah, yeah, that's funny, Kevin. A quick word
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Speaker 4 (11:17):
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Speaker 2 (11:28):
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Speaker 3 (11:35):
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Speaker 2 (11:39):
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Speaker 2 (11:44):
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Speaker 3 (12:01):
Armstrong and Getty