January 13, 2025 • 26 mins
‘Will Pay Any Amount:’ Private firefighters are in demand in Los Angeles… not just for the rich, who else hires them? ABC News correspondent Alex Stone joins the show to share the latest regarding the Los Angeles wildfires. Newsom suspends environmental rules to ease post-fire rebuilding. California fires reveal limits of city water systems for firefighting.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI Handle here on a Monday morning, January thirteenth, as
a result of the fires. Oh Amy, during the break, Amy,
you want to correct what's happening that we talked about
where I think I was wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hopefully you were wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
No, I don't think either one of us were wrong.
We're just clarifying a little bit. We mentioned that the
red flag warnings are still in effect, so that's the winds.
The low humidity makes fire danger higher. We've got the
Santa Ana wins coming in. They're expected to intensify tonight.
We will have some windy conditions this afternoon. Could see
gus up to fifty miles prior, but the winds are
(00:42):
expected to intensify tonight and then be the worst tomorrow
and Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, from eighty mile an hour winds down to fifty
mile an hour winds. Obviously it's a better situation, but
it's still really dangerous, and the fear is that all
these fires are going to kip kick up again, particularly
the Palisades fire.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's rough, it really is. Hey. One of the stories
that is coming.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Out of these fires is the story of private firefighters.
You can buy insurance that provides private firefighters. You can
have your own that'll go past the burning building and
then go to your place of business or your home
(01:28):
and fight the fire where you are, and you're paying
for that. Obviously is for the wealthy people, and strangely enough,
a lot of insurance companies hire private firefighters. As a
matter of fact, Palisades Village, which is one of these
outdoor shopping malls owned by Paul Caruso, who ran for mayor.
(01:50):
He's a billionaire developer. You saw if you were looking
or a video in it, large water trucks that should
stood century ready for action. They weren't fighting the fires
because Palisades Village was being left alone for the most.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Part, and there they were ready to go.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Wait a minute, private firefighters.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Is that offensive or not? Well, it gets kind of
interesting to say the least.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
First of all, a central question is whether the city
and county fire departments could have used firefighters private firefighters,
which they don't. The extent of the role of firefighters
private firefighters still emerging now. When we talk about private firefighters, Okay,
they bring their own equipment, their own trucks, their own
(02:43):
water supply in big trucks so as not to use
any city or county services or equipment. Now they will
connect to the fire hydrants, and I don't know if
any of them did. Certainly with low water pressure, it
didn't have. And they're not allowed to use sirens or
(03:03):
flashing lights or any insignia on their trucks or equipment
that looks like they're part of the fire fighting apparatus
of the city or county. So what ended up happening
in the Palisades on Friday? Teams of private firefighters were
riding around in white pickup trucks keeping watch on the
(03:26):
individual homes that they were to cover under a private contract. Well,
you know how offensive is that that some people can
afford private firefighters who ignore streets that were on fire,
homes that were on fire.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, let me give you.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Their answer is, first of all, they don't get in
the way of the city or the county. They are
protecting homes that the city or county would otherwise be.
They're putting out their own fires, of their own insured
And the argument they can help the situation.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, that's one argument. The other argument is.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Of course, only the wealthy can afford it. Hey, I
got news for you.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I didn't know this.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Forty five percent of the firefighters in the country are
private firefighters, and usually it's a matter of fact, they
don't do much home, especially here in California, because of
the expense and because of the California rules.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That they have to bring their own equipment.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
They have to they can't connect with fire hydrants for
the most part, so they come out and their pumps
go to swimming.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Pools or reservoirs.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And they bring or get their own water, which is
critical here in this situation because of the story of
the lower pressure.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Of the hydrants.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
And how are forty five percent of the fire fighting
the private contractors are the firefighters. Well, usually they're talking
about firefighters in the mountainous region where they are.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Contracted by government to be there.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Because government firefighters aren't enough out there, and they're the
municipalities that contract with firefighters. Because they don't have the infrastructure,
it is easier, it's cheaper to.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Go to private companies that do this.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
They outsource firefighting because they don't have.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The infrastructure, the training, the equipment.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Because it costs a lot of money to create and
maintain a fire department. So insurance companies also hire them.
Why because insurance companies are ensuring very high value properties
and it's cheaper for them to hire these private companies
that it is to replace the homes or businesses themselves.
(05:59):
It's just one of those things that just make sense
financially for the insurance company. For the communities that have
to hire, I have to outsource.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
And so rich people. Do you know that people that
are wealthy just do better in life.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
They eat better, they have nicer cars, they have nicer homes.
They can hire, for example, private security guards. Has anybody
bitch about that? Where you have these very wealthy homes
that are gated and you have private security. Private communities
have better security where they drive. You have security officers,
(06:37):
their officers, security people driving around their community. So here
we go. Do they have the right to do that?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Do the firefighters get in the way of the community firefighters? Well,
for the most part, no, we have not heard that
complaint yet. This all came out of that story that
one of the homeowners in Palisades went to and posted
a did a post saying, if there are anybody out
(07:05):
there private firefighters, I will pay any amount of money to.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Spare my home.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
By the way, do you know whether or not Amy
that guy's home was spared.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That story didn't go beyond him posting.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I do not know.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I don't think that has been posted. By the way,
just to let you know what it costs you.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
A two person private firefighting crew with a small truck
three thousand dollars a day. A larger crew with twenty
firefighters in four trucks can run to ten thousand dollars
a day. And most private firms will not deal with homeowners.
It's either government or insurance companies. I found that fascinating.
(07:45):
Alex Stone, ABC News correspondent, we have gone to many
many times. Alex lives in southern California, so he is
one of us that is dealing with this story, not
only on a national scale because ABC National Corps respondent.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
But also.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Right here up close. Alex, Good morning and thanks for
taking the time. What's the latest from your view?
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Well, yeah, I think the big headline over the weekend
was how good everything was looking.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I spent all day yesterday on.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
The Altadena fire and the Palisades fire was the same thing.
Where really with the winds that we saw calm down
over the weekend, and all of this help arriving, and
I mean we're seeing fire engines from everywhere where you go.
They drive by and it's got some name of some
city in Colorado or Texas on the side of any
(08:37):
where's that And yeah, there's so much help coming in
that it's really helping out. But we got this next
cycle to go through here, and not just a red
flag but a PDS red flag, a particularly dangerous situation
red flag, which bill they issue those every five to
ten years. And this will be two in a week,
(08:57):
three in the last month, I believe, and when the
other one was up the Malibu fire took off. That
when they issue these typically we have something bad. This
will probably be more Ventura Santa Barbara County area. But
if we get another big fire or two or three
running with people having to get out of it, it's
(09:18):
just yeah, they're gonna have to pull resources off of
Altadena and off of Pacific Palisades and then move them
up there. It's gonna get really tough, or if it
flares these back up again. But overall, I mean, the
devastation is incredible and just neighborhood after neighborhood. But overall
the fires themselves, there's no real active flame. They look
(09:40):
pretty good this morning.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, hopefully they're not going to increase, but the chances
are pretty good they're going to.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And a couple things about this fire.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
When you talk about the devastation, you look at photos
of Hiroshima right after the bombing, or you look at
photos of neighborhoods in Gaza that have just been decimated.
That's what it reminds us of. And you think this
wouldn't happen in anywhere in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The other interesting part of this story is, as you said,
the various jurisdictions that are sending in firefighting crews, not
only Canada, Mexico is bringing in and Zolensky has offered
to bring in Ukrainian firefighters, which I mean, that's a
bizarre one. And it's one of those things where I'm
(10:27):
assuming that the authorities here in southern California saying anybody
that can help, will take it, please help us.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, and Zelenski's saying that his teams are ready to
go and that they're ready to come in. You know,
it is it's unimaginable. When you go and you drive
through the neighborhoods. We talked to a fire captain yesterday
who he was in from Bakersfield. He's been a firefighter
for twenty nine years. He says he's never seen anything
like this. But at the same time, it is very
(10:56):
similar to what we saw in Lahina and in Santa
and in Paradise and in Chico where they had the
car carr It was the name of it fire a
number of years ago, where you know it's the strong
winds that come in and then this is the result
and those winds, and we were talking about it last week,
but those winds on Wednesday morning were like something I
(11:19):
have never experienced. And the one hundred mile an hour
winds with the flames running in, those people just couldn't
get out and that's why the number of dead is
going up right now. It's going to continue to go up. Unfortunately.
We saw the medical examiner driving around yesterday in the
neighborhood that we were in, and you kind of stand
there and wait to see where they're going to pull up.
(11:41):
And they were checking on some homes down the street
and firefighters are going through and they're looking for any
human remains. They're going to be doing that today, but
just incredible loss. And you got to remember in Altadena,
it's not Pacific palisades are both terrible, but it's not
a wealthy enclave. Altadena is bungalow style homes for the
(12:03):
most part, close together built I would guess maybe nineteen hundreds,
nineteen fifties. Many of them have the brick fireplaces, the
older appliances in them, and people have lost everything. It's gone.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And a couple of stories that we never reported on before,
and that is as fire crews. I mean that's fairly new,
the extent and the technology used in aircraft, which is
obviously a very good thing, and the problem is the
winds were so high that they couldn't be used for
a couple of days, and the fire fighters rely on
(12:37):
aircraft so much as part of the fire fighting policy and.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
How they deal with it. And then these cockroaches with
the drones.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Took out one super super Scooper and hopefully that airplane
is going to come back today. And when drones are
actually seen, it shuts down the aerial combating of the
fires completely. I mean, it is crazy and it's what
is it a misdemeanor or something to fly home.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yeah, well maybe not because it's federal. The FBI is
investigating where that drone they hit the Superscooper came from.
But yeah, so, first of all, in the air attack,
not only is it not safe, but when it's blowing
like that, it's ineffective because the water or the fiery tardant,
depending on the aircraft, as it comes out, it just
does a ninety degree turn and goes with the wind.
(13:29):
It never hits the ground, so they can not only
are you putting pilots in danger, but when they drop,
it doesn't do any good. It just blows off and evaporates,
so they can't drop at that time. But yeah, and
then you got the looters on top of this, and
the arrest that Sheriff Luna talked about yesterday. If somebody
dressed up like a firefighter who was caught. And all
of these, for the most part, have been people from
(13:50):
outside of the area who have come in and decided
this is their time to go in, mainly to evacuated neighborhoods.
It didn't burn where they can go into homes and
still find things. Not a lot to find in the
burned out neighborhoods, but that it's the first time I've
ever heard of somebody pressing up like a firefighter or
member of the media, because we have to wear all
that gear in there as well, so try to blend
(14:11):
in with all of us who are in there to
then go and begin to loot.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
All right, Alex, who.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Is going to be covering this and unfortunately, probably for
another several days is the fire hopefully doesn't expand and build,
but it probably is going to Alex.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Thank you, you got it. Thanks, we'll talk again, all right.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
One of the things that people are wondering and worrying
about is rebuilding.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Where we're going to get the money. That's one.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Governmental help has to be involved. State federal help has
to come down. And also California and southern California particularly
has building codes that are completely insane.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Not codes per se, but environmental rules.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
For example, we have the joys of the Coastal Commission,
which you have to go through if you're building, and
if you're building within five miles of the coast, the
Coastal Commission kicks in and they make it close to
impossible to build. It can take years between local government
and the Coastal Commission and near for example, the Santa
(15:18):
Monica Reserve.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It is very, very difficult a.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Developer building a multi story dwelling, dwelling we're talking about
our multi unit eight units, ten units, it can take.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Five years to get the permitting. Five years.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Well, can you imagine taking five years to rebuild the Palisades.
So what the governor has done is suspending many of
those rules, the environmental laws for the victims of the fire,
the homes and the businesses. And so you've got the
California Quad, the California Environmental Quality Act, California Coastal Act,
(15:59):
which developers, and that's going to be changed, at least
for the fires temporarily.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
In terms of rebuilding.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The governor said, California leaves the nation environmental stewardship. But
I'm not going to give that up. But what one
thing I won't give into is delay. Delay is denial
for people for their lives, traditions, places torn apart, torn asunder. Yeah,
I got a question is we're at the head of
(16:28):
environmental protections here in California, which means that there's delay,
and he won't take delay.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So something's got to give.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And the good news is at this point, it looks
like the environmental rules are going to give simply because
you've got to rebuild, and the builders, developers, the people
that are rebuilding their homes, the individuals, it would take
forever to get the permits and those are going to
be gone. So waivers of the Environmental Quality Act are happening,
(17:02):
the Coastal Act waivers are happening, and the developers saying,
we need that, we need that. So what Newsom says
is that new permitting rules would allow approvals to be
issued within thirty days instead of years. And Mayor Karen
Bass has also acknowledged the problem, and she said that
(17:24):
the building permitting process which I have gone through is
kind of crazy. Well, that takes forever, except it's not
going to anymore. And of course members of the GOP
now we have the Republicans, including Donald Trump, has said
that it's mainly Gavin Newsom who's at fault. Wildfire victims
(17:46):
to deserve much more from Gavin Newsom when his track
record includes lying about underfunding wildlife prevention. He owes Angelino's
answers on how he and local Democrat leaders could have
been so un prepared for these devastating wildfires. So you see,
it is not really the Santa Ana wins. It's newsome
(18:09):
and it's the Democratic leaders that in fact were completely
unprepared by the way we were unprepared.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And why were we unprepared? Because these fires were so insane.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I mean, this is on a level that virtually all
the preparation in the world would not have helped. We
would have needed thousands more firefighters ready to go, We
would have needed twice the reservoirs, three times the reservoirs,
and more aircraft just standing there, sitting there at airports
(18:47):
ready to fly and attack these fires. And you want
to know something that wouldn't have helped. When you have
one hundred mile an hour winds that are moving the
fire at well not at one hundred miles an hour,
but certainly moving the fire. I can ask someone about that.
How quickly does a fire move up a hill when
the wind is one hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
They were saying that it was moving like five football
fields a minute.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
How do you fight that?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And you can't put aircraft up because the winds are
moving at such incredible rates that you have no firefighting
aircraft available.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That's it. You're done.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
And yet this, of course is the fault of the
Democrats who have done this. Okay, And of course President
Trump is called newsome incompetent by the way. He calls
him new scum, and he says they should resign. And
also the President made statements about water being redirected to
(19:54):
protect small fish.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's where the water went during this fire.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, why not when it's all said and done, By
the way, that Bill SEQUA was signed into law by
Governor Ronald Reagan in nineteen seventy and the Coastal LAC
created the Coastal Commission in nineteen seventy two, so that's
been going.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Around for a while, to say the least.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
All right, here, some of the questions that are being
asked because are a lot of hindsight goes on, and
that is how come the fire hydrants ran out of pressure?
Why did they not have water? Well, it's because the
water systems and the way we fight fires. Never I
(20:41):
anticipated winds like this one hundred mile an hour guts.
There isn't enough water on this planet that can be
put on a fire that would put out something like this.
It just doesn't happen. So the attacks on the city
water supply, and by the way, the cities it's not
just one city water supply, it's many different little jurisdictions
(21:05):
in addition to the DWP that supply water.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
And what we're finding out.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
The bottom line is that the ability to fight these fires,
the design of the water system is not made for
fires that go across entire communities that are spreading light.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Where the fires are spreading.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Light wildfire, and so the way our system works is
single building, small number of buildings where there's plenty of
water pressure. And even to the point where you've seen
these large tanks, I mean massive tanks on top of
hills or on hillsides in various communities. Those are filled
with water to fight fires. And the water was used
(21:49):
so quickly and there was so much of it the
system couldn't just couldn't uphold what was needed.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
They just couldn't meet the need. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
The analogy I make is when we have earthquakes, we
have codes building codes that are probably the most stringent
in the world, and we can deal with a Richter
scale seven point one seven point five that's a pretty
solid earthquake. If a nine point one or two hits
(22:23):
our area. By the way, that did happen in Alaska
in the sixties and I think San Francisco in nineteen
oh four.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
There's nothing you can do about that. It just doesn't.
You can't.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's just overwhelming. There is no ability to deal with that.
And that's what happened with this fire. There's simply no ability.
Had there been more firefighters, had Karen Bass not cut
seventeen million dollars from the LA Fire Department, it wouldn't
have done a damn thing on this fire.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I mean nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
If you're going to fight wildfires of this magnitude, the
entire system has.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
To be rebuilt.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
We need tons more reservoirs, We need hundreds of firefighters
ready to go, just ready to go, just sitting there
aircraft parked. In this case, it would have been at
van Ey's Airport, just parked, ready to fly. Helicopters just
sitting there, ready to go. The costs would be astronomical. Now,
(23:33):
those Superscooper Super Scoopers, those yellow airplanes, and we have
two of them, one of them taken out by that
cockroad of a drone operator. Those are leased by La
County and they do are parked at Vannay's airport during
the entire fire season, which of course now is every minute.
(23:54):
And it's a Quebec company that does this, Montreal Quebec Montreal.
They fly in and those are parked at van Ey's
and usually they're enough to do the job. The new
philosophy of firefighting is that even a small fire is
immediately attacked by aircraft and ground crew so it doesn't
(24:17):
go that's sort of a brand new philosophy that was
developed the last few years. But even with all of that,
if that were happening, this fire would not have been
put out, not with wind like this, not with this event.
I mean, we knew two three days in advance it
was going to be a life threatening red flag warning situation.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
It was going to happen.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
And of course when it's this scary, arsonists come out.
Can you imagine arsonists dealing with this? And you've got
it this point, twenty four people dead, fifty billion in damage,
thousands of people losing everything, they have everything, and you've
(25:08):
got some guy who is starting a fire and they
don't know, they think most of it is arson.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And then they're looking at the water, the power people,
was it a power line that fell during the wind
and ignited a fire. What was that?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Just heard yesterday that eighty five percent of the wildfires
are caught are man made, either by arson or by negligence,
a campfire, a cigarette, Even a couple of them were
mufflers that were hitting the ground. You ever seen a
(25:52):
car with a muffler hitting around? You see the sparks
flying off, even those All right, this is KFI.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I am six point forty. You've been listening to the
Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Catch my show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI Handle here on a Monday morning, January thirteenth, as
a result of the fires. Oh Amy, during the break, Amy,
you want to correct what's happening that we talked about
where I think I was wrong.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hopefully you were wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
No, I don't think either one of us were wrong.
We're just clarifying a little bit. We mentioned that the
red flag warnings are still in effect, so that's the winds.
The low humidity makes fire danger higher. We've got the
Santa Ana wins coming in. They're expected to intensify tonight.
We will have some windy conditions this afternoon. Could see
gus up to fifty miles prior, but the winds are
(00:42):
expected to intensify tonight and then be the worst tomorrow
and Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, from eighty mile an hour winds down to fifty
mile an hour winds. Obviously it's a better situation, but
it's still really dangerous, and the fear is that all
these fires are going to kip kick up again, particularly
the Palisades fire.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's rough, it really is. Hey. One of the stories
that is coming.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Out of these fires is the story of private firefighters.
You can buy insurance that provides private firefighters. You can
have your own that'll go past the burning building and
then go to your place of business or your home
(01:28):
and fight the fire where you are, and you're paying
for that. Obviously is for the wealthy people, and strangely enough,
a lot of insurance companies hire private firefighters. As a
matter of fact, Palisades Village, which is one of these
outdoor shopping malls owned by Paul Caruso, who ran for mayor.
(01:50):
He's a billionaire developer. You saw if you were looking
or a video in it, large water trucks that should
stood century ready for action. They weren't fighting the fires
because Palisades Village was being left alone for the most.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Part, and there they were ready to go.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Wait a minute, private firefighters.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Is that offensive or not? Well, it gets kind of
interesting to say the least.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
First of all, a central question is whether the city
and county fire departments could have used firefighters private firefighters,
which they don't. The extent of the role of firefighters
private firefighters still emerging now. When we talk about private firefighters, Okay,
they bring their own equipment, their own trucks, their own
(02:43):
water supply in big trucks so as not to use
any city or county services or equipment. Now they will
connect to the fire hydrants, and I don't know if
any of them did. Certainly with low water pressure, it
didn't have. And they're not allowed to use sirens or
(03:03):
flashing lights or any insignia on their trucks or equipment
that looks like they're part of the fire fighting apparatus
of the city or county. So what ended up happening
in the Palisades on Friday? Teams of private firefighters were
riding around in white pickup trucks keeping watch on the
(03:26):
individual homes that they were to cover under a private contract. Well,
you know how offensive is that that some people can
afford private firefighters who ignore streets that were on fire,
homes that were on fire.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, let me give you.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Their answer is, first of all, they don't get in
the way of the city or the county. They are
protecting homes that the city or county would otherwise be.
They're putting out their own fires, of their own insured
And the argument they can help the situation.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, that's one argument. The other argument is.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Of course, only the wealthy can afford it. Hey, I
got news for you.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I didn't know this.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Forty five percent of the firefighters in the country are
private firefighters, and usually it's a matter of fact, they
don't do much home, especially here in California, because of
the expense and because of the California rules.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That they have to bring their own equipment.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
They have to they can't connect with fire hydrants for
the most part, so they come out and their pumps
go to swimming.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Pools or reservoirs.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And they bring or get their own water, which is
critical here in this situation because of the story of
the lower pressure.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Of the hydrants.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
And how are forty five percent of the fire fighting
the private contractors are the firefighters. Well, usually they're talking
about firefighters in the mountainous region where they are.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Contracted by government to be there.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Because government firefighters aren't enough out there, and they're the
municipalities that contract with firefighters. Because they don't have the infrastructure,
it is easier, it's cheaper to.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Go to private companies that do this.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
They outsource firefighting because they don't have.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The infrastructure, the training, the equipment.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Because it costs a lot of money to create and
maintain a fire department. So insurance companies also hire them.
Why because insurance companies are ensuring very high value properties
and it's cheaper for them to hire these private companies
that it is to replace the homes or businesses themselves.
(05:59):
It's just one of those things that just make sense
financially for the insurance company. For the communities that have
to hire, I have to outsource.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
And so rich people. Do you know that people that
are wealthy just do better in life.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
They eat better, they have nicer cars, they have nicer homes.
They can hire, for example, private security guards. Has anybody
bitch about that? Where you have these very wealthy homes
that are gated and you have private security. Private communities
have better security where they drive. You have security officers,
(06:37):
their officers, security people driving around their community. So here
we go. Do they have the right to do that?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Do the firefighters get in the way of the community firefighters? Well,
for the most part, no, we have not heard that
complaint yet. This all came out of that story that
one of the homeowners in Palisades went to and posted
a did a post saying, if there are anybody out
(07:05):
there private firefighters, I will pay any amount of money to.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Spare my home.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
By the way, do you know whether or not Amy
that guy's home was spared.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
That story didn't go beyond him posting.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
I do not know.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I don't think that has been posted. By the way,
just to let you know what it costs you.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
A two person private firefighting crew with a small truck
three thousand dollars a day. A larger crew with twenty
firefighters in four trucks can run to ten thousand dollars
a day. And most private firms will not deal with homeowners.
It's either government or insurance companies. I found that fascinating.
(07:45):
Alex Stone, ABC News correspondent, we have gone to many
many times. Alex lives in southern California, so he is
one of us that is dealing with this story, not
only on a national scale because ABC National Corps respondent.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
But also.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Right here up close. Alex, Good morning and thanks for
taking the time. What's the latest from your view?
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Well, yeah, I think the big headline over the weekend
was how good everything was looking.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I spent all day yesterday on.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
The Altadena fire and the Palisades fire was the same thing.
Where really with the winds that we saw calm down
over the weekend, and all of this help arriving, and
I mean we're seeing fire engines from everywhere where you go.
They drive by and it's got some name of some
city in Colorado or Texas on the side of any
(08:37):
where's that And yeah, there's so much help coming in
that it's really helping out. But we got this next
cycle to go through here, and not just a red
flag but a PDS red flag, a particularly dangerous situation
red flag, which bill they issue those every five to
ten years. And this will be two in a week,
(08:57):
three in the last month, I believe, and when the
other one was up the Malibu fire took off. That
when they issue these typically we have something bad. This
will probably be more Ventura Santa Barbara County area. But
if we get another big fire or two or three
running with people having to get out of it, it's
(09:18):
just yeah, they're gonna have to pull resources off of
Altadena and off of Pacific Palisades and then move them
up there. It's gonna get really tough, or if it
flares these back up again. But overall, I mean, the
devastation is incredible and just neighborhood after neighborhood. But overall
the fires themselves, there's no real active flame. They look
(09:40):
pretty good this morning.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, hopefully they're not going to increase, but the chances
are pretty good they're going to.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And a couple things about this fire.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
When you talk about the devastation, you look at photos
of Hiroshima right after the bombing, or you look at
photos of neighborhoods in Gaza that have just been decimated.
That's what it reminds us of. And you think this
wouldn't happen in anywhere in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The other interesting part of this story is, as you said,
the various jurisdictions that are sending in firefighting crews, not
only Canada, Mexico is bringing in and Zolensky has offered
to bring in Ukrainian firefighters, which I mean, that's a
bizarre one. And it's one of those things where I'm
(10:27):
assuming that the authorities here in southern California saying anybody
that can help, will take it, please help us.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, and Zelenski's saying that his teams are ready to
go and that they're ready to come in. You know,
it is it's unimaginable. When you go and you drive
through the neighborhoods. We talked to a fire captain yesterday
who he was in from Bakersfield. He's been a firefighter
for twenty nine years. He says he's never seen anything
like this. But at the same time, it is very
(10:56):
similar to what we saw in Lahina and in Santa
and in Paradise and in Chico where they had the
car carr It was the name of it fire a
number of years ago, where you know it's the strong
winds that come in and then this is the result
and those winds, and we were talking about it last week,
but those winds on Wednesday morning were like something I
(11:19):
have never experienced. And the one hundred mile an hour
winds with the flames running in, those people just couldn't
get out and that's why the number of dead is
going up right now. It's going to continue to go up. Unfortunately.
We saw the medical examiner driving around yesterday in the
neighborhood that we were in, and you kind of stand
there and wait to see where they're going to pull up.
(11:41):
And they were checking on some homes down the street
and firefighters are going through and they're looking for any
human remains. They're going to be doing that today, but
just incredible loss. And you got to remember in Altadena,
it's not Pacific palisades are both terrible, but it's not
a wealthy enclave. Altadena is bungalow style homes for the
(12:03):
most part, close together built I would guess maybe nineteen hundreds,
nineteen fifties. Many of them have the brick fireplaces, the
older appliances in them, and people have lost everything. It's gone.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And a couple of stories that we never reported on before,
and that is as fire crews. I mean that's fairly new,
the extent and the technology used in aircraft, which is
obviously a very good thing, and the problem is the
winds were so high that they couldn't be used for
a couple of days, and the fire fighters rely on
(12:37):
aircraft so much as part of the fire fighting policy and.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
How they deal with it. And then these cockroaches with
the drones.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Took out one super super Scooper and hopefully that airplane
is going to come back today. And when drones are
actually seen, it shuts down the aerial combating of the
fires completely. I mean, it is crazy and it's what
is it a misdemeanor or something to fly home.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yeah, well maybe not because it's federal. The FBI is
investigating where that drone they hit the Superscooper came from.
But yeah, so, first of all, in the air attack,
not only is it not safe, but when it's blowing
like that, it's ineffective because the water or the fiery tardant,
depending on the aircraft, as it comes out, it just
does a ninety degree turn and goes with the wind.
(13:29):
It never hits the ground, so they can not only
are you putting pilots in danger, but when they drop,
it doesn't do any good. It just blows off and evaporates,
so they can't drop at that time. But yeah, and
then you got the looters on top of this, and
the arrest that Sheriff Luna talked about yesterday. If somebody
dressed up like a firefighter who was caught. And all
of these, for the most part, have been people from
(13:50):
outside of the area who have come in and decided
this is their time to go in, mainly to evacuated neighborhoods.
It didn't burn where they can go into homes and
still find things. Not a lot to find in the
burned out neighborhoods, but that it's the first time I've
ever heard of somebody pressing up like a firefighter or
member of the media, because we have to wear all
that gear in there as well, so try to blend
(14:11):
in with all of us who are in there to
then go and begin to loot.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
All right, Alex, who.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Is going to be covering this and unfortunately, probably for
another several days is the fire hopefully doesn't expand and build,
but it probably is going to Alex.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Thank you, you got it. Thanks, we'll talk again, all right.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
One of the things that people are wondering and worrying
about is rebuilding.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Where we're going to get the money. That's one.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Governmental help has to be involved. State federal help has
to come down. And also California and southern California particularly
has building codes that are completely insane.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Not codes per se, but environmental rules.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
For example, we have the joys of the Coastal Commission,
which you have to go through if you're building, and
if you're building within five miles of the coast, the
Coastal Commission kicks in and they make it close to
impossible to build. It can take years between local government
and the Coastal Commission and near for example, the Santa
(15:18):
Monica Reserve.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It is very, very difficult a.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Developer building a multi story dwelling, dwelling we're talking about
our multi unit eight units, ten units, it can take.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Five years to get the permitting. Five years.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Well, can you imagine taking five years to rebuild the Palisades.
So what the governor has done is suspending many of
those rules, the environmental laws for the victims of the fire,
the homes and the businesses. And so you've got the
California Quad, the California Environmental Quality Act, California Coastal Act,
(15:59):
which developers, and that's going to be changed, at least
for the fires temporarily.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
In terms of rebuilding.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The governor said, California leaves the nation environmental stewardship. But
I'm not going to give that up. But what one
thing I won't give into is delay. Delay is denial
for people for their lives, traditions, places torn apart, torn asunder. Yeah,
I got a question is we're at the head of
(16:28):
environmental protections here in California, which means that there's delay,
and he won't take delay.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So something's got to give.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
And the good news is at this point, it looks
like the environmental rules are going to give simply because
you've got to rebuild, and the builders, developers, the people
that are rebuilding their homes, the individuals, it would take
forever to get the permits and those are going to
be gone. So waivers of the Environmental Quality Act are happening,
(17:02):
the Coastal Act waivers are happening, and the developers saying,
we need that, we need that. So what Newsom says
is that new permitting rules would allow approvals to be
issued within thirty days instead of years. And Mayor Karen
Bass has also acknowledged the problem, and she said that
(17:24):
the building permitting process which I have gone through is
kind of crazy. Well, that takes forever, except it's not
going to anymore. And of course members of the GOP
now we have the Republicans, including Donald Trump, has said
that it's mainly Gavin Newsom who's at fault. Wildfire victims
(17:46):
to deserve much more from Gavin Newsom when his track
record includes lying about underfunding wildlife prevention. He owes Angelino's
answers on how he and local Democrat leaders could have
been so un prepared for these devastating wildfires. So you see,
it is not really the Santa Ana wins. It's newsome
(18:09):
and it's the Democratic leaders that in fact were completely
unprepared by the way we were unprepared.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And why were we unprepared? Because these fires were so insane.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I mean, this is on a level that virtually all
the preparation in the world would not have helped. We
would have needed thousands more firefighters ready to go, We
would have needed twice the reservoirs, three times the reservoirs,
and more aircraft just standing there, sitting there at airports
(18:47):
ready to fly and attack these fires. And you want
to know something that wouldn't have helped. When you have
one hundred mile an hour winds that are moving the
fire at well not at one hundred miles an hour,
but certainly moving the fire. I can ask someone about that.
How quickly does a fire move up a hill when
the wind is one hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
They were saying that it was moving like five football
fields a minute.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
How do you fight that?
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And you can't put aircraft up because the winds are
moving at such incredible rates that you have no firefighting
aircraft available.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
That's it. You're done.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
And yet this, of course is the fault of the
Democrats who have done this. Okay, And of course President
Trump is called newsome incompetent by the way. He calls
him new scum, and he says they should resign. And
also the President made statements about water being redirected to
(19:54):
protect small fish.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's where the water went during this fire.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Okay, why not when it's all said and done, By
the way, that Bill SEQUA was signed into law by
Governor Ronald Reagan in nineteen seventy and the Coastal LAC
created the Coastal Commission in nineteen seventy two, so that's
been going.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Around for a while, to say the least.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
All right, here, some of the questions that are being
asked because are a lot of hindsight goes on, and
that is how come the fire hydrants ran out of pressure?
Why did they not have water? Well, it's because the
water systems and the way we fight fires. Never I
(20:41):
anticipated winds like this one hundred mile an hour guts.
There isn't enough water on this planet that can be
put on a fire that would put out something like this.
It just doesn't happen. So the attacks on the city
water supply, and by the way, the cities it's not
just one city water supply, it's many different little jurisdictions
(21:05):
in addition to the DWP that supply water.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
And what we're finding out.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
The bottom line is that the ability to fight these fires,
the design of the water system is not made for
fires that go across entire communities that are spreading light.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Where the fires are spreading.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Light wildfire, and so the way our system works is
single building, small number of buildings where there's plenty of
water pressure. And even to the point where you've seen
these large tanks, I mean massive tanks on top of
hills or on hillsides in various communities. Those are filled
with water to fight fires. And the water was used
(21:49):
so quickly and there was so much of it the
system couldn't just couldn't uphold what was needed.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
They just couldn't meet the need. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
The analogy I make is when we have earthquakes, we
have codes building codes that are probably the most stringent
in the world, and we can deal with a Richter
scale seven point one seven point five that's a pretty
solid earthquake. If a nine point one or two hits
(22:23):
our area. By the way, that did happen in Alaska
in the sixties and I think San Francisco in nineteen
oh four.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
There's nothing you can do about that. It just doesn't.
You can't.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's just overwhelming. There is no ability to deal with that.
And that's what happened with this fire. There's simply no ability.
Had there been more firefighters, had Karen Bass not cut
seventeen million dollars from the LA Fire Department, it wouldn't
have done a damn thing on this fire.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I mean nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
If you're going to fight wildfires of this magnitude, the
entire system has.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
To be rebuilt.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
We need tons more reservoirs, We need hundreds of firefighters
ready to go, just ready to go, just sitting there
aircraft parked. In this case, it would have been at
van Ey's Airport, just parked, ready to fly. Helicopters just
sitting there, ready to go. The costs would be astronomical. Now,
(23:33):
those Superscooper Super Scoopers, those yellow airplanes, and we have
two of them, one of them taken out by that
cockroad of a drone operator. Those are leased by La
County and they do are parked at Vannay's airport during
the entire fire season, which of course now is every minute.
(23:54):
And it's a Quebec company that does this, Montreal Quebec Montreal.
They fly in and those are parked at van Ey's
and usually they're enough to do the job. The new
philosophy of firefighting is that even a small fire is
immediately attacked by aircraft and ground crew so it doesn't
(24:17):
go that's sort of a brand new philosophy that was
developed the last few years. But even with all of that,
if that were happening, this fire would not have been
put out, not with wind like this, not with this event.
I mean, we knew two three days in advance it
was going to be a life threatening red flag warning situation.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
It was going to happen.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
And of course when it's this scary, arsonists come out.
Can you imagine arsonists dealing with this? And you've got
it this point, twenty four people dead, fifty billion in damage,
thousands of people losing everything, they have everything, and you've
(25:08):
got some guy who is starting a fire and they
don't know, they think most of it is arson.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And then they're looking at the water, the power people,
was it a power line that fell during the wind
and ignited a fire. What was that?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Just heard yesterday that eighty five percent of the wildfires
are caught are man made, either by arson or by negligence,
a campfire, a cigarette, Even a couple of them were
mufflers that were hitting the ground. You ever seen a
(25:52):
car with a muffler hitting around? You see the sparks
flying off, even those All right, this is KFI.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I am six point forty. You've been listening to the
Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Catch my show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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