January 15, 2025 • 21 mins
(Wednesday 01/15/25)
Can fire-torn Los Angeles handle the World Cup, Super Bowl, and Summer Olympics? Pink flame retardants are being used to slow the fire… What do we know about them? KTLA Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro joins the show to talk about Loti, a great resource for dealing with your insurance company. Rich also speaks on DriveSavers pledging free data recovery for fire victims, and helpful tech for natural disasters. L.A. fires have added another concern for potential and current EV owners.
Can fire-torn Los Angeles handle the World Cup, Super Bowl, and Summer Olympics? Pink flame retardants are being used to slow the fire… What do we know about them? KTLA Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro joins the show to talk about Loti, a great resource for dealing with your insurance company. Rich also speaks on DriveSavers pledging free data recovery for fire victims, and helpful tech for natural disasters. L.A. fires have added another concern for potential and current EV owners.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
YEP on a Wednesday, January fifteenth.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Some fire news coming down today.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We are expecting a press conference, probably going to be
a modified press conference today eight o'clock because we're not
hearing much and thank goodness, not much has happened since
eight o'clock yesterday. Now I want to move into some
plans for the city of the Angels.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
What's coming? The World Cup, super Bowl, the Olympics are coming.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
We've got what World Cup matches at SOFI in the
summer of twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, the Super
Bowl twenty twenty eight, the summer Olympics.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's a lot of stuff coming down the pike.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And we have just experienced one of probably the worst
disaster in the history of the Los Angeles. Now none
of those stadium's or venues have been damaged, so all right,
that makes it easy to say for organizers and government leaders. Yeah,
we're pushing ahead. Casey Wasserman, who's chairman of the LA
(01:11):
twenty eight organizing committee, said Los Angeles is defined by
its resilience and determination. Actually it's more defined by the traffic,
the lack of clean air and the number of people
who don't have green cards. That's really the definition of
Los Angeles. Also, resilience is thrown in there, and we're
(01:33):
going to certainly see now you've got people worrying about
these sports usurping sources and valuable attention that should.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Be devoted to rebuilding. The reality is is by the.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Time the world come, the World Cup matches come in
the summer of the summer of twenty twenty six, we're
well on our way to rebuilding. And that's not going
to be front page news anymore. It's going to happen.
The money is going to flow, the construction is going
to start, and how much news is it We have
more construction today, Well, there's more next day.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So that's not going to really happen. But a god.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
The named Jules Bikoff, who studies the politics of sport, says,
any city preparing for three massive events has its hands full.
You've got a lot of people in government working on
the Olympics a super Bowl that are not working on
other issues like this one. Although I think that's going
(02:33):
to change now there are three different events. The super
Bowl is one Sunday at Sofi. The World Cup at
so Far will have eight matches. The Summer Games will
involve thousands, tens of thousands of people coming in dozens
of venues across the region. Fifteen million visitors over seventeen
(02:56):
days in July of twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
That's no small deal.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And then you got the next month the Paralympics, which
also has thousands of athletes and spectators. Now only two
of the proposed venues were threatened by wildfire. Riviera Country
Club it's going to host golf, was inside the Palisades
fire evacuation.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Zone and it wasn't damage.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And UCLA, which was evacuated, and that's going to be
an athlete's village in.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
So at this point, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, the
guiding principle for US has always been, don't interfere, don't
do anything that's going to impact negatively on public safety.
So the game was moved, the RAMS game was moved
to Arizona, and then the fun ones. Right, you got
conservative commentators Charlie Kirk Trisha Reagan said we must move
(03:50):
the Olympics out of California as fast as possible o.
Reagan posted or Reagan posted, and one of the reasons
is the States leadership cannot.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Be truyd can't trust the state to run anything. Why, well,
maybe's because it's the democratics. Date.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Now a little bit to handle history for you. The
nineteen twenty four Games. Paris was supposed to host the games, floods,
all kinds of financial troubles, so LA volunteered itself as
the last minute replacement. Well, France was able to stage
the game, but LA went way up in kudos with
(04:29):
the Olympic Committee, so the games were awarded to LA
in nineteen thirty two and nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
By the way, the Colisseum was built.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
For the thirty two Olympics, was used in the eighty
four Olympics, and the only two Olympics in the history
of modern Olympics that made money were both in Los
Angeles thirty two and eighty four. But when you look
at the kind of police and traffic control and garbage collection,
public services.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's going to be a big deal.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And this is money that's going to used for these
events and will not be used for rebuilding of the
Palisades and other locations. On the other hand. First of all,
the games are promised to break even. Okay, we'll see
if that happens. It didn't eighty four main money made
a couple hundred million dollars. It didn't thirty two, So
(05:20):
maybe it's going to be revenue neutral. And at this
point does the city look at anything that's coming down
the pike and saying, this is going to cost us
X number of dollars, which we should move to rebuilding
the parts of Los Angeles that were burnt and were
devastated and are no longer in existence.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Don't know, don't know. And here's another one. Denver.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh, a fun one was I think it was in
nineteen one of the nineteenth Rome was on was on
the bill forgetting them, and Vesuvius blew up and it
had to move.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That was kind of fun. So, oh, Denver was.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Awarded the nineteen seventy six Winter Olympics, and then Denver withdrew.
They said no, thank you because there was a vote
for money, a referendum that failed. So Denver told the IOC,
we don't have the money, and that's why the games
landed in Innsbruck in nineteen seventy six. Okay, fair enough,
(06:32):
We're done with that. Okay, let's move on to what's
going on with the fires less. So now, that pink
stuff you see coming from the belly of the aircraft
is called fostchek, which I'm sure you heard of, and
it is a fire suppresseddent that they put down ahead
of the flames. Most of the time it's used in
(06:53):
the rougher areas because well, it kind of blankets everything.
I've I've seen those houses covered with foscheck and they're
all this bright pink. You think Angeline lives in those places,
and she doesn't.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
It's your house.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And these suppressants actually do a hell of a job,
and it's you do one of two things. They use
water or they use this fire retardant called foscheck. What
foscheck does is also retarded the fire, but if there
is no rain, it can stay for months on a
(07:34):
property and actually it becomes almost a fire check. I mean,
stuff really really works. Multiple agencies use it besides CalFire.
We've seen those airplanes drop this pink foscheck And if
you notice that, it's several different kinds of aircraft, all
(07:54):
the way from those giant jets, those jet aircraft I
think DC tens, which are massive, and then see one
thirties and then smaller airplanes all using this, and many
different agencies are involved.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I mean, we're grabbing.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I don't even know how many pieces of aircraft there
are up there? What Amy Ballpark? How many aircrafts there?
Maybe a dozen, fifteen, maybe twenty between helicopters and fixed
wing I mean, I've never seen this many, But then again,
we've never had a Palisades fire event like we've had,
and so multiple agencies are using this. The Forest Service, okay, well,
(08:32):
the Forest Service has thirteen aircraft alone, just the Forest Service.
That doesn't count, the county doesn't count, the city doesn't count,
other agencies.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Cal Fire has more than sixty planes and helicopters. We
don't know how many of those are here, but you
would imagine probably.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Most of them.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, and of course it's considered safe.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
But let's talk about the people that say it's going
to cause cancer. You know, we have to really worry
about the side effects.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
There are studies out there that suggest that it's quote
plausible that fire suppressants could contribute to spikes of chromium
and heavy metals and waterways downstream of the wildfires. So
I guess their position is, we either would rather have
you die in one of these major fire events than
(09:26):
have you get cancer later on.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Possibly always, always.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It's someone who is arguing, no, it's all kinds of
negative contributions to the environment, to your health.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It just goes on and on. This is completely nuts.
By the way. You know what the ingredient that is
most is.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
The most common ingredient in used in these fires presents.
It's ammonium phosphate fertilizer. Fertilizer basically, it's pink fertilizer that's
put on these fire that's I used to put out
these fires.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Wasn't that the stuff that was used in the Oklahoma bombing?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yes, right, didn't they It was, Yeah, those are You
can make bombs out of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yes, not that I would know. I'm just saying, oh no,
well you wouldn't know if you looked at it. No,
it's that was a good point. I didn't think about that.
And you can use fertilizer as a basis for bombs.
They do that all the time. Well I don't know
all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
But the point is this is technology, not really technology
has been around for a while. But there's a I
saw a picture yesterday, a photo of a house that
was completely encased in pink. It looked like someone had
painted the house pink. I mean the roof, the walls,
(10:52):
the driveway, the hedges, the plants, someone's spray painted pink
paint on it and the stuff works.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Do they use it preventively or do they use it
to put out fire?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They use that I think for both.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
They use it preventively, and they'll also put it in
front of a fire. You will see that aircraft is
dumping it on top of and in front.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Of We saw that a lot with the fires once
they started flying again because they were grounded initially, that
they were going and putting the fause jack down away,
like you said, in front of the fire, so as
part of the hillside that had not burned yet to
create that break.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And by the way, for those people, if my place
is on fire, if my house or I'm in a
fire zone, and you can argue that, you know, oh
my god, it's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I might get cancer too bad. That's just tough. My
house is dead.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Oh absolutely, give me a break, Okay, give me a
fire break. Yes, rich Tomorrow, who is heard every Saturday
here eleven to two o'clock.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Rich on Tech.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Also he's at rich on Tech and rich on Tech
dot TV.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So there's a lot going on. And kt LA Tech
reporter Rich good morning, Good morning to you. Bill.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
All right, obviously we're going to talk a lot about
what's going on with the fires. One of the things
that I am going to bring up over the next
couple of weeks insurance homeowners in the Palisades and other
areas in Altadena are going to deal with insurance and
rebuilding their house and it's going to be a nightmare.
I guarantee that. Now there's a resource that you can
(12:37):
talk about. It's called is pronounced.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
LOADI lonnie loady lo o t I. I think it's
a long oh low t.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Okay, and tell us what that's about.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
So, yeah, So this is a guy that he basically
was in a fire. You know, his home was in
a fire in Sonoma County a couple of years ago,
and he went through the rebuilding process, said wow, this
is a pain dealing with your insurance company. And so
he started this loading which you know, they have a
paid side and a learning side. So the paid side
is basically like when you're giving up, when you're like
(13:11):
I can't deal with my insurance anymore, you can turn
to them and let them do it. But the free
side is really interesting. They've got like hundreds of documents
all about how to help you learn from this recover.
They've got just a whole bunch of resources for dealing with,
you know, rebuilding after a natural disaster. And I thought
(13:33):
this was really neat. They've got over one hundred articles,
thousand terms, they got downloadable templates, and right now their
most popular article is how to call your insurance company
and how to deal with them and how to talk
to them and basically request what you want under your
insurance contract.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Oh for sure, and believe me, anybody who's trying to
rebuild that I've dealt with this over the years of
being an attorney dealing with insurance companies.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Man, that's no joke.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Can I tell you my story?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, please, I'll tell you. So.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I have to experiences with insurance. First, a long time ago,
I had to deal with my personal insurance, you know,
my car insurance, right, And I'm not kidding. They gave
me the run around for years. We're talking like two
years until finally I wrote what's called a demand letter,
and I'm sure you're familiar with that, and I'm not kidding.
Within a day, I had my full insurance policy paid
(14:25):
off to me. So this was years and years ago.
So my point is, until you talk to someone that
tells you what to do. And now, of course there's
much more free information than there was when I did this,
but that's number one. Number two, we had a flood
in the house, and same thing. You just get the
run around for every little thing that you want to claim,
stuff that you take for granted. And so I can't
(14:46):
imagine what these people with the fires are going to
have to go through it.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So it's going to be horrible.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It's going to be horrible, and I'll be talking a
whole lot about that over the next couple of weeks. Now,
a couple other things I want to jump into a
A there's what a website called agu risk or augu risk.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, augu risk.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
So this one's interesting. This one's kind of not obviously
not gonna help right now if you're in the fires,
but to kind of just get an idea of the
risks that your home faces. So this website you pop
in your address and it will tell you all of
the risks at that address, So earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, crime rates,
(15:26):
air quality, all the things that pretty much your insurance
company is looking at when they rate your home to
decide how much you're gonna have to pay for insurance.
But this is kind of like on the consumer side,
so just an interesting snapshot into all of the different things.
Maybe if you're looking to buy a home, this can
give you some information or just to get an idea
of what your current home has up against it.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Right, So when you put all of would you put
your address in, it lists everything that could go wrong,
and then it tells you to move to South Dakota
because just just not an easy place to list.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
If you want to just be bored, like out of
your mind and die that way, then sure that will
be a good way to do it for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And one last one, and I know you're very short
on time, and that is natural disasters and just some
helpful information about using tech to make your home safer,
make you safer and just better able to deal with
natural disasters.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I posted this on my Instagram. Didn't know what to expect,
but people were just flooding it with comments about all
the tech that we now want. So a couple things
and I posted this at rich on Tech. Portable power station.
You know one of those big devices that you can
plug actual like power into, like you know, a lamp
or whatever you need. So Jackery makes some eco flow
makes a lot of companies there solar panels for that
(16:49):
charging station. So if you want to set up solar panels.
A lot of campers are familiar with this. Goal Zero's
the big company that does this, but solar panels that
will power that power station. Satellite Internet Starlink, I think
got a lot of publicity during these wildfires because their
internet worked when other internet did not. Amazon has a
(17:10):
network that they're going to start firing up. Sorry, shouldn't
use that term. They're going to turn on this year.
There's is called Project Hyper and they're going to launch.
They have eighty three launches planned this year. They say
their internet is going to be cheaper and faster than
what starlink delivers, so competition is good. Portable battery pack
just posted this to my Instagram. You got to get
(17:30):
one of these portable battery packs if you don't have one,
If it's been a couple of years since you upgraded.
They are twice as fast now than they were before.
So look into that, okay, and Bill, a hand crank
radio for emergency broadcast. I know we take radio for granted,
but get one that you can just crank up to
get those signals.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
And radio is the go to as a last resort,
even as a first resort for news. All right, Rich,
thank you much. I'll catch you this Saturday eleven and
two right here on KFI.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Thanks Bill.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
All Right, I'm an EV owner.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
As you know, and I love my electric vehicle, my
electric car so BMW and I'm crazy about it. However,
I've often talked about range anxiety, and that's what happens
with EV owners.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
You have to.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Plan ahead when I go to When I'm in Orange
County and I drive to LA, it's a long haul
and I have to plan horner and I get a charge,
how far can I go? So because of that, a
lot of EV owners and I'm probably gonna do this
nextart car out, I'm gonna get a hybrid and this
these fires have really pointed out why simple evs need
(18:37):
a lot of help. EV sales are going up, but
they have sort of flattened.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Highbred sales are going through the roof. Why is that, Well,
power is out. So where do you charge your car
without power?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You don't.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Where do you fill up your gas without fill up
your tank with gas without power? Well, if you have
a Highbred, you still can go two hundred two hundred
and fifty miles with the gasoline.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
You'll find some place to get gasoline.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Hard to go places where there are EV chargers when
everybody is going to those places because they're so EV charges,
so few EV charging station. That is what has happened,
and the difference between hybrids and straight evs are becoming
a parent. And I've said this many times before, and
(19:33):
that is that the charging stations aren't being.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Built at the level they have to be.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
More cars are being sold and are not supported by
the charging stations. And I think I just read that
Tesla stations Tesla chargers, which are different than the other
kind because there's two types. There's a generic whatever they
call it, and Tesla's. They're now combining to where all
you need is some kind of a and all of
(20:01):
a sudden, my car, for example, which is not a Tesla,
all of a sudden has almost doubled the number of
charging stations that I can go to.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
But what has happened?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
The takeaway here is that the difference between EV and
EV highbreds.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Is growing and growing for exactly that reason. When you
have a.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Highbred, you don't have to plan, you don't have to
worry about charging stations because there are gas stations on
every corner. There certainly aren't enough charging stations on every corner,
even with the federal government putting in money and I'm
gonna build half, you know, five hundred thousand charging stations
across the country, and California is putting them in.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
And simply aren't enough. They aren't enough.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And the problem is you can fill up your gas
tank in three minutes, you can't charge your car in
three minutes. So I've gone through charging stations, the superchargers
where you can do it in twenty minutes. Well, guess
what if someone's in front of you to twenty minute? Wait,
if there are two people in front of you, guess what? Yeah,
do the math?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I mean twenty minutes carry the one? Yeah, forty minute?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Wait, this is KF I am six point forty. You've
been listening to the Bill Handle Show, 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):
YEP on a Wednesday, January fifteenth.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Some fire news coming down today.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We are expecting a press conference, probably going to be
a modified press conference today eight o'clock because we're not
hearing much and thank goodness, not much has happened since
eight o'clock yesterday. Now I want to move into some
plans for the city of the Angels.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
What's coming? The World Cup, super Bowl, the Olympics are coming.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
We've got what World Cup matches at SOFI in the
summer of twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, the Super
Bowl twenty twenty eight, the summer Olympics.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's a lot of stuff coming down the pike.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And we have just experienced one of probably the worst
disaster in the history of the Los Angeles. Now none
of those stadium's or venues have been damaged, so all right,
that makes it easy to say for organizers and government leaders. Yeah,
we're pushing ahead. Casey Wasserman, who's chairman of the LA
(01:11):
twenty eight organizing committee, said Los Angeles is defined by
its resilience and determination. Actually it's more defined by the traffic,
the lack of clean air and the number of people
who don't have green cards. That's really the definition of
Los Angeles. Also, resilience is thrown in there, and we're
(01:33):
going to certainly see now you've got people worrying about
these sports usurping sources and valuable attention that should.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Be devoted to rebuilding. The reality is is by the.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Time the world come, the World Cup matches come in
the summer of the summer of twenty twenty six, we're
well on our way to rebuilding. And that's not going
to be front page news anymore. It's going to happen.
The money is going to flow, the construction is going
to start, and how much news is it We have
more construction today, Well, there's more next day.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So that's not going to really happen. But a god.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
The named Jules Bikoff, who studies the politics of sport, says,
any city preparing for three massive events has its hands full.
You've got a lot of people in government working on
the Olympics a super Bowl that are not working on
other issues like this one. Although I think that's going
(02:33):
to change now there are three different events. The super
Bowl is one Sunday at Sofi. The World Cup at
so Far will have eight matches. The Summer Games will
involve thousands, tens of thousands of people coming in dozens
of venues across the region. Fifteen million visitors over seventeen
(02:56):
days in July of twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
That's no small deal.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And then you got the next month the Paralympics, which
also has thousands of athletes and spectators. Now only two
of the proposed venues were threatened by wildfire. Riviera Country
Club it's going to host golf, was inside the Palisades
fire evacuation.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Zone and it wasn't damage.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And UCLA, which was evacuated, and that's going to be
an athlete's village in.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
So at this point, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, the
guiding principle for US has always been, don't interfere, don't
do anything that's going to impact negatively on public safety.
So the game was moved, the RAMS game was moved
to Arizona, and then the fun ones. Right, you got
conservative commentators Charlie Kirk Trisha Reagan said we must move
(03:50):
the Olympics out of California as fast as possible o.
Reagan posted or Reagan posted, and one of the reasons
is the States leadership cannot.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Be truyd can't trust the state to run anything. Why, well,
maybe's because it's the democratics. Date.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Now a little bit to handle history for you. The
nineteen twenty four Games. Paris was supposed to host the games, floods,
all kinds of financial troubles, so LA volunteered itself as
the last minute replacement. Well, France was able to stage
the game, but LA went way up in kudos with
(04:29):
the Olympic Committee, so the games were awarded to LA
in nineteen thirty two and nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
By the way, the Colisseum was built.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
For the thirty two Olympics, was used in the eighty
four Olympics, and the only two Olympics in the history
of modern Olympics that made money were both in Los
Angeles thirty two and eighty four. But when you look
at the kind of police and traffic control and garbage collection,
public services.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
It's going to be a big deal.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
And this is money that's going to used for these
events and will not be used for rebuilding of the
Palisades and other locations. On the other hand. First of all,
the games are promised to break even. Okay, we'll see
if that happens. It didn't eighty four main money made
a couple hundred million dollars. It didn't thirty two, So
(05:20):
maybe it's going to be revenue neutral. And at this
point does the city look at anything that's coming down
the pike and saying, this is going to cost us
X number of dollars, which we should move to rebuilding
the parts of Los Angeles that were burnt and were
devastated and are no longer in existence.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Don't know, don't know. And here's another one. Denver.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh, a fun one was I think it was in
nineteen one of the nineteenth Rome was on was on
the bill forgetting them, and Vesuvius blew up and it
had to move.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
That was kind of fun. So, oh, Denver was.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Awarded the nineteen seventy six Winter Olympics, and then Denver withdrew.
They said no, thank you because there was a vote
for money, a referendum that failed. So Denver told the IOC,
we don't have the money, and that's why the games
landed in Innsbruck in nineteen seventy six. Okay, fair enough,
(06:32):
We're done with that. Okay, let's move on to what's
going on with the fires less. So now, that pink
stuff you see coming from the belly of the aircraft
is called fostchek, which I'm sure you heard of, and
it is a fire suppresseddent that they put down ahead
of the flames. Most of the time it's used in
(06:53):
the rougher areas because well, it kind of blankets everything.
I've I've seen those houses covered with foscheck and they're
all this bright pink. You think Angeline lives in those places,
and she doesn't.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
It's your house.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And these suppressants actually do a hell of a job,
and it's you do one of two things. They use
water or they use this fire retardant called foscheck. What
foscheck does is also retarded the fire, but if there
is no rain, it can stay for months on a
(07:34):
property and actually it becomes almost a fire check. I mean,
stuff really really works. Multiple agencies use it besides CalFire.
We've seen those airplanes drop this pink foscheck And if
you notice that, it's several different kinds of aircraft, all
(07:54):
the way from those giant jets, those jet aircraft I
think DC tens, which are massive, and then see one
thirties and then smaller airplanes all using this, and many
different agencies are involved.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I mean, we're grabbing.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I don't even know how many pieces of aircraft there
are up there? What Amy Ballpark? How many aircrafts there?
Maybe a dozen, fifteen, maybe twenty between helicopters and fixed
wing I mean, I've never seen this many, But then again,
we've never had a Palisades fire event like we've had,
and so multiple agencies are using this. The Forest Service, okay, well,
(08:32):
the Forest Service has thirteen aircraft alone, just the Forest Service.
That doesn't count, the county doesn't count, the city doesn't count,
other agencies.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Cal Fire has more than sixty planes and helicopters. We
don't know how many of those are here, but you
would imagine probably.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Most of them.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, and of course it's considered safe.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
But let's talk about the people that say it's going
to cause cancer. You know, we have to really worry
about the side effects.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
There are studies out there that suggest that it's quote
plausible that fire suppressants could contribute to spikes of chromium
and heavy metals and waterways downstream of the wildfires. So
I guess their position is, we either would rather have
you die in one of these major fire events than
(09:26):
have you get cancer later on.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Possibly always, always.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
It's someone who is arguing, no, it's all kinds of
negative contributions to the environment, to your health.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
It just goes on and on. This is completely nuts.
By the way. You know what the ingredient that is
most is.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
The most common ingredient in used in these fires presents.
It's ammonium phosphate fertilizer. Fertilizer basically, it's pink fertilizer that's
put on these fire that's I used to put out
these fires.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Wasn't that the stuff that was used in the Oklahoma bombing?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yes, right, didn't they It was, Yeah, those are You
can make bombs out of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yes, not that I would know. I'm just saying, oh no,
well you wouldn't know if you looked at it. No,
it's that was a good point. I didn't think about that.
And you can use fertilizer as a basis for bombs.
They do that all the time. Well I don't know
all the time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
But the point is this is technology, not really technology
has been around for a while. But there's a I
saw a picture yesterday, a photo of a house that
was completely encased in pink. It looked like someone had
painted the house pink. I mean the roof, the walls,
(10:52):
the driveway, the hedges, the plants, someone's spray painted pink
paint on it and the stuff works.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
Do they use it preventively or do they use it
to put out fire?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They use that I think for both.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
They use it preventively, and they'll also put it in
front of a fire. You will see that aircraft is
dumping it on top of and in front.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Of We saw that a lot with the fires once
they started flying again because they were grounded initially, that
they were going and putting the fause jack down away,
like you said, in front of the fire, so as
part of the hillside that had not burned yet to
create that break.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And by the way, for those people, if my place
is on fire, if my house or I'm in a
fire zone, and you can argue that, you know, oh
my god, it's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I might get cancer too bad. That's just tough. My
house is dead.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Oh absolutely, give me a break, Okay, give me a
fire break. Yes, rich Tomorrow, who is heard every Saturday
here eleven to two o'clock.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Rich on Tech.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Also he's at rich on Tech and rich on Tech
dot TV.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
So there's a lot going on. And kt LA Tech
reporter Rich good morning, Good morning to you. Bill.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
All right, obviously we're going to talk a lot about
what's going on with the fires. One of the things
that I am going to bring up over the next
couple of weeks insurance homeowners in the Palisades and other
areas in Altadena are going to deal with insurance and
rebuilding their house and it's going to be a nightmare.
I guarantee that. Now there's a resource that you can
(12:37):
talk about. It's called is pronounced.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
LOADI lonnie loady lo o t I. I think it's
a long oh low t.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Okay, and tell us what that's about.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
So, yeah, So this is a guy that he basically
was in a fire. You know, his home was in
a fire in Sonoma County a couple of years ago,
and he went through the rebuilding process, said wow, this
is a pain dealing with your insurance company. And so
he started this loading which you know, they have a
paid side and a learning side. So the paid side
is basically like when you're giving up, when you're like
(13:11):
I can't deal with my insurance anymore, you can turn
to them and let them do it. But the free
side is really interesting. They've got like hundreds of documents
all about how to help you learn from this recover.
They've got just a whole bunch of resources for dealing with,
you know, rebuilding after a natural disaster. And I thought
(13:33):
this was really neat. They've got over one hundred articles,
thousand terms, they got downloadable templates, and right now their
most popular article is how to call your insurance company
and how to deal with them and how to talk
to them and basically request what you want under your
insurance contract.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Oh for sure, and believe me, anybody who's trying to
rebuild that I've dealt with this over the years of
being an attorney dealing with insurance companies.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Man, that's no joke.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Can I tell you my story?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah, please, I'll tell you. So.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
I have to experiences with insurance. First, a long time ago,
I had to deal with my personal insurance, you know,
my car insurance, right, And I'm not kidding. They gave
me the run around for years. We're talking like two
years until finally I wrote what's called a demand letter,
and I'm sure you're familiar with that, and I'm not kidding.
Within a day, I had my full insurance policy paid
(14:25):
off to me. So this was years and years ago.
So my point is, until you talk to someone that
tells you what to do. And now, of course there's
much more free information than there was when I did this,
but that's number one. Number two, we had a flood
in the house, and same thing. You just get the
run around for every little thing that you want to claim,
stuff that you take for granted. And so I can't
(14:46):
imagine what these people with the fires are going to
have to go through it.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So it's going to be horrible.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It's going to be horrible, and I'll be talking a
whole lot about that over the next couple of weeks. Now,
a couple other things I want to jump into a
A there's what a website called agu risk or augu risk.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah, augu risk.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
So this one's interesting. This one's kind of not obviously
not gonna help right now if you're in the fires,
but to kind of just get an idea of the
risks that your home faces. So this website you pop
in your address and it will tell you all of
the risks at that address, So earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, crime rates,
(15:26):
air quality, all the things that pretty much your insurance
company is looking at when they rate your home to
decide how much you're gonna have to pay for insurance.
But this is kind of like on the consumer side,
so just an interesting snapshot into all of the different things.
Maybe if you're looking to buy a home, this can
give you some information or just to get an idea
of what your current home has up against it.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Right, So when you put all of would you put
your address in, it lists everything that could go wrong,
and then it tells you to move to South Dakota
because just just not an easy place to list.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
If you want to just be bored, like out of
your mind and die that way, then sure that will
be a good way to do it for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
And one last one, and I know you're very short
on time, and that is natural disasters and just some
helpful information about using tech to make your home safer,
make you safer and just better able to deal with
natural disasters.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
I posted this on my Instagram. Didn't know what to expect,
but people were just flooding it with comments about all
the tech that we now want. So a couple things
and I posted this at rich on Tech. Portable power station.
You know one of those big devices that you can
plug actual like power into, like you know, a lamp
or whatever you need. So Jackery makes some eco flow
makes a lot of companies there solar panels for that
(16:49):
charging station. So if you want to set up solar panels.
A lot of campers are familiar with this. Goal Zero's
the big company that does this, but solar panels that
will power that power station. Satellite Internet Starlink, I think
got a lot of publicity during these wildfires because their
internet worked when other internet did not. Amazon has a
(17:10):
network that they're going to start firing up. Sorry, shouldn't
use that term. They're going to turn on this year.
There's is called Project Hyper and they're going to launch.
They have eighty three launches planned this year. They say
their internet is going to be cheaper and faster than
what starlink delivers, so competition is good. Portable battery pack
just posted this to my Instagram. You got to get
(17:30):
one of these portable battery packs if you don't have one,
If it's been a couple of years since you upgraded.
They are twice as fast now than they were before.
So look into that, okay, and Bill, a hand crank
radio for emergency broadcast. I know we take radio for granted,
but get one that you can just crank up to
get those signals.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
And radio is the go to as a last resort,
even as a first resort for news. All right, Rich,
thank you much. I'll catch you this Saturday eleven and
two right here on KFI.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Thanks Bill.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
All Right, I'm an EV owner.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
As you know, and I love my electric vehicle, my
electric car so BMW and I'm crazy about it. However,
I've often talked about range anxiety, and that's what happens
with EV owners.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
You have to.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Plan ahead when I go to When I'm in Orange
County and I drive to LA, it's a long haul
and I have to plan horner and I get a charge,
how far can I go? So because of that, a
lot of EV owners and I'm probably gonna do this
nextart car out, I'm gonna get a hybrid and this
these fires have really pointed out why simple evs need
(18:37):
a lot of help. EV sales are going up, but
they have sort of flattened.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
A little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Highbred sales are going through the roof. Why is that, Well,
power is out. So where do you charge your car
without power?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You don't.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Where do you fill up your gas without fill up
your tank with gas without power? Well, if you have
a Highbred, you still can go two hundred two hundred
and fifty miles with the gasoline.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
You'll find some place to get gasoline.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Hard to go places where there are EV chargers when
everybody is going to those places because they're so EV charges,
so few EV charging station. That is what has happened,
and the difference between hybrids and straight evs are becoming
a parent. And I've said this many times before, and
(19:33):
that is that the charging stations aren't being.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Built at the level they have to be.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
More cars are being sold and are not supported by
the charging stations. And I think I just read that
Tesla stations Tesla chargers, which are different than the other
kind because there's two types. There's a generic whatever they
call it, and Tesla's. They're now combining to where all
you need is some kind of a and all of
(20:01):
a sudden, my car, for example, which is not a Tesla,
all of a sudden has almost doubled the number of
charging stations that I can go to.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
But what has happened?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
The takeaway here is that the difference between EV and
EV highbreds.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Is growing and growing for exactly that reason. When you
have a.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Highbred, you don't have to plan, you don't have to
worry about charging stations because there are gas stations on
every corner. There certainly aren't enough charging stations on every corner,
even with the federal government putting in money and I'm
gonna build half, you know, five hundred thousand charging stations
across the country, and California is putting them in.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
And simply aren't enough. They aren't enough.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And the problem is you can fill up your gas
tank in three minutes, you can't charge your car in
three minutes. So I've gone through charging stations, the superchargers
where you can do it in twenty minutes. Well, guess
what if someone's in front of you to twenty minute? Wait,
if there are two people in front of you, guess what? Yeah,
do the math?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I mean twenty minutes carry the one? Yeah, forty minute?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Wait, this is KF I am six point forty. You've
been listening to the Bill Handle Show, Catch My Show
Monday through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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