January 8, 2025 • 31 mins
Gary and Shannon have the latest on the Palisades Fire, the Eaton Fire, the Hurst Fire and Woodley Fire.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And KOSTHD two Los Angeles, Orange County Coleman KBC.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
You mentioned four fires.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm aware of three.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Could you describe and characterize the fourth fire?
Speaker 5 (00:19):
County fire?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yes, I can.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Speak briefly on that. Fourth fire was a Woodley fire,
which is approximately is a smaller fire. We threw a
lot of resources at it. It is under control at
this point. We'll push that information out to the media,
so you have the very specifics, but we're calling it
the Woodley fire. Yeah, it was in the Supulvita basin.
Speaker 6 (00:45):
Yes, sir, thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Last question, then we'll have one on ones.
Speaker 7 (00:49):
Hi.
Speaker 6 (00:50):
I'm Samantha Norris, San Fernando, Valley Sun.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I know the Hurst fire is one of the smaller
fires here, but can somebody speak more to what resources
are being deployed to that fire and for people in
the Silmar area, what are the evacuation zone areas and enclosures.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And where those people can go in the area.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
Hi, good morning.
Speaker 8 (01:12):
Councilwoman Monic Cardriuez from the seventh District. Last night, we
evacuated seventy one horses from the Stetson Ranch area. The
fire came up quickly and so thankfully they were safely
evacuated to the Hanson dem Equestrian Center. As we indicated there,
this is a very dynamic situation and the lack of
(01:34):
aerial support is making it that much more challenging for
firefighters to be able to fight these fires, whether it's
in the Palisades or any other part of the county,
and so it's critically important that people heed the evacuation
orders in the Stilmar community. Richie Ellen's rec Center in
Paquoima is available for the evacuations. Currently there is eighty
(01:56):
percent vacancy, so there's still capacity for people to evacuate there.
Going beyond that, we will continue to open up additional
facilities as it's needed. I want to ensure the public
that the things that you can do, and I know
the question was asked earlier, if you're not in the
immediate fire area, there are things that you can do
(02:16):
to be of assistance, and it goes to looking at
hardening your home from any potential threat of embers. These
embers fly, they can go for a couple miles, so
we want to ensure that they do everything to create
the defensible space in their homes if they're in the
adjacent areas, again, staying off the roads to the greatest
(02:38):
degree possible. More importantly, reducing your water usage at this time,
because there is no aerial support, all of our water
is being heavily demanded upon for these firefights in all
parts of the county. So these are the proactive measures
that people can be taking to be of assistance immediately
(02:59):
given the needs of our first responders. If you have
down power lines, report those to nine one one for
we can also report all outages to one eight hundred
dial DWP and most importantly for trees that are down,
because we know we have a lot of road blockages.
Our Bureau of Street Services for the City of Los Angeles,
(03:21):
all of our Street Services crew and public works crews
are out there doing those doing that work as well,
and they are part of our first responders. Want to
make sure that everyone's reporting those to three one one
so that we can keep the roads cleared for everyone
to have the greatest amount of access for our fire personnel,
but most importantly for the adjacent equine areas because I
(03:42):
know in the Hurst fire, we're concerned about the spread.
Right now there's a lull in the wind, but we're
concerned about the potential spread to other equine areas. We
want to make sure that we launched our early evacuation
for horse keeping areas in the northeast San Fernando Valley,
and I want to continue to urge the public in
these adjacent areas to please be prepared with your bags,
(04:04):
with your important documents, to be ready, to be prepared
to potentially heed the call for evacuation.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Thank you, Thank you very much. We're over time. We're
gonna just one clarity as well, so you have some
of the statistics. It started at ten to ten last night.
The latest anchorage we have is five hundred acres. We're
working closely with our partners, which are the Los Angeles
National Forests. We have a rep over here behind us,
so we can do someone on ones if you want
(04:32):
more specific, but we are unified with them.
Speaker 9 (04:35):
Also.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
The good news is through the heroic efforts of our
crews working through the night last night, our overall objective
was to keep that fire so it did not overpass
the five, did not cross the five. At this point,
we're able to hold it to that point, but again
the winds are back up. We're working really really hard
there to make sure we maintain that and we're to
(04:56):
continue to work really really hard with our partners.
Speaker 10 (05:00):
Neks Chief, I don't have too much more to app
but I will share that the Los Angeles City Fire
and the Angelus National Force went into unified command immediately
when that fire started, and that fire started in an
area we're well exercised known as the Mutual Threat Zone.
So that's part of our pre planned unified command area
and that includes ground resources and aircraft, and of course,
as mentioned, aircraft has been having a hard time finding
(05:24):
good air and actually with the wind speeds, we're assessing
aircraft availability every minute, continuously watching for a window to
get aircraft up from multiple parks and multiple agencies. The
Angelus National Forest aircraft and the air tanker base that
services the southern California areas in Lancaster under the US
Forest Service, and they're watching for opportunities to launch aircraft.
But last night the winds out in the Annal Valley
(05:46):
were just as bad as they were here and what
we called the front range, so we're still struggling to
get aircraft in the air. Yes, Sir Robert Garcia, fire
chief for the Angelus National.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Forest, thank you.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
We are wrapping up our press conference.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
We will have one on ones.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's to wrap up the latest information, a much needed
but not a whole lot of specific information from the
fire officials, law enforcement officials, and government officials about these
fires that continue to burn here in southern California.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Listen, we know everybody has been affected. This is unprecedented. Alone,
these fires would rival the worst in La County history.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
I was taken aback.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I had imagined that it would be a three digit
number when you talked about homes lost. But when the
county fire chief came out right out of the gate
at this press conference and said more than a thousand
homes lost, that is really hard to wrap your head around.
Never mind about the acreage. All we need to know
at these fires are massive and they're out of control,
(06:46):
zero percent containment. The fire agencies are spread so thin
they're asking for off duty firefighters. There are people in
neighborhoods I know at least some of them in the
Altadena neighborhood where there are no fire crews yet there
and there are trees on fire, and people are taking
to their garden hoses. Like we saw everywhere yesterday, it
continues today because these winds show no signs of letting
(07:09):
up just yet.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
There were a couple things from yesterday that epitomized to
me how terrifying this must have been for people who
were directly in the line of fire. Most of those
were from the Palisades area. Most of these little anecdotes,
but one of them was John during his show yesterday,
was talking to a woman, a friend of family friend
who had been evacuated. They got everything in the car
(07:33):
and they're driving down Palisades Drive and they're stuck at
Palisades in sunset because everybody was trying to get out
of Palisades at the time, and somebody knocked on the
window of the car. She said it was a police
officer later, but knocked on the window of the car
and told them to get out and run because there
were spotfires that were showing up in the crowns of
(07:54):
those palm trees along there that were then catching buildings
and cars on fire took off. You combine that with
the images from this morning of dozens of those cars
completely burned out.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You could hear in her voice yesterday just the uncertainty
and the fear of I don't know what to do.
You know, this was all unsaid. I could just hear
her thoughts. I don't know what to do. There's a
palm tree over my car right now, on fire. I
don't know what this palm tree is gonna do. Is
it gonna collapse on my car and kill me? Is
my car gonna hold up? Is it gonna fall the
(08:31):
other way? Is it going to stand and just burn out.
You just don't know because we've never had these conditions before.
I've never felt win like this. It was a hurricane. Now,
you know, everyone is talking about the aircraft and when
we'll get into the sky. It wasn't just a matter
of there was a lot of firefighting aircraft that couldn't
fly yesterday. It was that to what end they would
(08:55):
drop the water and because of the ferocity of the winds,
it would just was urinating in the wind. The water
wasn't landing, it was just blowing sideways. It was not working,
and firefighters could not put this thing out because they
were too busy getting people out of homes. And then
doing structure protection to protect the other structures that were
(09:17):
yet not on fire.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
To that end.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
The other image that last night showed me what was
going on was the elder care facility that was evacuated
in Altadina, where all of these people they're in wheelchairs,
or they're on gurney's, or they're being led very very
slowly by hand out of this facility and then being
picked up by buses, by ambulances, even by construction vans
(09:42):
to get people into a safer place.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So I'm on that two ten corridor that they were
most concerned about. I went home yesterday. I had four
or five yukkas that had been uprooted and thrown into
my driveway from my property.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
I went in the tree, yes yukka. Okay, yeah, you
did not know about a yucca.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Okay, anyway, I go inside and it's like the backyard,
which is a small backyard, but I've got a table
and chairs back there and some other plants. It was
like a popcorn machine. And it was like a popcorn
machine until I left. Power was cut about six pm.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think it was because of down power lines. I
don't think it was one of those preemptive public safety
cuts got off. But anyway, so I'm in the dark
my big bag light which was nice, but no Wi Fi, right,
and so I'm looking at my phone. I turn the
Wi Fi off, but nothing was working. I have no signal,
I have no Twitter, I have no news, nothing. And
(10:35):
if it wasn't for text messages, one of my girlfriends
from Orange County texted me and she goes, you know,
this is about half an hour forty five minutes into
my power shut off, and she says, are you close
to Alta Dina?
Speaker 6 (10:45):
And I said, oh, no, is Alta Dina on fire?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And she said yes, And I said, well, I got
to get the hell out of here because it's a
couple canyons over. And when I saw this thing in
the Palisades was moving two to three football fields per minute.
Speaker 6 (10:57):
You don't mess around, and I was glad.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I got out about seven thirty eight pm, and by
midnight I was under a mandatory evacuation order.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Yeah, that I'm still waiting.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The Silmar fire is the one that's been creeping closer
to my house than the one that was visible from
I guess our neighbors could see it from the back
of their house.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
But this was.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
The fact that it popped up in Palisades. We talked
about it yesterday. We knew that this was going to
be serious, especially when that was the place that the
first fire started, because of the canyons, because of what
we had seen in Malibu a few weeks earlier, because
of that place always burns, that place always constantly, will
forever burn.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
That's just the way the topography is.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And we've gotten lucky up to this point that it
hasn't been as destructive as it appears.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
This one has.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Well, here's the thing, and people will talk about the
money involved, right, Oh, you know, it's the rich people
and what have you. Yes, here's the thing. It is
the rich people. And to your point, it does always
burn in Malibu. It does always burn in that mountainous area,
and it's usually jumped on right away.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
They get on top of it right away.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And you can say it's because of all the money
in the area, what have you, Okay, But the fact
that they couldn't jump on it right away should show
you just how angry this fire was burning.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I also want to point something out yesterday during the
show in the ten o'clock hour, I said to you
during the commercial break that somebody had left us a
talkback that said, hey, there might be a fire in
Santa Monica, or he was in Santa Monica. I found
that talkback. It's ten thirty one yesterday. Everybody else was
saying that the fire started at eleven. At ten thirty one,
(12:38):
Felix called us yesterday.
Speaker 11 (12:40):
Yo, Garian Shannon, what's up.
Speaker 9 (12:42):
It's Felix were here at Salamonica. I'm facing north of
Gloriafield Exit. It's a giant fire. I don't know if
we just want to talk about that. It's yeah, these
ways are going to be killed.
Speaker 11 (12:54):
Take care.
Speaker 9 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well, Tim Kates texted me at ten forty one say, hey,
I know your news departments thin these days.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
Got a fire in the Palisades.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Tim Kates, producer of Petros and Money Show on top
of things as well. But we will stay on top
of this as well. We know we're all affected. We're affected,
a lot of people at the station affected. If you're
not affected, you know somebody who was. So we want
to hear from you your experience. This is crazy, you guys,
this is generational. This is a once in a lifetime thing.
(13:25):
It's awful. It is hell fire. Let's get through it together.
One eight hundred and five two zero one KFI. We
want to hear from you all day long. Give us
a call, we'll talk about it. One eight hundred five
to zero one KFI.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
There's a lot of information that came out of that
news conference. The important stuff to remember is that this
is not over. There are still plenty of incredibly dangerous
areas that exist around the Palisades fire and Palisades Malibu,
Santa Monica, in the Eton fire, and Altadena and Pasadena.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
We had some silmour as well.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
We had some calm moments of when last night was insane.
Speaker 6 (14:02):
Last night was crazy.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Ninety nine gus near Altadena, ninety eight mile per hour
gus near Woodland Hills, eighty four degrees of Bob Hope Airport.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
Bob Hope Airport, by the way, a lot of flights
going miles an hour. Huh, as you said, eighty four degrees, Oh, sorry,
eighty miles per hour.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Bob Hope Airport, which means that a lot of flights
going into Burbank had to be diverted to lax to
the point of eighty four degrees, and that slip up.
I was noticing, for the first time in my life
of covering fires for five hundred years, how cold it
is this morning and you're doing fire coverage. Never before
has that been a situation.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
I noticed that.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I've been sitting inside and I'm watching, and I'm waiting
for the evacuation at our house, and I'm the power
you know, it's blinking on and off. It never really
went all the way out, but it was it was
phasing in and out. And I let the dog outside
and I thought, I'm watching for an hour of this
fire coverage, and everybody's talking about how high they, you know,
the flames are, watching this house go down, and then
(15:03):
you go outside and it's terrifyingly cool.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, it's very odd, isn't it. One of the pieces
of information that came out. I was just gonna mention
also that the wind, although there have been some some
lulling moments, it will kick back up. Remember we're under
a red flag warning until tomorrow, so today is going
to be another marathon day for fire crews as those
winds continue to whip up this angry, angry fire. One
(15:30):
of the pieces of information that came out in the
press conference. That should not be overlooked is the injuries.
Two people have been killed in Altadena, we don't know
the specifics. And then in the Palisades, the county fire
chief said many people hurt, many residents hurt, and first
responders as well trying to get people out. As we
talked about earlier yesterday, there is one way in and
(15:53):
out of the Palisades, and we saw it in real
time with people using all four lanes, the two in,
the two out to use as outliners, and then just
abandoning their cars.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
The thing is a.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Lot of those people took their keys with them, so
the fire department had to come in and bulldoze what
they could out of the way so that the strike
teams could make their way up the hill.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, and those images this morning of those cars completely
burned out, I mean just shells of what they used
to be. We want to hear you guys can tell
the story just as well as anybody else because you
have been also in the middle of it. One eight
hundred and five to zero one five three four. Ernest
is calling. Let me get this right. See if I
can hit the button button. I was gonna say button,
(16:35):
but I couldn't say button there it is Ernest.
Speaker 6 (16:38):
What's going on?
Speaker 11 (16:40):
Hey, good morning or morning?
Speaker 6 (16:43):
Thanks?
Speaker 11 (16:45):
Just what we know. We woke up and now Tadna
I live off of you know, Mary Posa and Pharaoh Oaks,
and you know we went to bed last night. We're
in one of the areas where they turned off the
power and uh, we're at five o'clock yesterday. We woke
up at four o'clock this morning with the smell of
smoke and you can we heard sirens all night whatnot,
(17:09):
with literally amber bouncing off the window and I thought
it was flashlights splashing in the window. We opened up
the blinds to see the neighbor's house on fire. The
whole alley was on fire, the tree and our driveways
on fire. And literally had two minutes to get up,
get dressed and get out. And I'm screaming fire as
we're leaving the house, and our neighbor woke up. Luckily
(17:32):
he got out. He didn't even get Rabbi his phone
or nothing. I'm just yelling fire, fire. We have fire
on the left side, fire on the right side of
the alleyway. Houses are going up and the biggest issue
is nobody knows where to go. So we're intros. We're
in a shopping center parking lot at Baratas and everybody
just looks winded. People are still going up, the buses
(17:53):
going up. Van's going up to pick people up out
of their retirement homes and whatnot. It's just chaos, and
it's uh, you know, you could see the fireman trying
to do everything that we can, but it's just surreal.
It's really for real hearing the hearing the wing going
as hard as it was blowing last night, and to
wake up to hear it from on the hill, to
(18:15):
see your neighbor's house on fire, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Ernest, thanks for calling. You bring up a really good point.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
There just isn't a isn't enough time to get the
warning to get out. That's why you got to listen
to your gut. That's what I was thinking last night,
is I was like, my guts says, get the hell
out of here. There's not enough time for that knock
on the door or that alert to hit your phone
if it's near you.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
You don't want to wake.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Up like Ernest did to the embers hitting your bedroom
doors in your bedroom windows.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well, and this was this is what we were talking
about yesterday. This is why people were talking about it
leading up to this wind event. Was that's the opportunity
to think about it. Listen, we we we may overthink
a earthquake preparation, sometimes your wildfire preparation or just emergency preparation.
This is the time when you think about it. My
(19:02):
wife and I had the conversation last night on the couch.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
Listen.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
We're not evacuated yet, but we're seeing all these what
would you take you? You know, there's different levels. Off
we go right now, we get in the car, we go.
We got clothes on our back. That's level one, what's
level two?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I've been evacuated about three or four times, so I
just know what to throw into the bag. We've got
all the documents and a tupperware thing. I kind of
know exactly what it is now. So yeah, I mean,
you should know by now in southern California what you're
going to bring.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But he makes a good point, is okay, so then
you're down, you're down the hill, or you're out of
your neighborhood, which area is.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, like I said on mo Kelly last night, go south,
just get away because all the foothills are all a mess.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
Just go south.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
If you're an Altadina, get on the six. So five
eight hundred and five two zero one five three four.
We will continue our special fire coverage throughout the morning.
I just did see one of the television stations did
have an aerial shot of the Eton fire.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
That's the one out in Alta Dina.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So the temporary flight restrictions that have put them on
the ground, or I should say have kept them on
the ground. I don't know if that means that they're lifted.
I don't know if they're flying rogue up there. Probably not,
but it's something to keep an eye on. President Biden
is in town. That's at least responsible for some of
these temporary flight restrictions. We know he's supposed to be
showing up to a fire station in Santa Monica before
(20:24):
he and First Lady Jill Biden get back on Air
Force one and scoot on out of town.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Gary and Shannon will continue wall to wall fire coverage
right here on KFI. We do have the ok for
the water dropping helicopters and other aircraft to take to
the skies. As we said yesterday, the super scoper Scooper Scooper,
excuse me, on loan from Quebec were able to fly.
They have an ability to fly into forty five mile
per hour headwinds. The problem is is they were making
(20:51):
these drops, but because of the ferocity of the winds,
those drops meant nothing. They were not accomplishing much because
the water was just being blown side ways.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
It was real.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
It was a I mean, as as much as you
want to see that, you want to see helicopters and
air tankers dropping water and retarding on these fires, watching
them do that was very frustrating yesterday because of that.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, and part of it, and they will tell you
a lot of it is safety theater.
Speaker 11 (21:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yes, the DC ten dropping that bright red fire retardant
makes us feel really good, but it's the real work,
the hand crews, the digging around the line, creating the
containment line that's where the fire is really stopped. Yes,
it's a nice air show, and yes, certainly there is
value in the water dropping aircraft, but the real work
(21:42):
has yet to be done because it is impossible to
get into this terrain and it's just moving too quickly
to know where to dig in. You'll see the strike
teams going and trying to save homes that are unsavable,
just to protect the home that has been untouched across
the street so that the embers don't entrench themselves there
(22:05):
on the roof and put that one ablaze.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
The power shutoffs that we have seen, some of them
are public safety power shutoffs and some of them are
just a result of the wind storm itself. So right
now in California, there's about four hundred thousand customers without power.
Most of those are so cal Edison about one hundred
and eighty seven thousand customers without power, and then LADWP
(22:30):
comes in a close second at about one hundred and
fifty six thousand people without power. And again some of
that it's a mixture of the public safety power shutoffs.
They're doing it to prevent lines from catching fire, and
others are just this is the result of what happens
during a windstorm. We wanted to bring on Sue Cole.
She is with the Pacific Pali Sage Community Council and
(22:50):
she's the president.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
And listen, Sue, I'm sorry, I just.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Hung up because I'm an Jacob had the thing pushed
and I pushed the wrong button.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
That's Okay, listen, there's a lot going on. Like I said,
this is really a generational event with you know. Usually,
like Amy King was saying, we were talking off the air.
Usually when fires happened in southern California, if people call
us from all over other parts of the state and
they're parts of the country, texts and everything, are you okay?
And usually our response is not all of southern California
is on fire, But now it feels like all of
(23:20):
southern California is on fire at least La County.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Uh, Sue Cole, Sorry for hanging up on your Pacific
Palisage Community Council President rough Night. We can completely understand
what's first on your agenda for a daylight today.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
Honestly, much the first thing on the agenda today is
to get to a local market where we are and
buy a few essentials like toilet paper and bananas, and
then we're going to have a big trip out this
afternoon to a target somewhere and buy some clothes, because
in our haste to evacuate, we managed to take the
dogs and their dishes and food and every leashes everything
(24:00):
it could possibly need, but forgot a lot of stuff
for ourselves. So that's what I'm focused on for today,
and we're just watching the news like everybody else and
seeing that our town has been just devastated and destroyed.
I've had videos of our block, our street gone. A
(24:21):
lot of my friends have lost their homes. I mean,
it's just it's everywhere. It's hard to imagine a fire
in a town that size where everyone had to evacuate
and half the people have lost their homes and we
have no businesses to go back to it, no churches,
no schools, nothing.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
See.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
A lot of people look at the Palisades and there's
a little bit of a disconnect because it is so beautiful,
such a hidden gem and unattainable for so many, But
a lot of people don't know how tight knit of
a community the Palisades is, just like any other place
here in southern California.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
When it comes to community, we.
Speaker 7 (24:59):
Are very nit group. Our community Council includes representatives from
every single area of the policies. We have eight different
neighborhood areas. We come together frequently, we communicate frequently. A
lot of the information I've been getting during the past
twenty four hours has been from out other members of
the council. In addition to neighbors, our local council person,
(25:22):
Tracy Park has been very communicative, spent a lot of
messages and information. Her staff has been terrific. We have
the greatest LAFD stations. You can imagine that they were
up against an enemy that was insurmountable. I mean, the
win is what took the town down, really and LAPD
(25:46):
has been great, But as you know, LAPD is understaffed
and it's just hard to get enough help. But obviously,
even if they had more with the wind that we had,
I'm not sure it would have made a difference. But
we are a very tight hit, small town feeling community.
It's a very you have a very good feeling of
(26:09):
community and safety living in the Palatines.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, you know, we're not lucky enough to live there,
but we know that we both know plenty of people
who do live there, and that's kind of that common bond.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
I think that a lot of people have that even talked.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
As close as it is to the rest of southern
California and LA in general, it is its own little
enclaved It has its own little personality.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It seems like everyone kind of knows each other Yeah,
it truly is.
Speaker 7 (26:35):
I mean you you literally, if you've been there more
than if you can't walk down the street or going
to market without running into friends and neighbors. It's like
living in small town Midwest, but on the edge of
La on a bluff overlooking the ocean. I mean, it's
always been pretty idyllic. Everybody that lives there feels that way.
(26:57):
And now I don't think anyone knows what to do
or where to go, or you.
Speaker 9 (27:04):
Know, like you do now.
Speaker 7 (27:05):
Honestly, it's all according to what I've seen, pretty much gone.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Well, baby steps.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
We wish you the best of luck at the market
and at Target today to get some get some small
wins under your belt for today, because you've got some
big ones that need to come down the road. Sue Cole,
Pacific Palisades Community Council President, Thanks for taking time for us.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Well, guys, this is something we have not seen where
we have fires that if you took one of them,
it would be in the running for the worst fire
in La County history. We're talking a thousand homes it
looks like at least at least gone, and we're at
zero containment of these fires.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, the important thing I think to remember about the
news conference from this morning that you hear heard heard
here on KFI was that they're still ballparking this. In
recent years, the technology for fire mapping has advanced so
incredibly that in a normal circumstance, they'd be able to
tell us down to the acre in many cases how
(28:06):
big the fire is, and this one they can't yet.
So that five thousand for the Palisades fire specifically, I
think is an incredible underestimation because they're just tempering expectation.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's indicative of how dire the situation is. We just
can't get account. It's irrelevant at this point. These fires
are big, they're out of control, and the fire agencies
are spread so thin. We've got people with fire hoses
attacking their houses and their trees, and you're not even
hearing the standdown order. Usually at this point you hear
people say don't leave your home, to leave the hoses
(28:40):
behind for the firefighters. You're not even hearing that the time.
For We had a friend that had to go to
his brother in law's house out in Altadena this morning
and just spray down trees on fire. He said, there's
a house down the street that's on fire. Our house
isn't on fire, but the trees and the bushes around
it are, so they're just hosing those down right now
as we speak, because everything's spread so thin and you
(29:03):
just haven't been able there to get in there and
do the work on the ground in terms of fire fighting.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
There's also an.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Important thing to remember about this when we talk about
the investigation. It's days away for us to find out
how these fires started. But the City of la is
saying that the Palisades fire did start as a backyard fire.
But that does not be careful by about jumping to
conclusions about a statement like that, because that's the direct quote.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
It started as a backyard fire. Fire in a backyard.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yes, Does that mean that someone set a fire in
their backyard or that there was a fire and it
was first reported as being in someone's backyard?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Again, probably irrelevant at this point. You saw the winds.
We talked about those mountain wave winds, and Henry de
Carlo talked about it yesterday on our show. We talked
about it this morning on KTLA at about nine am,
right before we spoke to him, when he saw the
forecast in the mountains that there was a little snow.
They had some participant precipitation up there. He knew that
(29:59):
that meant cold temperatures on the top of the mountains.
So those mountain wave winds that pick up speed as
they come down the mountain would be cold and faster,
and when they slam into the flatlands where the homes are,
they would be ferocious.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
When you have winds like that, it's nearly impossible in
southern California not for their to be fire sparked.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
County fire chief said something at the end of the
news conference today that I thought was very telling. The
question was something along the lines of were you ready
for something like this? And he said, we were not
ready for this.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
You can't be.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
We're ready for a fire. We're ready for a fire
under normal conditions. We can jump on it as quickly
as possible, move all of our resources, unified command, all
the keywords.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
But not this many fires and not those conditions.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
It's not a matter of talent or hands on deck.
It's a matter of impossibility. You cannot be ready for
an event like this in this big of an area.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And listen, I'll be the first to jump on politicians
who didn't do their job, but the idea that a
reservoir didn't have enough water the water lines where there
was with all of the water in the reservoirs, this
would not have been a fire that could have been
fought effectively. Right, we'll come back. We're going to talk
with Lindsay Horvath, La County Supervisor the third district. A
(31:16):
bunch of these fires, to at least two of these
fires are in her district. Will also take your calls.
We want to hear what happened with you over the
course of the last twenty four hours or so. Eight
hundred five two oh one five three four, eight hundred
five to oh one KFI all.
Speaker 6 (31:31):
Coming up on Gary and Shannon.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
You've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You
can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and
any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And KOSTHD two Los Angeles, Orange County Coleman KBC.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
You mentioned four fires.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm aware of three.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Could you describe and characterize the fourth fire?
Speaker 5 (00:19):
County fire?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yes, I can.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
Speak briefly on that. Fourth fire was a Woodley fire,
which is approximately is a smaller fire. We threw a
lot of resources at it. It is under control at
this point. We'll push that information out to the media,
so you have the very specifics, but we're calling it
the Woodley fire. Yeah, it was in the Supulvita basin.
Speaker 6 (00:45):
Yes, sir, thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Last question, then we'll have one on ones.
Speaker 7 (00:49):
Hi.
Speaker 6 (00:50):
I'm Samantha Norris, San Fernando, Valley Sun.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I know the Hurst fire is one of the smaller
fires here, but can somebody speak more to what resources
are being deployed to that fire and for people in
the Silmar area, what are the evacuation zone areas and enclosures.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And where those people can go in the area.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
Hi, good morning.
Speaker 8 (01:12):
Councilwoman Monic Cardriuez from the seventh District. Last night, we
evacuated seventy one horses from the Stetson Ranch area. The
fire came up quickly and so thankfully they were safely
evacuated to the Hanson dem Equestrian Center. As we indicated there,
this is a very dynamic situation and the lack of
(01:34):
aerial support is making it that much more challenging for
firefighters to be able to fight these fires, whether it's
in the Palisades or any other part of the county,
and so it's critically important that people heed the evacuation
orders in the Stilmar community. Richie Ellen's rec Center in
Paquoima is available for the evacuations. Currently there is eighty
(01:56):
percent vacancy, so there's still capacity for people to evacuate there.
Going beyond that, we will continue to open up additional
facilities as it's needed. I want to ensure the public
that the things that you can do, and I know
the question was asked earlier, if you're not in the
immediate fire area, there are things that you can do
(02:16):
to be of assistance, and it goes to looking at
hardening your home from any potential threat of embers. These
embers fly, they can go for a couple miles, so
we want to ensure that they do everything to create
the defensible space in their homes if they're in the
adjacent areas, again, staying off the roads to the greatest
(02:38):
degree possible. More importantly, reducing your water usage at this time,
because there is no aerial support, all of our water
is being heavily demanded upon for these firefights in all
parts of the county. So these are the proactive measures
that people can be taking to be of assistance immediately
(02:59):
given the needs of our first responders. If you have
down power lines, report those to nine one one for
we can also report all outages to one eight hundred
dial DWP and most importantly for trees that are down,
because we know we have a lot of road blockages.
Our Bureau of Street Services for the City of Los Angeles,
(03:21):
all of our Street Services crew and public works crews
are out there doing those doing that work as well,
and they are part of our first responders. Want to
make sure that everyone's reporting those to three one one
so that we can keep the roads cleared for everyone
to have the greatest amount of access for our fire personnel,
but most importantly for the adjacent equine areas because I
(03:42):
know in the Hurst fire, we're concerned about the spread.
Right now there's a lull in the wind, but we're
concerned about the potential spread to other equine areas. We
want to make sure that we launched our early evacuation
for horse keeping areas in the northeast San Fernando Valley,
and I want to continue to urge the public in
these adjacent areas to please be prepared with your bags,
(04:04):
with your important documents, to be ready, to be prepared
to potentially heed the call for evacuation.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Thank you, Thank you very much. We're over time. We're
gonna just one clarity as well, so you have some
of the statistics. It started at ten to ten last night.
The latest anchorage we have is five hundred acres. We're
working closely with our partners, which are the Los Angeles
National Forests. We have a rep over here behind us,
so we can do someone on ones if you want
(04:32):
more specific, but we are unified with them.
Speaker 9 (04:35):
Also.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
The good news is through the heroic efforts of our
crews working through the night last night, our overall objective
was to keep that fire so it did not overpass
the five, did not cross the five. At this point,
we're able to hold it to that point, but again
the winds are back up. We're working really really hard
there to make sure we maintain that and we're to
(04:56):
continue to work really really hard with our partners.
Speaker 10 (05:00):
Neks Chief, I don't have too much more to app
but I will share that the Los Angeles City Fire
and the Angelus National Force went into unified command immediately
when that fire started, and that fire started in an
area we're well exercised known as the Mutual Threat Zone.
So that's part of our pre planned unified command area
and that includes ground resources and aircraft, and of course,
as mentioned, aircraft has been having a hard time finding
(05:24):
good air and actually with the wind speeds, we're assessing
aircraft availability every minute, continuously watching for a window to
get aircraft up from multiple parks and multiple agencies. The
Angelus National Forest aircraft and the air tanker base that
services the southern California areas in Lancaster under the US
Forest Service, and they're watching for opportunities to launch aircraft.
But last night the winds out in the Annal Valley
(05:46):
were just as bad as they were here and what
we called the front range, so we're still struggling to
get aircraft in the air. Yes, Sir Robert Garcia, fire
chief for the Angelus National.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Forest, thank you.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
We are wrapping up our press conference.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
We will have one on ones.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's to wrap up the latest information, a much needed
but not a whole lot of specific information from the
fire officials, law enforcement officials, and government officials about these
fires that continue to burn here in southern California.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Listen, we know everybody has been affected. This is unprecedented. Alone,
these fires would rival the worst in La County history.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
I was taken aback.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
I had imagined that it would be a three digit
number when you talked about homes lost. But when the
county fire chief came out right out of the gate
at this press conference and said more than a thousand
homes lost, that is really hard to wrap your head around.
Never mind about the acreage. All we need to know
at these fires are massive and they're out of control,
(06:46):
zero percent containment. The fire agencies are spread so thin
they're asking for off duty firefighters. There are people in
neighborhoods I know at least some of them in the
Altadena neighborhood where there are no fire crews yet there
and there are trees on fire, and people are taking
to their garden hoses. Like we saw everywhere yesterday, it
continues today because these winds show no signs of letting
(07:09):
up just yet.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
There were a couple things from yesterday that epitomized to
me how terrifying this must have been for people who
were directly in the line of fire. Most of those
were from the Palisades area. Most of these little anecdotes,
but one of them was John during his show yesterday,
was talking to a woman, a friend of family friend
who had been evacuated. They got everything in the car
(07:33):
and they're driving down Palisades Drive and they're stuck at
Palisades in sunset because everybody was trying to get out
of Palisades at the time, and somebody knocked on the
window of the car. She said it was a police
officer later, but knocked on the window of the car
and told them to get out and run because there
were spotfires that were showing up in the crowns of
(07:54):
those palm trees along there that were then catching buildings
and cars on fire took off. You combine that with
the images from this morning of dozens of those cars
completely burned out.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You could hear in her voice yesterday just the uncertainty
and the fear of I don't know what to do.
You know, this was all unsaid. I could just hear
her thoughts. I don't know what to do. There's a
palm tree over my car right now, on fire. I
don't know what this palm tree is gonna do. Is
it gonna collapse on my car and kill me? Is
my car gonna hold up? Is it gonna fall the
(08:31):
other way? Is it going to stand and just burn out.
You just don't know because we've never had these conditions before.
I've never felt win like this. It was a hurricane. Now,
you know, everyone is talking about the aircraft and when
we'll get into the sky. It wasn't just a matter
of there was a lot of firefighting aircraft that couldn't
fly yesterday. It was that to what end they would
(08:55):
drop the water and because of the ferocity of the winds,
it would just was urinating in the wind. The water
wasn't landing, it was just blowing sideways. It was not working,
and firefighters could not put this thing out because they
were too busy getting people out of homes. And then
doing structure protection to protect the other structures that were
(09:17):
yet not on fire.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
To that end.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
The other image that last night showed me what was
going on was the elder care facility that was evacuated
in Altadina, where all of these people they're in wheelchairs,
or they're on gurney's, or they're being led very very
slowly by hand out of this facility and then being
picked up by buses, by ambulances, even by construction vans
(09:42):
to get people into a safer place.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So I'm on that two ten corridor that they were
most concerned about. I went home yesterday. I had four
or five yukkas that had been uprooted and thrown into
my driveway from my property.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
I went in the tree, yes yukka. Okay, yeah, you
did not know about a yucca.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Okay, anyway, I go inside and it's like the backyard,
which is a small backyard, but I've got a table
and chairs back there and some other plants. It was
like a popcorn machine. And it was like a popcorn
machine until I left. Power was cut about six pm.
Speaker 6 (10:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think it was because of down power lines. I
don't think it was one of those preemptive public safety
cuts got off. But anyway, so I'm in the dark
my big bag light which was nice, but no Wi Fi, right,
and so I'm looking at my phone. I turn the
Wi Fi off, but nothing was working. I have no signal,
I have no Twitter, I have no news, nothing. And
(10:35):
if it wasn't for text messages, one of my girlfriends
from Orange County texted me and she goes, you know,
this is about half an hour forty five minutes into
my power shut off, and she says, are you close
to Alta Dina?
Speaker 6 (10:45):
And I said, oh, no, is Alta Dina on fire?
Speaker 1 (10:47):
And she said yes, And I said, well, I got
to get the hell out of here because it's a
couple canyons over. And when I saw this thing in
the Palisades was moving two to three football fields per minute.
Speaker 6 (10:57):
You don't mess around, and I was glad.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I got out about seven thirty eight pm, and by
midnight I was under a mandatory evacuation order.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
Yeah, that I'm still waiting.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The Silmar fire is the one that's been creeping closer
to my house than the one that was visible from
I guess our neighbors could see it from the back
of their house.
Speaker 6 (11:17):
But this was.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
The fact that it popped up in Palisades. We talked
about it yesterday. We knew that this was going to
be serious, especially when that was the place that the
first fire started, because of the canyons, because of what
we had seen in Malibu a few weeks earlier, because
of that place always burns, that place always constantly, will
forever burn.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
That's just the way the topography is.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And we've gotten lucky up to this point that it
hasn't been as destructive as it appears.
Speaker 6 (11:45):
This one has.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Well, here's the thing, and people will talk about the
money involved, right, Oh, you know, it's the rich people
and what have you. Yes, here's the thing. It is
the rich people. And to your point, it does always
burn in Malibu. It does always burn in that mountainous area,
and it's usually jumped on right away.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
They get on top of it right away.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And you can say it's because of all the money
in the area, what have you, Okay, But the fact
that they couldn't jump on it right away should show
you just how angry this fire was burning.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I also want to point something out yesterday during the
show in the ten o'clock hour, I said to you
during the commercial break that somebody had left us a
talkback that said, hey, there might be a fire in
Santa Monica, or he was in Santa Monica. I found
that talkback. It's ten thirty one yesterday. Everybody else was
saying that the fire started at eleven. At ten thirty one,
(12:38):
Felix called us yesterday.
Speaker 11 (12:40):
Yo, Garian Shannon, what's up.
Speaker 9 (12:42):
It's Felix were here at Salamonica. I'm facing north of
Gloriafield Exit. It's a giant fire. I don't know if
we just want to talk about that. It's yeah, these
ways are going to be killed.
Speaker 11 (12:54):
Take care.
Speaker 9 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Well, Tim Kates texted me at ten forty one say, hey,
I know your news departments thin these days.
Speaker 6 (13:02):
Got a fire in the Palisades.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Tim Kates, producer of Petros and Money Show on top
of things as well. But we will stay on top
of this as well. We know we're all affected. We're affected,
a lot of people at the station affected. If you're
not affected, you know somebody who was. So we want
to hear from you your experience. This is crazy, you guys,
this is generational. This is a once in a lifetime thing.
(13:25):
It's awful. It is hell fire. Let's get through it together.
One eight hundred and five two zero one KFI. We
want to hear from you all day long. Give us
a call, we'll talk about it. One eight hundred five
to zero one KFI.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
There's a lot of information that came out of that
news conference. The important stuff to remember is that this
is not over. There are still plenty of incredibly dangerous
areas that exist around the Palisades fire and Palisades Malibu,
Santa Monica, in the Eton fire, and Altadena and Pasadena.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
We had some silmour as well.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
We had some calm moments of when last night was insane.
Speaker 6 (14:02):
Last night was crazy.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Ninety nine gus near Altadena, ninety eight mile per hour
gus near Woodland Hills, eighty four degrees of Bob Hope Airport.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
Bob Hope Airport, by the way, a lot of flights
going miles an hour. Huh, as you said, eighty four degrees, Oh, sorry,
eighty miles per hour.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Bob Hope Airport, which means that a lot of flights
going into Burbank had to be diverted to lax to
the point of eighty four degrees, and that slip up.
I was noticing, for the first time in my life
of covering fires for five hundred years, how cold it
is this morning and you're doing fire coverage. Never before
has that been a situation.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
I noticed that.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I've been sitting inside and I'm watching, and I'm waiting
for the evacuation at our house, and I'm the power
you know, it's blinking on and off. It never really
went all the way out, but it was it was
phasing in and out. And I let the dog outside
and I thought, I'm watching for an hour of this
fire coverage, and everybody's talking about how high they, you know,
the flames are, watching this house go down, and then
(15:03):
you go outside and it's terrifyingly cool.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, it's very odd, isn't it. One of the pieces
of information that came out. I was just gonna mention
also that the wind, although there have been some some
lulling moments, it will kick back up. Remember we're under
a red flag warning until tomorrow, so today is going
to be another marathon day for fire crews as those
winds continue to whip up this angry, angry fire. One
(15:30):
of the pieces of information that came out in the
press conference. That should not be overlooked is the injuries.
Two people have been killed in Altadena, we don't know
the specifics. And then in the Palisades, the county fire
chief said many people hurt, many residents hurt, and first
responders as well trying to get people out. As we
talked about earlier yesterday, there is one way in and
(15:53):
out of the Palisades, and we saw it in real
time with people using all four lanes, the two in,
the two out to use as outliners, and then just
abandoning their cars.
Speaker 6 (16:03):
The thing is a.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Lot of those people took their keys with them, so
the fire department had to come in and bulldoze what
they could out of the way so that the strike
teams could make their way up the hill.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, and those images this morning of those cars completely
burned out, I mean just shells of what they used
to be. We want to hear you guys can tell
the story just as well as anybody else because you
have been also in the middle of it. One eight
hundred and five to zero one five three four. Ernest
is calling. Let me get this right. See if I
can hit the button button. I was gonna say button,
(16:35):
but I couldn't say button there it is Ernest.
Speaker 6 (16:38):
What's going on?
Speaker 11 (16:40):
Hey, good morning or morning?
Speaker 6 (16:43):
Thanks?
Speaker 11 (16:45):
Just what we know. We woke up and now Tadna
I live off of you know, Mary Posa and Pharaoh Oaks,
and you know we went to bed last night. We're
in one of the areas where they turned off the
power and uh, we're at five o'clock yesterday. We woke
up at four o'clock this morning with the smell of
smoke and you can we heard sirens all night whatnot,
(17:09):
with literally amber bouncing off the window and I thought
it was flashlights splashing in the window. We opened up
the blinds to see the neighbor's house on fire. The
whole alley was on fire, the tree and our driveways
on fire. And literally had two minutes to get up,
get dressed and get out. And I'm screaming fire as
we're leaving the house, and our neighbor woke up. Luckily
(17:32):
he got out. He didn't even get Rabbi his phone
or nothing. I'm just yelling fire, fire. We have fire
on the left side, fire on the right side of
the alleyway. Houses are going up and the biggest issue
is nobody knows where to go. So we're intros. We're
in a shopping center parking lot at Baratas and everybody
just looks winded. People are still going up, the buses
(17:53):
going up. Van's going up to pick people up out
of their retirement homes and whatnot. It's just chaos, and
it's uh, you know, you could see the fireman trying
to do everything that we can, but it's just surreal.
It's really for real hearing the hearing the wing going
as hard as it was blowing last night, and to
wake up to hear it from on the hill, to
(18:15):
see your neighbor's house on fire, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Ernest, thanks for calling. You bring up a really good point.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
There just isn't a isn't enough time to get the
warning to get out. That's why you got to listen
to your gut. That's what I was thinking last night,
is I was like, my guts says, get the hell
out of here. There's not enough time for that knock
on the door or that alert to hit your phone
if it's near you.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
You don't want to wake.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Up like Ernest did to the embers hitting your bedroom
doors in your bedroom windows.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well, and this was this is what we were talking
about yesterday. This is why people were talking about it
leading up to this wind event. Was that's the opportunity
to think about it. Listen, we we we may overthink
a earthquake preparation, sometimes your wildfire preparation or just emergency preparation.
This is the time when you think about it. My
(19:02):
wife and I had the conversation last night on the couch.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
Listen.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
We're not evacuated yet, but we're seeing all these what
would you take you? You know, there's different levels. Off
we go right now, we get in the car, we go.
We got clothes on our back. That's level one, what's
level two?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
I've been evacuated about three or four times, so I
just know what to throw into the bag. We've got
all the documents and a tupperware thing. I kind of
know exactly what it is now. So yeah, I mean,
you should know by now in southern California what you're
going to bring.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But he makes a good point, is okay, so then
you're down, you're down the hill, or you're out of
your neighborhood, which area is.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, like I said on mo Kelly last night, go south,
just get away because all the foothills are all a mess.
Speaker 6 (19:43):
Just go south.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
If you're an Altadina, get on the six. So five
eight hundred and five two zero one five three four.
We will continue our special fire coverage throughout the morning.
I just did see one of the television stations did
have an aerial shot of the Eton fire.
Speaker 6 (20:00):
That's the one out in Alta Dina.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So the temporary flight restrictions that have put them on
the ground, or I should say have kept them on
the ground. I don't know if that means that they're lifted.
I don't know if they're flying rogue up there. Probably not,
but it's something to keep an eye on. President Biden
is in town. That's at least responsible for some of
these temporary flight restrictions. We know he's supposed to be
showing up to a fire station in Santa Monica before
(20:24):
he and First Lady Jill Biden get back on Air
Force one and scoot on out of town.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Gary and Shannon will continue wall to wall fire coverage
right here on KFI. We do have the ok for
the water dropping helicopters and other aircraft to take to
the skies. As we said yesterday, the super scoper Scooper Scooper,
excuse me, on loan from Quebec were able to fly.
They have an ability to fly into forty five mile
per hour headwinds. The problem is is they were making
(20:51):
these drops, but because of the ferocity of the winds,
those drops meant nothing. They were not accomplishing much because
the water was just being blown side ways.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
It was real.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
It was a I mean, as as much as you
want to see that, you want to see helicopters and
air tankers dropping water and retarding on these fires, watching
them do that was very frustrating yesterday because of that.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, and part of it, and they will tell you
a lot of it is safety theater.
Speaker 11 (21:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yes, the DC ten dropping that bright red fire retardant
makes us feel really good, but it's the real work,
the hand crews, the digging around the line, creating the
containment line that's where the fire is really stopped. Yes,
it's a nice air show, and yes, certainly there is
value in the water dropping aircraft, but the real work
(21:42):
has yet to be done because it is impossible to
get into this terrain and it's just moving too quickly
to know where to dig in. You'll see the strike
teams going and trying to save homes that are unsavable,
just to protect the home that has been untouched across
the street so that the embers don't entrench themselves there
(22:05):
on the roof and put that one ablaze.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
The power shutoffs that we have seen, some of them
are public safety power shutoffs and some of them are
just a result of the wind storm itself. So right
now in California, there's about four hundred thousand customers without power.
Most of those are so cal Edison about one hundred
and eighty seven thousand customers without power, and then LADWP
(22:30):
comes in a close second at about one hundred and
fifty six thousand people without power. And again some of
that it's a mixture of the public safety power shutoffs.
They're doing it to prevent lines from catching fire, and
others are just this is the result of what happens
during a windstorm. We wanted to bring on Sue Cole.
She is with the Pacific Pali Sage Community Council and
(22:50):
she's the president.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
And listen, Sue, I'm sorry, I just.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Hung up because I'm an Jacob had the thing pushed
and I pushed the wrong button.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
That's Okay, listen, there's a lot going on. Like I said,
this is really a generational event with you know. Usually,
like Amy King was saying, we were talking off the air.
Usually when fires happened in southern California, if people call
us from all over other parts of the state and
they're parts of the country, texts and everything, are you okay?
And usually our response is not all of southern California
is on fire, But now it feels like all of
(23:20):
southern California is on fire at least La County.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Uh, Sue Cole, Sorry for hanging up on your Pacific
Palisage Community Council President rough Night. We can completely understand
what's first on your agenda for a daylight today.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
Honestly, much the first thing on the agenda today is
to get to a local market where we are and
buy a few essentials like toilet paper and bananas, and
then we're going to have a big trip out this
afternoon to a target somewhere and buy some clothes, because
in our haste to evacuate, we managed to take the
dogs and their dishes and food and every leashes everything
(24:00):
it could possibly need, but forgot a lot of stuff
for ourselves. So that's what I'm focused on for today,
and we're just watching the news like everybody else and
seeing that our town has been just devastated and destroyed.
I've had videos of our block, our street gone. A
(24:21):
lot of my friends have lost their homes. I mean,
it's just it's everywhere. It's hard to imagine a fire
in a town that size where everyone had to evacuate
and half the people have lost their homes and we
have no businesses to go back to it, no churches,
no schools, nothing.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
See.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
A lot of people look at the Palisades and there's
a little bit of a disconnect because it is so beautiful,
such a hidden gem and unattainable for so many, But
a lot of people don't know how tight knit of
a community the Palisades is, just like any other place
here in southern California.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
When it comes to community, we.
Speaker 7 (24:59):
Are very nit group. Our community Council includes representatives from
every single area of the policies. We have eight different
neighborhood areas. We come together frequently, we communicate frequently. A
lot of the information I've been getting during the past
twenty four hours has been from out other members of
the council. In addition to neighbors, our local council person,
(25:22):
Tracy Park has been very communicative, spent a lot of
messages and information. Her staff has been terrific. We have
the greatest LAFD stations. You can imagine that they were
up against an enemy that was insurmountable. I mean, the
win is what took the town down, really and LAPD
(25:46):
has been great, But as you know, LAPD is understaffed
and it's just hard to get enough help. But obviously,
even if they had more with the wind that we had,
I'm not sure it would have made a difference. But
we are a very tight hit, small town feeling community.
It's a very you have a very good feeling of
(26:09):
community and safety living in the Palatines.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, you know, we're not lucky enough to live there,
but we know that we both know plenty of people
who do live there, and that's kind of that common bond.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
I think that a lot of people have that even talked.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
As close as it is to the rest of southern
California and LA in general, it is its own little
enclaved It has its own little personality.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It seems like everyone kind of knows each other Yeah,
it truly is.
Speaker 7 (26:35):
I mean you you literally, if you've been there more
than if you can't walk down the street or going
to market without running into friends and neighbors. It's like
living in small town Midwest, but on the edge of
La on a bluff overlooking the ocean. I mean, it's
always been pretty idyllic. Everybody that lives there feels that way.
(26:57):
And now I don't think anyone knows what to do
or where to go, or you.
Speaker 9 (27:04):
Know, like you do now.
Speaker 7 (27:05):
Honestly, it's all according to what I've seen, pretty much gone.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
Well, baby steps.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
We wish you the best of luck at the market
and at Target today to get some get some small
wins under your belt for today, because you've got some
big ones that need to come down the road. Sue Cole,
Pacific Palisades Community Council President, Thanks for taking time for us.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Well, guys, this is something we have not seen where
we have fires that if you took one of them,
it would be in the running for the worst fire
in La County history. We're talking a thousand homes it
looks like at least at least gone, and we're at
zero containment of these fires.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Yeah, the important thing I think to remember about the
news conference from this morning that you hear heard heard
here on KFI was that they're still ballparking this. In
recent years, the technology for fire mapping has advanced so
incredibly that in a normal circumstance, they'd be able to
tell us down to the acre in many cases how
(28:06):
big the fire is, and this one they can't yet.
So that five thousand for the Palisades fire specifically, I
think is an incredible underestimation because they're just tempering expectation.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It's indicative of how dire the situation is. We just
can't get account. It's irrelevant at this point. These fires
are big, they're out of control, and the fire agencies
are spread so thin. We've got people with fire hoses
attacking their houses and their trees, and you're not even
hearing the standdown order. Usually at this point you hear
people say don't leave your home, to leave the hoses
(28:40):
behind for the firefighters. You're not even hearing that the time.
For We had a friend that had to go to
his brother in law's house out in Altadena this morning
and just spray down trees on fire. He said, there's
a house down the street that's on fire. Our house
isn't on fire, but the trees and the bushes around
it are, so they're just hosing those down right now
as we speak, because everything's spread so thin and you
(29:03):
just haven't been able there to get in there and
do the work on the ground in terms of fire fighting.
Speaker 6 (29:07):
There's also an.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Important thing to remember about this when we talk about
the investigation. It's days away for us to find out
how these fires started. But the City of la is
saying that the Palisades fire did start as a backyard fire.
But that does not be careful by about jumping to
conclusions about a statement like that, because that's the direct quote.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
It started as a backyard fire. Fire in a backyard.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Yes, Does that mean that someone set a fire in
their backyard or that there was a fire and it
was first reported as being in someone's backyard?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Again, probably irrelevant at this point. You saw the winds.
We talked about those mountain wave winds, and Henry de
Carlo talked about it yesterday on our show. We talked
about it this morning on KTLA at about nine am,
right before we spoke to him, when he saw the
forecast in the mountains that there was a little snow.
They had some participant precipitation up there. He knew that
(29:59):
that meant cold temperatures on the top of the mountains.
So those mountain wave winds that pick up speed as
they come down the mountain would be cold and faster,
and when they slam into the flatlands where the homes are,
they would be ferocious.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
When you have winds like that, it's nearly impossible in
southern California not for their to be fire sparked.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
County fire chief said something at the end of the
news conference today that I thought was very telling. The
question was something along the lines of were you ready
for something like this? And he said, we were not
ready for this.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
You can't be.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
We're ready for a fire. We're ready for a fire
under normal conditions. We can jump on it as quickly
as possible, move all of our resources, unified command, all
the keywords.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
But not this many fires and not those conditions.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
It's not a matter of talent or hands on deck.
It's a matter of impossibility. You cannot be ready for
an event like this in this big of an area.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
And listen, I'll be the first to jump on politicians
who didn't do their job, but the idea that a
reservoir didn't have enough water the water lines where there
was with all of the water in the reservoirs, this
would not have been a fire that could have been
fought effectively. Right, we'll come back. We're going to talk
with Lindsay Horvath, La County Supervisor the third district. A
(31:16):
bunch of these fires, to at least two of these
fires are in her district. Will also take your calls.
We want to hear what happened with you over the
course of the last twenty four hours or so. Eight
hundred five two oh one five three four, eight hundred
five to oh one KFI all.
Speaker 6 (31:31):
Coming up on Gary and Shannon.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
You've been listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You
can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and
any time on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Gary and Shannon News
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