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.
We heard sirens all night whatnot with literally amber bouncing off the window, and I thought it was flash light splashing in the window. We opened up the blind to see the neighbor's house on fire. The whole alley was on fire, the chain, our driveways on fired.
That's Ernest, he called from Altadena earlier.
Today.
We are taking your calls one eight hundred five two zero one KFI because this thing, this incident incidents. There are fires everywhere across southern California, from the Palisades to Silmar, Thousand Oaks. This morning, we've got the big one in Altadena. It is a mess where everyone is affected, and we really want to hear everyone's experience here today.
Aaron is calling us from South Pasadena. What's going on?
Erin hey there? So I'm calling for a couple of reasons. We are on the border of South Pasadena in Pasadena. The last night, from our window, we literally saw the entire hillside of Altadena catch on fire.
The wind was.
Blowing so strong that it blew out our dining room windows.
Wow.
Wow, the smoke is so sick in our house right now that my eyes are burning, my lungs are burning. Our power has been out for the last twenty four hours. And the reason I'm calling is when you guys put that public service announcement on to text your congressman to keep AM radio alive. That's the only thing that we had. If I didn't have my transistor radio or radio in our car, we would have had no idea about evacuation notices or anything at the time. So this is a public service announcement.
Please text five to eight eight six AM radio and tell them to keep the AM radio stations alive.
Yeah, Aaron, you bring up a really good point that I noticed. I didn't notice last night when I called an e Mos show because my power went out there. I'm in kind of the same area you are, and my power went out, and so the Wi Fi goes out right, and I'm in my house and I listened to the station on the iHeartRadio app, So I don't really think about it, you know, when I'm at home, that's I just put the app on. But I'm sitting there and I've got no WiFi and I'm trying to
get the news on my phone. I turned the Wi Fi off on my phone, which should still get me to the internet, but I wasn't getting Twitter, I wasn't getting any of the news sites.
It was getting nothing.
And so I just started reading a book, watching a show and one of my girlfriends text me and she says, are you close to Alta Dina? And I'm like yes, And so then I started to try and find information I couldn't and I'm like, where's the radio And I'm like, I don't have transistor radio in my house.
I'm like, the iHeart radio app doesn't work.
Where the hell I don't have it?
And so I was like, number one, as soon as I get service again, I'm going on Amazon and buying a freaking transistor race. Because You're absolutely right, that was the only way. I couldn't wait to get in my car to turn on Kfi to hear what the hell was going on, because I was in a blackout, just like just like you would have been without.
Your radio, Aeron.
Are you going to stick around there or are you going to get out of the at least out of the smoke zone.
Well, you know the problem is is that everywhere is a smoke zone right now. I did put together some things just in case, and of course I'm in asthmatic, so this is just like a double way. I don't know, you know. Again, like listening to the radio, you get some information. My friends in the Polisies have lost their home. My friends in Altadina, I have a feeling, have lost their home Silmar. Nobody really knows where to go. The Pasadena Convention Center is not far from me, and I
know that that's a safe zone for people. But I'm prepared just in case. The wind has been so strong that who would have known that it would have traveled as far as it did in the Pasadena now Arcadia area. You know, we just don't know.
Well, let me say yeah, from our perspective, we're kind of between the Eaton fire there in Pasadena, h Alta Dina and the Somar fire. If you were to just head up Foothill or the two ten there through Sunland into Honga along the base of the mountains there those fires, the smoke is not going that direction.
So if if nothing else just to give.
You, don't go there there, don't go there, go south.
Do not because family in Orange County.
Perfect way to go if you go to Orange County, That's what everyone's saying. Because here's the thing. You're not looking at just Alta, Dina. You're looking at Glendale, You're looking at Arcadia, Monrovia and now law Kenyata is all is all affected, Sunland into Hunga. I mean, those are those are the places where I'm most worried about today.
I think I'm just looking for clear skies, just for at least a short time to get you some some rest.
But Orange County, friend.
There you go, that's perfect. That's what I did.
I got to say, we're beach in a martini at this point, Aaron.
Last night, when I took off from the hell fire, that was where we are. You know, I got on the two ten, by the way in my truck like I could barely. I took my arm strength to stay in the lane. The winds were blowing so so quickly and so strongly on the two ten, Get on the six o five. Look in my rear view mirror and it's just pitch black because everyone was out of power all along the foothill communities. No lights except for that red bright vein of the Eton Canyon fire.
It was eerie.
It was still windy on the six o five you get to the one oh five, no wind, clear skies, different worlds.
Yeah, it's a nightmare. And just to put you know, wrap this all up with my thoughts, I can't even tell you the sadness I feel for everybody that's lost their homes, their animals, you know, everything. It's it's unimaginable. I'm so cal born and raised. I've never seen before in my entire life. And you know, we're okay up here on the hill, but I you know, I hope we can all come together and just help everyone out because this is not going to go away anytime soon.
It's going to be a really long time before there's any sort of building back up again.
Yeah, take care of yourself. Aaron, thank you for calling.
Thank you too, you bet Aaron there.
In South Pasadena. There we will here.
Unfortunately, we've seen the tragedy firsthand here over the last twenty four hours. We have said many times in situations like this, the important thing is we're going to be able to tell the good stories that have happened as well. Where we're going to be able to tell the stories about the neighbors who, even though they may have lost everything, helped their neighbors escape or help their neighbors save their house or Yeah.
One of our friends says that he's been evacuated, evacuated with his family overnight, but his sister's house right now is what he's trying to defend because all of her neighbors' homes have burned to the ground. Hers still standing, he says. We keep putting out spot fires on our fences, bushes and trees, et cetera. Another person that a friend of the show who's on our show, has been on
our show repeatedly, but want to keep her anonymity. Her home completely burned to the ground there in Altadina.
All right, we will continue. We're doing our special coverage of these fires. They continue to burn here in southern California. Hoping for a much better weather day today. We know that at least the news helicopters are back in the skies. The fire aircraft are also back in the skies and are going to start to make some progress.
We hope today we're going.
To get an update in moments too by a meteorologist about what we can expect hour by hour as we continue, we want to get right to it right now because we have an Alli County supervisor that's got to get to one of those updates immediately.
Lindsay Horvaf is the supervisor for the third District and both the Pacific Palisades fire and the fire burning and Silmar are in that third district. Supervisor, thanks for taking time for us today.
Absolutely, thank you for keeping everybody informed.
So what do you know right now? What is the latest? What are we looking at for today?
So we are hoping that our conditions as we get into this day will be better than last night, so we can actually deploy more of our aerial equipment. Overnight, we couldn't do that because the winds got to what were hurricane like conditions and the speed and velocity they So we're hoping that we're going to be able to use those tools to aggressively attack this fire. We are
deploying more resources. Obviously we're already in unified command as of new yesterday, but we are continuing to get resources from the state. We appreciate the leadership of Cow Fire and all of the jurisdictions that have come to the area, and we are in unified command not only for Palisades,
but also for the Hearst fire. There's also a smaller fire, the Woodly Fire, in the Suppulvidabasin area, which is also in my district, and we're watching to see if there are other fires that pop up along the way as well.
You've been getting regular briefings from La County fire executives. I'm assuming do you get I got to believe you get a sense of kind of frustration and hopelessness from the guys that are usually in gals that are usually on top of this. But this wind event just left not a lot of room for quick action because it just moves so quickly.
Yes, I will say that our team is second to none. I wouldn't want to be in these circumstances with anybody else on the front line. So I know that they are giving it. They're all and we really appreciate how diligently and committed they are working to get this fire
under control. We knew that the conditions were going to be very complicated, and the National Weather Services started informing us late last week and of course over the weekend, and we were hearing that these are conditions know at least on par with Wolvey, if not worse, and so we knew the state was already deploying resources over the weekend and staging them in the area. So god forbid we did get to this state, they were already here. So that allowed us to move into unified command pretty
quickly yesterday. But you know, we also over the past year have been doing emergency preparedness trainings ever since I came into office, throughout our district, in many different communities to help make sure that they had access to emergency evacuation information to know what to do when your power is out or you don't have cellular coverage, and you know, we need to communicate with you in other ways to
make sure you get out safely. We have a t set group of volunteer group led by James Brosso in the Topanga Canyon area, which really works to keep the entire canyon informed. About twelve thousand people really rely on their volunteer efforts and they have been absolutely extraordinary, and so when we had to evacuate the canyon last night, we worked with them to do that and do our best to keep everybody safe. So you know, it's an
ongoing situation. That's still dynamic. While the worst of it, we believe was between ten pm last night and five this morning. We are still in red flag conditions through the end of day tomorrow. So we are by no means in the clear, and we are asking everyone to continue to heed those evacuation warnings as well as the orders. When you get a warning, get ready, because when you get the order, you got to go. It's not just
about our residence safety. It's also about the safety of those who are on the front lines trying to get this thing under control. And the longer we wait on an evacuation order, the more we're putting them in harm's way.
One last quick question for those people who are not under evacuation warnings or evacuation orders right now, what can they do?
Is there a priority?
Is there something you would like all the other members of La County to do?
I would say, I've got to go into this free thing that I will say everyone should go to emergency dot La County dot gov. That is where the latest up dates and all relevant information is for anyone who is potentially at risk of being put under warning or getting an evacuation order. We will also be placing information there for any community members who want to volunteer and support.
We've been getting a lot of generosity from Angelina's who are really trying to stand up for others really struggling during this difficult time. That kind of partnership is great. So it's an emergency at La County dot gov.
Lindsay Horvatz, La County Supervisor, thanks so much for your time, and again, I can't stress enough just to get into your car and listen to the radio. Honestly, because Aaron, a caller we had this hour highlighted it. You're screwed without the radio because I had no internet access when my power went out and the Wi Fi went down. And maybe that's not the case everywhere, but it was certainly the case for me and the radio. Wherever you want to go for your news, we are a great source.
But I'm just saying it really helps because being in the dark when the conditions are still this bad is a horrible place to be.
Yeah, it is going to get It's going to be a long day, and we will continue to bring you special fire coverage. We want to hear from you about what it is that's going on, and we'll take your calls a little bit later, but just write the number down eight hundred five to zero one five three four, eight hundred five to oh one KFI.
But up next.
Of course, the biggest character in this in this play is the wind and how it has fed these otherwise small fires into just these absolute terrifying fires that we saw explode yesterday and into last night.
You mentioned the weird the detritus that was.
On the roadways today when you're driving at it, so it's amazing.
It wasn't just when I was driving in. It was when I was leaving the house and my husband came home right before we left, and he said, because we were taking two different cars because we had two different jobs today, and so I leave first and he goes, just be careful.
It's really crazy.
There's a lot of stuff in the roads. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
I make it about thirty yards down my street and there's a pine tree that has fallen horizontally over the road, and I'm thinking, huh, And there's people turning around and going around, and I'm like, oh, I guess I could drive over this tree and in this truck. And I'm like, I've never used the four wheel drive. Maybe now is not the time to figure it out.
I just see it.
I drove around that and on my way, which is not very far maybe a mile mile and a half, to get to the two ten, I had to go around several different trees that had fallen in the road. I mean, it was just a mess, just littered with trees and branches and what have you, and the leaves that were blowing up from the street just being whipped up. I guess I should say by the winds created not
a lot of visibility. You felt like you were in the desert storm out there with the dust and the wind last night, especially between those hours of eight thirty ten to early this morning, it was just winds that you have never experienced.
Maxiparis, as a meteorologists for News Nation, joins us. Talk more about this wind that's going on, and I mean just simply driving around doesn't matter how tall, how high profile your vehicle was. Yesterday you were getting blown out of the lanes that you were driving in. But it looks like the worst has passed in terms of the peak wind.
Gus am, I.
Right, Yeah, that's what we're seeing right now, that the winds are going to fully die off, but you still have that high wind warning across southern California lasting until six this evening Pacific time, so that's actually extended earlier today it was noon they were going to drop it,
then it was two pm out six. So it does give you an idea that, you know, the worst of the winds are behind us, we still are going to be dealing with significant enough winds that are likely going to prevent any aircraft or many poppers from taking off to help with the fire suppression, simply because again, as you've seen overnight, with those sort of winds, it is
still to win at the happens. So I really think it's going to take much of the day to get those planes up because as you know, I mean, these firefighters are really struggling to get not just protect the homes, but get into the more rural foothills in the tougher
terrain there. So it's an intense situation. The Weather Service saying that this wind event, the Santanas that we're experiencing right now are the worst winds in fourteen years back to January of twenty eleven for a similar wind event, but of course you didn't have the historic wildfire outbreak that we're seeing right now, and that's what makes this
so intense. So it's those two things combined. Not like the weather starts these fires, but of course as we're seeing the weather certainly causing the flames to spread much more quickly than would otherwise happen.
As we look through the rest of today, what are our trouble spots in terms of when the winds will be peaking up?
Picking up or peaking.
Sure exactly as we discussed. I mean those winds up to one hundred miles per hour. I saw up to ninety four miles per hour at least out of Silverado. That was around three am. That's not going to be seen anymore. But we can still definitely get those gusts up to sixty miles per hour through the afternoon until the extreme wind warning ends. But we still have fire
weather conditions continuing into tomorrow's forecast two. Even with the lighter wins, the humidity staying pretty low, and so that's going to still cause for elevated wildfire risk for this area. Seeing the outbreak all the way down to San Diego as well, more fires can break out is kind of a message that people should know, and that's why they're telling folks, hey, just make sure you have that go bag ready in case there's any other situations that get out of control.
This quick follow up to win question, it was odd to me at least that usually, you know, when the sun goes down, the winds die down kind of thing in the past. But you know, we saw the most dangerous wins or some of the most dangerous winds between ten am and five am. So no repeat of the overnight, right.
No, we should definitely still see a lessening of the winds. You know, they'll fluctuate, you know, it's not going to be a continual downward trend, but overall that will be what we do see getting into tomorrow's forecast. So again, I don't expect those winds to be up to category two hurricane strength like we saw last night. But it's
really splitting hairs here. Even though the wind side of the story improves, you already have all these fires that are broken out, you know, tiring what more than five thousand acres right now, So the damage is already done. And let's put this into perspective. This time last month, we were talking about the Franklin fire in Malibu that burned only around four thousand acres and that took a
week and a half to happen. So just typically because we do have these winds and they are saying, oh so elevated, I mean, it's just continuing to get these flames out of control. So even as the winds lighten up, it's not going to just be a light switch, right And I don't know, I know we're trying to find the silver lining here, but it's really tough doing.
It's an excellent point.
Max Sparis, meteorologist for News Nation, thanks for your time today.
Of course, ye so letch you all thank you right well.
Bright and Max was talking there. The Angelus National Forest officials have updated the size of the Eton fire, the one burning in Altadena and Pasadena, at ten thousand, six hundred acres.
So to give you an idea of massive that.
Leap from what we knew even in the eight o'clock news conference, which wasn't a lot. They have been able to put aircraft in the air. It gives them a better idea. It's not mapped specifically, I mean it's not down to the acre like we will see later, but six hundred acres in the Eton fire alone, So that should let you know that the Palisades fire burning in the Malibu Santa Monica Palisades area, that that's going to be even larger based on what we saw yesterday, the
incredibly rapid growth from last night. All the county fire chiefs said this morning was that it's well over five thousand acres, which I think is a pretty conservative estimate once we get an update on the size of that as well. The bigger story is out of the Palisades fired, that as many as one thousand structures were destroyed. That's according to the county fire chief. He did say that
there were a high number of significant injuries. At one point yesterday last night, they were saying that Dukes in Malibu, the legendary restaurant, was considered a mass casualty site because people had been walking out of the hills after they were burned, just trying to find a place to go to get out.
And then we knew that some of the.
Homes that were to the west of Dukes along pch between the highway and the sand are gone, and I mean gone.
All those sand castles.
Garian Channon kfi Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. We are staying on top of an unprecedented situation here in southern California where the wind event unfortunately as more destructive and life threatening as predicted, maybe more so. Like I said, we saw those mountain wave winds just
crashed down on the palisades all Toa Dina. It looks like the worst winds hit last night from ten pm to five am, or we saw gus of ninety nine miles per hour near Alta Dina, ninety eight Woodland.
Hills, eighty four Bob Hope Airport.
We just talked to a meteorologist who said that the worst winds are behind us, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to have, you know, forty degree forty mile per hour sustained winds and gus to sixty today.
We have seen agencies from Afar as far away as Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona at least say that they're going to be making their way towards southern California. Throughout the state. Obviously, people have come, and it's not just state and county fire departments or CalFire, it's also federal fire agencies as well.
Matt Brossard is the union president for the Angelus National Forest joins US Now, Matt, it must be frustrating as hell for the best of the best in being California firefighters. Where being La County, Angelus National Forest Firefighters, La City CalFire? What have you to not have enough to go after a beast this size and this driven by wind.
Yeah, so it's definitely some unprecedented weather that we had with the wind event. The agencies were prepared as they could have been moving resources from out a region at least for the US for service. But one of the biggest battles right now that US Forces firefighters are fighting
is the pay situation. They're the lowest paid firefighters in the country and Congress has failed to act on it numerous times, and it's driving the firefighters to other agencies, which is reducing the capacity we have to respond to these incidents.
What are the conditions that your crews are actually working out there on these the Hurst fires up in Silmar, they eating fire there in the Altadena area.
The conditions I'm currently in Pasadena in the eating firefootprint. It's conditions are improving, the winds not as bad at least here. But the fire is going house to house, which makes some challenges with panicking public leaving the area, not heating, the warnings of law enforcement to evacuate, and the tactics we generally use won't work in these conditions of anchor and flanking and getting the flanks and securing the edge of the fire.
All right, Matt Brosser, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it. We are taking your calls. Let us know your experience. One eight hundred and five to zero, one KFI. Did you want to go to someone, Yeah, we.
Could totally do that. Do that.
Let me see here, alex Is, alex Is in Westminster, Alex what's going on?
Hey, how's it going great?
Yeah?
So, like I I work in Glendale. Well, I'm just doing I'm doing my rotation in Glendale. And it was just so weird because I drove from Glendale on the five yesterday back to Orange County and I even had a and text me on the East coast saying, Hey, are you affected by the fires? And I said no, I didn't even see the smoke. And then today this morning, my preceptor who's my supervisor, told me not to come
in that parts of Glendale had been evacuated. So yeah, I've just been keeping up on the news and everything.
Yeah, it's uh, it's it's crazy how quick this thing is moving. Where you think you're in the clear, and then all of a sudden you look around, maybe I'm not in the clear.
Thanks for the call.
Yeah, we do believe that everyone has been touched by these incidents because they are so widespread over the past twenty four hours. Or you know someone who has I mean, we have a dear friend whose home is has been reduced to ashes, and it's just heartbreaking. And you know, this is going to be the story for so many people and in so many areas, because the thing to know and not to get bogged down with acreage and things like that.
Here's what to know.
We've got four major fires, two massive ones that would alone rival for the worst of La County history, and they are burning out of control. And the firefighters will tell you they don't have enough people to fight these fires. And as you mentioned, we do have crews coming down from Washington, from Oregon, and that's great and all, but the winds are not going to let up. They're not going to be as disastrous as we've talked about, as they were overnight, but they're not going to let up.
It's going to be a very long day. We are here to give you all the information as we get it and stay on top of how these fires are progressing and what's going on. But again, more than a thousand homes have already been lost with these destructive wins here in southern California.
It looks like the next news conference that we will get will be a combination of President Biden and Governor Newsom from the fire station. From a fire station, i should say, in Santa Monica before the President and first Lady get back on Air Force one and scoot on out of town. So when we get any updates, we'll definitely bring those to you, But in the meantime, we'd love to hear some of your stories. Eight hundred five two zero one five three four eight hundred five to
oh one KFI. And on the other side of the break, I'm going to give you a couple of important websites things that we have been using to make sure that we stay up up to date on the latest information and that you should have, especially if you are anywhere near any of these fires to keep an eye on the conditions and potential evacuation warnings and orders.
Yeah, there's a key app that has been really helpful throughout the whole thing.
We'll talk about that when we come back to Gary and Shannon.
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 anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.