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 talked about how the King's game was postponed last night. Now the Lakers game today against the Hornets will be postponed as well. So that is the latest there and the call from Jean Smart. You mentioned to postpone or delay or cancel the awards show. That's getting a lot of traction as well. You just
I don't know how you can do it. You know, mentioned the Olympics coming and a handful of years how you can get ready for that while people are out of their homes or tempting to get building permits and things like that. That's also a bad look as well. They do say. Now good news in Hollywood where the city officials say that that fire department has fully contained the sunset fire burning in the Hollywood Hills area. This is the one that erupted last night just before six pm.
The news conference from this morning was.
Frustrating.
I was going to say it was good, but it needs to be better.
I mean, we talked about the poetry that people wanted to get into and the book.
That is the way we speak the boy.
That is the way we stand here united Los Angeles will stand united and stand strong.
Okay.
And that doesn't really do much of anything for anybody. And I asked, and if this, if you are the person that hears that and thinks to yourself, I feel better now.
I know my home is gone.
Not one person, maybe her staff or maybe the person who wrote that. That Beloney c plus writing assignment. That was awful for California public schools. That was awful. And if you want to sound like you care, don't do that. Do the antithesis of that well, and I will don't be polished, be raw, be real, Have talked to people, have gone through the neighborhoods, not just sat in the helicopter and looked overhead. Don't say you've been to the fire lines and the palisades when you have not been
to the front lines and the palisades. You've may have seen them, you may have flown over them, you have not been on the front lines in the palisades.
I guarantee it well, and I want someone who is listen. I'll point out Catherine Barger simply because she was the one sort of in the control of this.
It's more no nonsense.
She's more no nonsense. But I want her to be the most no nonsense. I want her to say, I'm we're going to do this. We're going to do this important news conference. And I just want to point out some people. Mayor's here, that guy's here, Assembly members here, governors here, so and so.
Now the people who matter. Let's talk with the fire chief, right, Let's talk with the sheriff.
And save the crocodile tears, you know, save the Oh this has just been so horrible, and we are stronger and.
Save all of that.
Tell us where people can get resources, where they can go for shelter, where they can get food, where they can get water, What we're going to do about the water, How we're going to bolstero bolster the fire hydrant system, How we're going to figure out how to get water from northern California to southern California.
Smelt be damned, smelt be damned.
I think those are.
The only times those words have ever been put together. Helt be damned. Okay, I'm a fish person. I love fish, I love the environment, I love animals. You ever had a smelt I've never had a smelt. I don't want to smelt, but I understand the smelt live in other areas too. It's not like we're saving the endangered smelt, are we? I don't think so.
There are a couple of things to recall about what is actually going on right now. The Palisades fire is still expanding. It is going the other direction. It basically burned to the water, so it can't go any further there. But there are areas sort of east towards the four or five and north towards Encino and sort of over the hill into the valley. That's where it's expanding today, slower, thankfully, in the Eton fire up an Altadena. That fire has
now crept all the way up to Mount Wilson. And it's important because there's some pretty important infrastructure up at Mount Wilson. And I don't just say that because of our radio stations and the antennas that we have up there. TV stations across LA have infrastructure up there, including their broadcast towers and things like that. The government has stuff up there at the Mount Wilson Observatory is up there. Some of the camera shots right now show flames at the facilities.
And we've done this before.
We've talked about stories in that fires in that area before, and they've been able to preposition some fire crews up there to prevent that from getting out of hand.
We do not know where they are, I mean I know where they are.
They're obviously busy doing other things, but this could be a significant issue that will keep our eyes on when we come back. We'll go through a handful some of the talkback messages that we've received. You can always leave us a talkback message on the iHeart app.
Just hit that little microphone. It sends us a message.
You can also use your Amazon Alexa enabled device and tell Alexa to send us a message bad news.
Right now.
The fire it alted that began an Alta Dina making its way up Eating Canyon. It has gotten pretty damn close to Mount Wilson.
Now.
There is a line of retardant that has been laid down in between the flames approaching the towers and those towers, those ever important communication towers there at the top of Mount Wilson. But those flames are fast approaching. They were able to get that retardant down there before the flames reached it, so We'll hope that that holds up, because here's the other piece of bad news. One minute ago, it came across that fixed wing air tankers are returning
to bases. They are unable to further drop retardant in that fire area due to turbulence. Remember, these wildfires create weather systems of their own, They create their own turbulence, their own pressure systems, rising cross patterns, all of it. So those fixed wing air tankers are unable to fly in that fire area right now due to the turbulence, which means they are unable to drop retardant to secure those towers from the sky. One more piece of bad news.
Unfortunately La County Fire departments as four firefighters have been injured battling that fire. There, the Eaten Fire Alzadena area has now destroyed nearly one thousand structures, nine hundred and seventy two another eighty four are damaged. It still threatens nearly forty thousand homes.
Wow.
Wow, you mentioned the evacuation warnings and orders throughout LA County. Close to four hundred thousand people. I think it's one hundred and eighty thousand under evacuated orders that have had to find other places to go, and two hundred thousand in the evacuation warning areas which they had suggested. Hey, let's not wait, especially a couple of days ago. Don't wait for that to turn into an order. You should be prepared to get out. You mentioned the fires, the
eating fire now approaching Mount Wilson. It's not just a couple. There's over two dozen TV stations that broadcasts have their transmission towers up there on top of Mount Wilson, and another couple dozen radio stations that have theirs up there as well.
Just in the past few minutes before I went to the commercial and now those flames look to be about a quarter mile away from that tower. Now they're licking the base, and that tower has overcome with.
Asy smoke.
Listen there could the smoke is not a problem if the fire starts getting into the wiring, and the smoke is not a.
Problem, But the smoke indicates the fire is.
On to it.
Yeah.
And then there are two sections there on the top of Mount Wilson. You've got the observatory sort of one section, and then most of the transmission portions on the other section there. I mean, just all kinds of and it's not just TV and radio. You got microwave relay facilities. The big huge one up there is I believe it's Channel two. That's the tallest of all the towers up there cacbs.
So I don't know what to now.
Through four pm, wins are slowly going to increase again. It looks like the strongest wins this evening Inland Empire, Orange County as well. The fire danger stays high until we get some rain. Folks, it's been eight months since we've had rain. Let me look at the forecast. Nope, no rain.
I got have told you that.
I wasn't really looking at the forecast.
Student that was just my own forecast in my head, which I think is zach.
I think it is too.
It's amazing that no one was hurt in that Hollywood Hills evacuation, and I think getting out of that garrid block was one of the only times that I've seen we're using those stupid electric scooters was appropriate.
Yeah, I did hear that a lot from last night that people trying to get out of the Hollywood Hills were frustrated. Listen, they're not designed for evacuations like that, and that's part of the reason why when something like this happens and we all have to be prepared to
get out quickly and as silly as simple things. When we started getting evacuation warnings at our house, I packed the cars and parked them facing out the driveway so that in the event we decided we're going to go, we're going to go.
We're not delly dialing.
Not that that's anybody's fault, but one of the criticisms was that there were no law enforcement officers doing traffic control of any kind at the bigger intersect.
Gaved a couple of minutes, you now, which can be very key.
Hey, Gary and Shannon, love you guys. With the power outages, why is it nobody knows how to deal with a four way stop? If the lights out, it's a four ways stop. So many people are just blasting through these lights accidents in every intersection. Learn how to four way stop people.
I think people are also preoccupied, you know, And I think it's not just complete ignorance. I think people have a million things on their mind, especially if they're evacuating, and you just got to give people a little bit of grace.
Especially if it's at night.
I remember doing stories in Seattle all the time where the wind would knock out power in different I mean it would happen four or five regularly, four or five times a month during the winter, and even driving around at night. You just especially a familiar or an area you're not familiar with. You didn't know that that intersection had a light well.
And when I was trying to get out of my neighborhood on it was that Tuesday night, there were so many trees in the road and uncertainty of what I was going to find. I just wanted to get the hells of the freeway. I was like, I don't know what's going on. There were no lights on, there were no street lights on, there were no home lights on.
It was very scary.
I got to the first main intersection, same thing, and everyone did stop, treated it like a four way stop, but.
Mine was a California stop. I wanted to get the hell out of there.
At least you admit it, hy.
Gari and Shannon, you are so right. I'm so glad that you mentioned it. It's not just all about the celebrities. There have been a lot of people on the internet, Facebook, et cetera that have been saying, oh, it's just celebrity homes. They have plenty of money, they can rebuild, And I'm like, no, you guys don't know. There are homes in Silmar. Altadena grew not out of hills that only have twelve hundred square foot homes. And there's so many other people affected.
It's not just specific palisades. Thank you so much for saying it.
No, well, that's not us. It's just that that's an acknowledgment of that.
This is.
This is very widespread.
It's not the old fashioned fire where Malibu goes up and everybody gets emails as far east as Fontana to see if they're okay.
So this is this is a major major issue.
We talked about the King's game postponed last night, Lakers game postponed tonight, and now the NFL is talking about moving the Rams wild Card playoff game on Monday out of Los Angeles as well. That would be moved to Glendale, Arizona would be would be but they haven't made that
decisiony have not. There was discussion much different reasons. There were discussions about postponing or moving the Cotton Bowl game also out of Dallas, because they're expecting two to four inches of snow tomorrow afternoon, which wouldn't be a problem Dallas as a dome stadium, but it would be a problem.
For people getting to and from the game.
So but again at that point, at this point they've said the Cotton Bowl is going to be played.
Mount Wilson has our attention right now. A wall of flames heading towards a major set of TV radio transmission towers there Mount Wilson, above the fire burning and Eaton Canyon, well not above it anymore.
The fires at Mount Wilson, they.
Were able to lay down a line of fire to tardant before the fixed wing aircraft had to go back to the bases because of turbulence there.
There are not just radio and television towers up there on Mount Wilson, which would be a problem. You've obviously got Mount Wilson Observatory, the historic observatory up there, and it is a they knew it when they built it. That is a fire prone area. So there are some safeguards there. But I mean, some of the TV cameras that we've seen, some of the images from cameras that exist on those towers have shown that the flames are right next to the base of some of those towers.
Well, they've called for the mediate evacuation now of Mount Wilson and the observatory.
I don't know anybody who would have been up there other than people potentially in work care. There's one pickup truck that you could see in some of those images, and there are a couple of different ways to get out of there, but not that they are any better because you've got to go right back down towards the fire for the most part in terms of getting off
of that mountain. But again, it looks like some of those radio and TV towers and other communication infrastructure there on Mount Wilson threatened by the fire.
Northern California up in Mendocino, and I just wanted to thank your coverage of the fire. My daughter is attending school at CSU Northridge and living in Hollywood, and she evacuated last night and I was able to give her real time updates that I was hearing through the internet at your AM radio station. So I just wanted to thank you all for the good work. Thank you so much.
Thank you, And that's I mean.
I can't imagine a cop I have full faith that my daughter for example, would be able to navigate an evacuation warning and a notice, but that would be a terror inducing.
Moment.
My mom went to San Gabriel High School. She has a zoom meeting every week with her friends that went to high school with her. And two of those ladies' daughters have lost their home. I don't know them. But for the first time in twenty plus years of covering fires, twenty four years whatever being down here covering fires or up in northern California as well, this is the first time I've ever known anyone personally.
To lost a home.
And that's just me, But five people I know personally, not counting those two girls that I've never met. Five people I know personally who have lost their homes. I mean that is crazy. I mean, if it's just me, then everybody else, I mean, this is how widespread it is.
Yeah, and it's you think about the major events. You use the term and Neil actually give you credit for it this morning. You use the term that this is a generational thing, that this is something that you will remember for a very long time and may never be
repeated in your lifetime. Are a couple of things like that, not fires, but I know somebody who was I don't know in New York on nine to eleven, right, I know somebody who deployed after that, or I mean events like that that you think of that when it is a large enough event, everybody is impacted by it in some way, And this is, I think you're right, is one of those types of incidents.
I've also gotten a lot of calls and texts, more so than I ever have gotten from people, family members, friends, people I haven't heard from in years, concerned because they're watching this on the twenty four hour news networks, right, the people that live in other parts of the country, and we're in it like we are in it, and we are hyper focused on all the details and getting the information out, and everyone else in the area is in it, so you may not be able to kind of like zoom out and see.
The scope of just how bad it is.
On and back east.
I mean, we can talk about the distance as an example, between the Palisades fire and the eat And fire. It's even thirty miles or whatever it is between the two fires. But if you show a map, if you're watching NBC's nightly news, for example, and they show a map of La and you're not familiar with it. You think it's all burning right and that those fires are going to merge.
They're not.
But I mean that you we lose kind of the scale of some of it. And even you're right because we're smack in the middle between these two fires, at least at work that it kind of it's hard to step back from it and try to give perspective to other people.
Everything. We're fine, Everything's going to be okay, that kind of stuff.
More talkbacks, by the way, leave us a talkback message on the iHeart app.
Just hit the microphone and send us a message.
Hey, dumbass, how much more do you want us to donate if they don't put keep water in the fire?
Hydrogens?
Dumb ass, hydrate hydrogens.
I think he was referring to the suggestion that we donate to the La City Fire Foundation, which benefits firefighters in their families, or the California Fire Foundation, which benefits firefighters in their families, as opposed to donating.
To the city of La And we would never advocate for that.
But don't worry, I'm the dumbass.
You are a dumb ass. Thank you, I mean in a sweet, nice, fun way. Oh, I didn't mean that You're a dumb ass.
You know that, right?
All mark cards.
Can I tell you the stupidest headline I've ever read? Okay that I can remember. It's from TMZ, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Houses saved like Private Ryan. Well, what else are they going to do? Not be that dumb? Talk about a dumb ass?
Covering the fires continued.
Of course, the power all estates fires up over seventeen thousand acres. But one of the places that we've been watching most closely in the last few minutes has been the Eton fire as it creeps up the hill towards Mount Wilson.
Just like every other point where these fires have erupted, this thing moved furiously, angrily, and very quickly as it made its way towards those towers. As we mentioned, they did look like they were able to get a ring of fire retardant in between the flames and the towers. At one point, it looks like those flames have passed that line and make matters worse, the fixed wing aircraft had to go back to the bases because of turbulence.
Doug Irwin is our regional engineering lead here for IHEARTLA and has been up there on Mount Wilson. Let's talk about, first of all, just the importance of what that place is. There's dozens of radio, TV and other communications towers up there.
Right and I'm just watching the monitor right now because the camera is showing right outside of one of our buildings. As a matter of fact, it's it's very scary. But we've also got our own cameras and are own stuff up there. They're still going even right now. But yeah, probably about ninety percent of the radio and TV for the Greater LA area is coming from from the top of Mount Wilson. I mean it's not complete, but the vast majority of it comes from there.
So knowing that, I mean it's probably designated some sort of special protection site by fire by the state. I mean, they have an interest in keeping those us, keeping us on the air.
Well, I would certainly hope. So it doesn't appear to be that way at the minute that I know that they're doing everything they can possibly up there. Right now, I see that looks like maybe some fixed wing aircraft are flying around again. But I understand that weather conditions are not favorable. It's not safe, so you know, we unfortunately have to live with the consequences.
Well, what's the worst case scenario.
The worst case scenario is that every one of the sites burns down, and because the buildings are pretty old. The site is pretty old, so fifty sixty years. Most of the buildings are made of wood, a lot of them have stucco and so forth. But I think probably the biggest danger is the roofs catching on fire and so forth. So what would happened is that you probably have a very spotty radio and television transmission from Mount Wilson for at least a couple of weeks.
So what other sites are used to transmit and are they even a fraction and forgive me for being ignorant, are they even a fraction of how powerful I don't even know if that's the right term.
Mount Wilson is.
Well, they don't get out as well as Mount Wilson. And that's the reason they don't use is primary sites. Mount Wilson is a great site. It's it's world class, it's well known, everybody. Everybody knows it, and that's one reason there's so much interest in what's going on. There's a couple other sites. There's one mountain called Verdugo that a lot of sites are on. There's some there's some backups up there. There's Flint Peak, which is in Glendale.
There's some backups up there. There's our other site in Hollywood Hills. I remember up there too, so.
When we were out in field and we would use the RPU units and it would always be pointing your truck towards one of the transmitter sites. And Verdugo and Hollywood Hills were always hit or miss. Mount Wilson was always the surefire way to go.
Mount Wilson can be seen from a long ways. It's fifty six hundred feet at the top and it gets out as we would say, a long ways, and that's why it's so coveted for transmitters out there.
They talk about the unobstructed views that Mount Wilson has of just I mean most, not all, but most of southern California, most of the main.
Places that we would look at.
What's access like getting up there on a good day, not today, but on a good day on.
A good day. Now a problem highway too goes up there. There's there's It's Angelo's Crust Highway runs up there. It's really easy it's it's a very busy place on weekends. As a matter of fact, fact, you don't want to go up there on Saturday night because there's so many cars and the people running around there. But normally not a problem. It's easy to get up there. It's a nice two lane road. They repave it about every five years or so. It's it's taken it's well taken care of.
Mount Wilson Observatory is a place where a lot of people go to visit. Yeah, so it's not just our businesses up there, the radio and television transmission, but Mount Wilson Observatory is is a like a tourist attraction.
Now we're talking with Dougar when who is our regional engineering lead for iHeart about the fire, the eating fire that's approaching Mount Wilson and just the treasure trove of the communications towers that exist up there, radio, television, microwave relays and a bunch of different things up there. Who would be up there on a daylight today, I mean would just be guys like you.
Yeah, people like neg going up there for regular visits, like the Channel four engineer who is up there on a daily basis. There are several the TV stations that have people post up there.
You see a lot of that lot those.
Are those are people in the working for the fire department. Okay, yeah, those are like fire trucks and so forth. So there's a lot of visitors up there on a regular basis, and we go up there once every week or once over a couple of weeks are our own self to check.
All our stuff outside of the cameras that we have that our company has up there kind of helping protect our equipment. Do you have other ways to judge whether or not it's going to impact transmission for us? And by us I mean the company, h well.
Just regularly.
Well we know from prior experience. So back in September twenty twenty amidst COVID, we had a big series of fires that burn up them Mount Wilson, and so we know what we had to go through in that particular time. And the fire basically didn't burn quite as close as it appears to have this time, but it did burn right up to the road. And major problems are just smoke and dust getting into everything, I believe it or not,
air filters getting jammed up. That's probably what's going to be the first thing that knocks us off the air. And really, to be honest with you, is is air filters. They get full of particular matter.
Wow. So, but.
Didn't affect the road that I recall, And it didn't you know, it burned up the other side. It burned from the from the east and came west that time as opposed to south and north. So the results are going to be somewhat different. I'm afraid to say, well, I know you're keeping an eye on it. So, but thanks for coming in and helping ever well, I appreciate it.
Again, Doug Or when one of our engineering leads here at KFI and iHeart here in Los Angeles, do you think.
It pains people when they have to come in and dumb things down for.
Us a little bit, a little bit, a little part of them to say he's happy to leave.
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.