(09/09) GAS Hour 4 - What’s Happening

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.

What else is going on?

Time for what's happening? Wow?

Well, as of this morning, the fire up in San Bernardino County has burned through more than twenty thousand acres and thousands of homes have had to be evacuated in Running Springs, Highland Redlands. Even they believe about thirty six thousand structures remain threatened and there's a state of emergency in place. They've called firefighters from all over the country in the East Coast.

So I'm still like ninety degrees there.

I think you mentioned earlier how terrifying it would be to just leave and not know the fate of your home, and how horrible that is. It is a wonderful site for homeowners when they see the air attack on any fire. Coming up next, Steve Gregory will join us to see where we stand when it comes to what's available for us this firefighting season. California's life expectancy has dropped, ranking tenth in the nation.

Yeah, but look at what it's dropped from from what to what? This is like the headline doesn't necessarily leave live up to the story, right.

Yeah, it went from seventy seven years to seventy six point four years.

Yeah, it's good.

That's what are you going to do with that point six of a year that you're losing?

Don't waste time?

Well, it was quite the scene yesterday at Sofi Stadium. Of course, everyone's been waiting for the return of the NFL, and people get a little too excited in week one. They forget how to act, They forget what their alcohol consumption or level that they are safely going to live out their day in. People were wasted. It was hot, it was humid. There were several calls all over the stadium for fights and medics and all sorts of things.

It was was ugly out there.

And what about on the field on this on the field as well field near that at all.

I was it was very exciting.

It's just exciting to see the players care, you know, to that level and fight for it. A couple of out yeah, Joshua Palmer and Raiders safety Marcus Epps, those were the first two. But Marcus EPs was going after Palmer all game. I mean, he's getting away with stuff and not being called on it, and so Palmer had enough of it. And then Palmer's wide receiver room, Lad McConkey and Quentin Johnston got in and they had his back,

You would expect that, wouldn't you.

The guy gets in a fight, they're going all the other ten guys are going to sit there and just watch. But you know what I wanted to ask you and tell people is like when you're on the sideline near the line of scrimmage in a pro football game or even a big time college game. It's incredible, right the way they hit the first He doesn't translate on TV.

Not it does not the first time.

I know, I'm forgetting his name, the running back that that the Chargers running back? How am I forgetting his name? But this was like seven years ago? Is my first game? No running back before I was Tom Winson, No after.

At any rate, it's going.

To drive me insane.

I'll help you.

Melvin Gordon.

Okay, okay, So Melvin Gordon takes a snap, he's in the backfield, takes a snap and hits the a gap on the line of scrimmage and this which is the sound in between the linemen who's trying to run in between his linemen, right, and uh, the sound of the tackle, I thought, and with the force that he.

Was hit, I thought he was dead.

I mean he was a pretty big guy to six feet or so two thirty.

Yeah.

I've watched football my whole life. I've gone to games my whole life. But being on the sideline there and seeing that hit that close and the sound of it, I didn't think he.

Was going to get up. I thought it was dead.

And it was just a routine tackle, routine run. It's just a full speed car crash over and over and over again. And the other thing is is they move so fast so that if you're right on the sideline and the action's coming your way, you it's the speed of sound. I mean, you have to a beat to get.

Out of the way.

So if you had a son or a daughter, would you let them play tackle football?

I don't know. I don't know.

Have you thought about that?

No, I haven't, because that's an issue for a lot of a lot of parents.

Sure, I mean I.

Think it get there's it's a give and take, right because being on.

A team and playing game.

Sure, yeah, we talked about that earlier.

There's so many advantages of that and for your whole life. You can take what you learned and the discipline in and all of it and apply it to so many different things.

Sure, but you can get that on a lot of teams. It is HiT's different. I think.

I don't know about you know, badminton. I don't know. I don't know, But no, I.

Know, I know, but that that is a tough question because it's a violent support and we hear so much about concussions and we hear about There was a great piece. I don't know if you have access to the athletic I do. I love the athletic.

There's this long.

Piece on Troy Aikman and how he, you know, won all these games and won Super Bowls with a concussion because this is you know, back in the day, you'd get one of those ammonia capsules and sniffet and you're right back in there.

Before they had all those you.

Know, the neurologists on the sideline and at any rate, so there's sort.

Of this macho pride to taking.

A hit and you know, getting back in the game, but you're risking your life.

And the Philip Rivers played with a torn acl through that playoff game.

Yeah, you know those kinds of stories. Of course, that's different than a concussion, but it is.

It is, all right, Phil.

What I like to do from time to time is just make up a reason to bring Steve Gregory in here, like pretend to care about whatever story he's covering, and then just bring him in here to shoot the s.

I guess that's a backhanded compliment.

Oh yeah, because we're friends. Yeah, And so I haven't seen you in like over a week, and I missed you, and so I.

Called you one day and I say, hey, what are you doing? And you're like, I'm on vacation.

I'm like, what do he want?

Sorry? I'm like, I didn't realize it was allowed to call you on vacation. Friends.

We are friends. So I guess what what is it you're talking about today?

Phil had it all, he read it out, work for all. It's very timely very professional.

Yeah, very timely because we're talking fires and fire fighting.

Yeah, today is the marks the thirty first anniversary of the big yellow birds that have come come to roost from the government of Quebec Canada.

I love the Canadians. They are so they are such a nice people.

Jacob just went to Canada and had nothing but good things to say about the Canadians.

I think, And actually we're going to lose him to Canadian pancake house.

He wants to make syrup now and do tours.

He wants to do tours and he wants to drive the ETV around all of the you know, the vineyards.

And right, no, I mean I said hi to him.

I haven't seen him in a while either this morning, and he did about eighteen minutes on syrup and syrup making and the nutritional benefits of syrup.

Well, he's about to marry into that family.

Different ways you can make syrup? Has he asked the question.

Well, I thought this might have been here because there's nothing more romantic than you know, syrup in the background.

Uh, yeah, you see, we're getting to that time. Jacob, my husband found this out where we had been together about four years and I started thinking that every trip, every weekend, that was going to be the proposal, and then it wasn't.

And then I started.

Getting real pissed off, real pissed off. Until we're in Mexico one time and there's tequila, and I said, what the hell is wrong with you? What's taking so long? And then you then you screw the whole thing.

Up right talking about firefighting, Well, there's a lot of fire behind.

This because it's a forced engagement at that point, like it wasn't going to be something he did out of his own volition. I basically held a gun to his head and that's and then did he do it eventually?

Yeah?

Not then about a month after. Yeah, but you should see the pre Yeah, you should see the preme up.

So the super Scoopers are back in La County and they're here. Uh. And then, like I said, this is the thirty first year. I had no idea. I mean, Phil, you've you've beenized it long and and I didn't realize either more than three decades. And there is something special about looking at those two big yellow planes that are only built for dropping water.

Right, but we have in California. The budget is like four hundred billion dollars. Why do we have to lease planes from from Canada to fight fires?

Well, this is just a county thing. The state has nothing to do with this particular agreement. And here's the weird thing. And I think you probably back me up on this. So other pilots I've talked to in the air attack industry have said that the Super Scoopers are more comfort oh really than they are.

Effective?

Oh interesting, Oh so it's I've heard that. I heard that in the field too.

Yeah, where it's more. Oh, here's the Super Scoopers. Y. Yeah, safety theater. Look, the Scoopers are here. We're all fine now.

But I would I would argue that the Chinooks, now, those big double rotors that can carry three thousand callons, the Super Scoopers can carry about sixteen hundred and twenty gallons apiece. There's two of them, and it takes them about fifteen to twenty seconds to fill up when they have to. I think it's forty five hundred feet they have to have in order to fill the belly of those Super Scoopers up and then fly back over the flames.

It was like the only thing they had at the time.

But as I mentioned, I've talked to some that say the scoopers are sort of more I think that's the perfect term for it. Would you say safety theater? Yes?

Yeah?

Do you who do you think you like more cops or firefighters?

I have no favorites.

You don't have a favorites if you had to choose.

They're all equal to me, all badges, all first responders, all first response.

So in this situation up in the highland, up in the mountains, I mean, how with the mountains, how does that impact like the aerial attack? I mean you fly fixed wing in there very easily.

The Sorry, I had to back up here because I want.

To look up something to ask you a real question. I know, right, we've all been out there and seen it. I mean they do they do fly like the DC tens over and drop the fire retard.

No.

See, I'm looking up my super secret app here real quick. That shows me all of the aerial attack and.

The reason I wanted to do.

That was because I'm looking at what kind of firepower is coming from the air out there.

Fixed wing.

I know that when I looked it up a little bit ago, that Sea one thirty from the state is down here.

Okay, so that's new.

That's new, that's brand new, just went into service last week, and that has the capability of dropping thousands of gallons of fire retardant. And so a fixed wing can get in there and do advanced work, but they can't really get close in there. And this terrain is incredibly steep, right, It's very rugged, and that's why helicopters. A helicopters are the best tool to attack that fire. And that's why the chinnooks are really good because they can bring in

There's probably not a ton of sites out there to refuel either. I mean, obviously there's huge lakes, but not sure what the reservoirs are.

Lake Arrowhead is a big one fact. I'm looking right now at one of the helicopters were feeling at Lake Arrowhead.

I'm just wondering what the flight time is from Lake Arahead to the fire line, not.

Far right there, because you've got running springs up there that's being threatened.

But air attack.

You know, one of the cool things about being in southern California, we still have the largest fleet of helicopters and planes in the world.

Nothing makes me happier than seeing the air power over a fire. I don't even care if it's a I don't care what aircraft it is, but even if it is. Safety theater, I love DC tens probably.

My Have you ever got foss check dumped on you? Sure?

Yeah, that's brutal, Yeah, yeah, and you got to be careful because that's also very dangerous. Yeah, I mean because the weight you could it could knock you down. Have you ever seen what it does to a vehicle? It can crush a vehicle at full power. Well, I've seen it, you know, discolor of the vehicles I've never seen. No, it took it took a while to get out of my skin, and once it's fortunately it's non toxic.

I still look a little pink.

And I was asking I was asking Blake Trotlly about earlier. It's like the firefighters have to be taking so many breaks during this kind of heat because you know, it's so intense for them. That's got to impact their ability to fight these kind of fires. I mean from the ground, it's got to be so much more difficult with the temperatures so high.

Yeah, and a lot of times when they're up there, like when you've got a strike crew or when you've got a hotshot crew up there and they're sort of isolated from the rest of the team. They are conditioned to take those breaks.

They have to.

I mean, it's part of their training. And with those temperatures being on the triple digits out there, the ground temperature and that sort of manufactured temperature because of the flames and the heat, they have to be very, very careful and cautious. And that's why they have to helicopter in resources too, water, protein, things of that nature. So there's constantly sort of a steady stream of resources going in to help those firefighters.

Steve, thank you.

Sure, that's all you needed.

That's all we needed.

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 ze pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app,