(09/10) GAS Hour 2 - Inmate Firefighters

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 Stories we are following for you today. Well, Hey, the debate's tonight. This is a big one, and that new poll says thirty percent of registered voters say the debate will help them decide who to vote for. And I got to believe the more I think about that, the more it makes sense to me. With all the people we don't hear from the people in the middle,

Which makes tonight all the more important.

Right, Steve Gregory joins us with some news he is going to break for us and how apropos when we're talking about these massive fires all over southern California.

Yeah, you know, yesterday I was at that press conference who announced the arrival of the two super scoopers from Quebec, Canada, and La County Fire Chief Anthony Moroney was there and I pulled him aside as I do in a lot of these press conferences, and I just wanted to get a little bit of a one on one with him and ask him some concerns about what's going on overview of the fire season, the remainder of the fire season. But then I get into this sort of area that

And this was his response, We have the number of bodies that we need to handle. The fire risk of particular concern to La County Fire. The state has notified us that they intend to move our inmate wildland hand crews out of La County beginning in twenty twenty five,

What is the reasoning?

So there was no reason as of right now, there's been no answer given others, and so the chief here in the next county he sort of explains because then I said, I've kind of got around it, and I said, well, well, then what are your overall concerns.

When you asked me what my concerns are, my paramount concern right now is the loss of our inmate wildland firefighting hand crewse. We've been advised that it was supposed to begin July first of twenty twenty five. However it might be as soon as January of twenty twenty five. That would more than cut in half the number of wildland firefighters that we have here in La County.

And the reason not sure. The government hasn't given you a reason why.

Well, it's going to save the state money to reallocate our crews to the inmate camps located throughout the state of California, but here in La County, we have a tremendous wildland threat and we need to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep those crews here.

Steve.

For people who don't watch fire Country the way I do religious.

Things, yes, and what an accurate portrayal.

By the way, it is not, but it does highlight how important these crews are. Can you the hand crews talk about the work that these crews do and how it is essential for the firefighting affort.

These hand crews are the ones that are out there cutting the line, as they say, and that line is what contributes to containment. And when we say it on KFI News, we talk about surrounding the fire. You hear often it's five percent contained. Well contained means surrounded, and those hand crews are the ones that are on the

But there's not that many left are there compared to what we've had in years past.

No, and that's because when COVID hit a lot of the inmates that they count on there was no incentive anymore because they were all being let out because of COVID, So there was no incentive for them to stay in and go through the training. Because here's the thing, and this is what the chief was making a point about offline. He said, these inmate fire crews, when they go through training, they are certified wildline firefighters, right, but.

They're paid almost nothing, right, so it can't be a budget issue.

It's well, it's a budget issue for the people that are managing them.

It's a transportation it's where you put.

It's actually but here's the weird thing.

Here's the weird thing.

I just found out from Chief John O'Brien there at County Fire. He said, cal Fire just approved funding for nine brand new hand crews for cal Fire. They're taking these inmate crews away from La County. And by the way, get this, it only costs four point eight million dollars the whole program for this crew. Yeah, for La County only four point eight. So now the county they got no advanced word on this, no notice that this was happening,

Well, in the sentencing changes in California have resulted in a dwindling number of these inmates as well.

Prop forty seven, maybe one oh nine, all of those things on those lower of fence right crimes they are there's before you used to be an incentive to go to these fire crews when you were on the verge of being released, or you were good behavior, parold whatever it is.

But here's the thing. They also, when I say they're.

Certified wildline firefighters, they can get work sure as firefighters. And Chief Maroni was saying that this is probably one of their best transitional programs they have.

It is called the Department of Corrections and Rehabilization right exactly.

Well, and that's the thing, it's like, what benefit are you getting if you're just not getting sentenced for committing your crime or what have you. And then as opposed to getting a light sentence getting work in one of these camps and then one you are parolled getting gainful employment with a firefighting agency. Isn't that a better rehab program than just not punishing people for the crimes that they're committing.

But four point eight million dollars is the savings that they're going to realize.

Now.

They're not doing this with anybody else in the state, by the way, So four point eight million, they tend to say from this, but they just spent forty five million on these six new handcrews.

Wow, at CalFire, go figure.

Steve Gregory, come to us with better news tomorrow.

Okay, how about that?

How about I don't know whiskey.

Wednesday, whiskey Wednesday with whiskey. Okay, that sounds good. Did you hear what happened at that half marathon over the wad?

Oh my god? Yeah.

A runner died after finishing the Disneyland Hollywood Halloween half marathon on Sunday. Thirty three year old Caleb Graves was his name, began clutching his chest as he crossed the finish line. First responders immediately providing assistance. He was taken to a hospital pronounced dead about an hour later. In a TikTok video the day before the race, he shared his concerns about the heat in Anaheim, saying he had passed out not long after walking his dog outside for around twenty minutes.

Right, but they intentionally started it very early. I mean this happened at seven am, before things get hot. And he was an experienced runner, a young and apparently healthy with no symptoms or health issues.

It's really frightening.

Tonight, the Dodgers take on the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium, first pitch at seven o'clock. Listen to every play on AM five seventy LA Sports, stream all games NHD on the iHeartRadio app Keyword AM five seventy LA Sports powered by LA Care for all of LA.

What happened last night? They lost badly to the Cubs.

Yeah, their future is very much uncertain, I think even though everyone's expecting them to go to the World Series. What's going on with the pitching situation. Well, they've had so many injuries. Their high dollar free agents have been hurt and coming back slowly. Kershaw has been out with a toe injury, and their offense from the you know, the middle of the order down is sputtering.

As they say, well they just cut off that toe.

Yeah he would Deon, did he would?

Yeah?

Kershaw would cut that toe off if it would make a difference. But remember last year they flamed out in three games in the first round. So the pitching is is definitely an issue. Thank goodness for Jack Flaherty, who they acquired, who's done well, but they really don't have any dependable starting pitching.

Hey.

Coming up next, there was an article in the La Times about forest schools.

I love this idea. I like that term forest school. Yes, it's just nature is so good for you.

And the more that we get kids outside and off the screens, sure, I think, the better their mental health will be and everything will be moving forward. So these forest schools are picking up traction. We'll tell you about that coming up next. But first we're going to kill you with dengay. A rare case of dengay, the viral infection spread by mosquitoes, is here. It was confirmed in

Yeah, you know what I mean.

I remember that day. I remember it crossing and being like, oh, this is weird.

There's this rare Chinese virus. Sure, I remember that too.

Susan Hereris Soon and I were anchoring the weekend news on Fox eleven, and remember it was the Seattle cruise ship that was quarantined off shore for a while, and nobody quite knew exactly what was going on.

It was a very uncertain, frightening time.

Yeah, I remember that, getting the alert on my phone, just thinking like, oh, this is much ado about nothing, and then getting an alert on my phone that March Madness was canceled, and that's when I knew it was serious because of the billions of dollars they would miss out on. And then Tom Hanks got it and then the world shut down.

Yeah, I mean that was more. That was like four and a half years ago. It was like March twenty twenty.

So this is not that but it is No, it's hard, it's not good. Dangay is bad. High fever, severe headache, leading to you know, internal bleeding and organ failure. They say that the potential risk for widespread Danay virus transmission in La County remains low. But this we knew it was going to rive because we reported on it on the East coast a couple of weeks ago, so it

Well, maybe this means we're going to see and hear more from Barbara Ferrara again.

Oh for the love of God, come on, No, not a fan.

I just wanted to feed her like every time I saw it, Give her a sandwich.

Anything like, I get it.

If she's a vegan or whatever, mixing some more chickpeas, get her out in the sun. A little little vitamin D would go a long way. And it's not a knock on her appearance. It's just a knock on. I want her bones to like last, you know, and herd it be strong moving forward in.

Life, especially as the director of public.

Health exactly how ironic was that?

That was such a scary time. You know, I think back to that, and you know, we were out in the field all the time. I had one of those plastic visors on as well as the mask and the feast of exactly it was. It was very it was a very frightening time, obviously in a very costly time.

So you guys, you know, I didn't even think about that. I didn't watch a lot of a ton of locals and TV news.

So we're out in the field interacting with people every day from a distance. Instead of using the hand mic, we had like the poles like they would use like in a movie or TV show, like.

A boom mic.

Yeah yeah, so we'd stay you know, six or seven or eight feet away. It was it was a very scary time before the vaccine came out and you're covering that.

Were there were reporters that said I'm not doing this.

Oh absolutely, yeah yeah, and and they were supported by the stations. I mean, and the station, to their credit, took expensive precautions to try to keep people safe.

But we still had to work and cover the news.

But you put your life on the line for Fox eleven.

I don't know if I.

Would describe it that way, but I guess technically, yeah, people people were dying.

You didn't know.

Yeah, you tried to be careful, but.

I wouldn't have done that.

Did you get it? I did.

Yeah.

I didn't get it till till when it was almost done. I got it.

I don't remember when, but I remember I was just a little bit tired and it was a little bit of a sore throat. And that was it. I mean, I still like worked out and everything, and yeah, quarantining and now it's just like threat And that was like Jacob. I had into broadcast from home for a week and Jacob was my only connection to the outside world, and it was it was wild. Billionaire has rocketed back into orbit,

What was that one called? Got? I don't know that was good? You liked that one?

Yeah?

I didn't find them believable really, but I'm a cynical being. Lottery player is going to be lining up today, have gravity, that's right to take their shot at claiming one of the biggest mega millions jackpots in history, The top prize up for grabs at least eight hundred million dollars after no one correctly picked the winning numbers for Friday's evening drawing. Do you have a did you, when you're at Fox eleven have a lotto pool?

Yeah?

We did occasionally when it got big.

Sure, did you ever think that the person in charge of the pool was secretly winning the lottery? I did not, and then just hiding the money and pretending to live a regular life.

That's Michelle here. Really.

Yes, she runs our lotto pool and I have this fan fiction where like she's hit a big one, like we have hit a big one, and.

She she keeps it to herself, keeps.

It to herself like millions, Like she's sitting on millions of dollars, but she keeps up the appearances like she's living a normal life.

I did do a pool with a bunch of college friends and they it was through email, and there were all of these rules you know, if if two people have the same you know, they tie and split and who It was almost like it needed another lawyer to analyze it all.

But you wonder that.

Those those rules had to come from fights amongst friends that were in lotto pools together and went to litigation over her.

It would be a good problem to have, right it would be.

Yeah.

Okay, So nature based education, there's a whole movement going on, they say. In recent years this concept has exploded a mid worries about kids getting lost on screens, the country's mental health crisis when it comes to kids, and then the pandemic of course, turbocharged the trend.

Schools closed.

Parents tried to find places where their kids could still learn. I was a huge proponent of not closing the schools but moving them outside. There's plenty of outdoor areas in LA where you could just teach out outside.

Well, that's kind of what this program is talking about, right right, he's kind of put down your screen and go climb a tree.

Well, I don't know about climbing. That sounds a little dangerous, phil Or climb a rock, climb a rock, look at a tree. Yes, the benefits have been weighed. They say that research shows nature based learning supports creativity, resiliency, executive function, school readiness, and a host of other benefits for the body and mind. I mean, just you go out there and you take a walk, it puts you in a better move Sure, it makes sense. Yeah, and Lust is doing this.

They have several programs apparently with that premise, and it mainly seems like it's focused on younger students, like the preschoolers, the kindergarteners, the first grader, which I like.

Because what are you going to learn at that age sitting in a classroom like that. As of the last school year, there were about eight hundred nature preschools to your point in the US that is a two hundred percent increase since twenty seventeen.

Makes perfect sense here in southern California, not obviously on days like today Whi's one hundred and ten, but overall.

Exactly, California among the top three states with the highest number of these schools. Kids they're finding are happier and healthier, and then, as the La Times puts, it may be poised to become the next generation of climate warriors. Okay, let's pump the brakes a little bit here, but that's class and getting ahead of the game a little bit exactly. Yeah, it was really interesting though, how many people are involved in this, And they said it began in Scandinavia.

They call it forest schools, which is a great image. It's a broader based, nature based education movement. We were talking but remember when in college we you'd have the rare day where the professor would say, let's go outside, yeah, and sit on the grass and discuss, you know, Marxist philosophy or whatever it is.

We do that from time to time with this show. We say let's go do the show outside. Oh you're doing it on the road on Thursday. That's right, it's inside. But we'll go up to the balcony and it always sounds good and theory up on the fifth floor, and then we realize how hot it gets out there, and it's this direct sun, and we last about an hour and then we si see our way out of our outdoor broadcast. Here's the problem with the nature schools currently.

Yeah, it makes sense.

It's not perfect, but you know, Laust obviously public school is still working on it too, so there's different.

Kinds right right, But I mean, if we could expand this, that would be something for people to throw their money at. If they could make it accessible to public school kids as well, or just make an effort to license them so that you can have access to the public dollars.

Well, there was.

An article and Time Out that found that dating in LA is awful. It's awful, And we happen to have somebody who's dating in La on the show Richie What is Single? And he's out there and uh a mingle, why do you think that La wound up on the lousy end of this list?

You know, it's La.

Everyone is always looking for someone better, including myself, Like I can't stay with like, Okay, I find someone we're vibing, and then someone else that comes around and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna skip on that one.

Let's try this one out. And it just it's a non ending circle.

You know.

It's kind of hard also because you know, everything's so like spread out, like honestly, like I have like a fifteen minute mile radius little rule that I have, like if you're not within that radius, it's probably not gonna work out because I don't feel like being in traffic to go hang out or you know, go grab lunch or whatnot.

That holds up because when I started dating my husband, I lived in Hollywood and he lived in Marina del Rey, and it was awful. In fact, I moved in within like a couple months because I just didn't want to commute, Like I probably should not have moved in that quickly, but I didn't want to deal with that drive.

Oh my god, I feel you girl.

No, it's it's a thing like honestly, like it's very hard, you know, and I feel like, yes, there is a lot of places to go and hang out and you know, chill and get to know people. That isn't the issue. It's more like the challenging part is the factors of the city, the size, the traffic and you know, just the population itself. I just feel like it's just too much. But you know what falls around the corner. It's time to you know, grab your like cuddle buddy and you know, hop on those apps.

I have a question about finding someone better and the grasp being grainer with somebody else.

Okay, do you keep like a bench.

Like is there is there people like get voted off the team or are you just like one person at a time and then you trade them out for a new person or do you like to keep a little like a bench.

You know, I'm geminized, so I know how to balance pretty well.

So I don't know how this goes, but I would see a bench for sure.

But you know, I make it clear like I'm just hanging out AKA getting to know you.

Doesn't mean that I'm going.

To settle in and you know, bust the mission of Vegas and get married type thing.

You know, but what if they fall in love with you? And that's always great? Yeah, but it takes two to tango, you know, right. I feel like I should stay out of this discussion. You guys are doing great.

Why well, first of all, this the research that we're citing.

Oh yeah, you should talk about that. And you're studied by fetish Finder. Are we familiar with fetish Finder? Never really?

I know grinder.

Let's see, I'll google it for the sake of the team. All right, fetish Finder. I'm going to get all sorts of things. Oh lord, oh boy, here we go, Here we go. I am eighteen and older, agree and continue popular fetish. I don't know if I can say these things. Okay, Well feet is one of them. It's a fetish website. Yeah yeah, so banking it ranked? Should we mention the city stress saying the worst ten cities in the US

People into armpits?

Philly, Chicago, San Antonio, the worst top five.

I have to pay for armpits? You guys.

I clicked on armpit fetishes and Pink Fox wants to charge me six dollars to look.

At her armpits.

No thanks, This guy wants me to spend eight dollars.

Oh so should I put my foot pictures online?

But like charge for thirty The Internet needs to be turned off. This is awful.

This person, Princess Annie, charges fifteen bucks to see her armpits.

Who's doing that? There's armpits everywhere.

Go walk around.

It's summer in LA. You'll catch an armpit.

Everything on the internet for everyone, right, it seems like it.

Yeah, you more fetishes? I was looking up the best cities for dating? What do you think the best cities for dating?

Are? You?

Guys? There's a there's a you got to move off this, you got to move off, hold.

On, hold on.

There's like a subset of fetishes, like for feet, there's some people that are into like if you have only nine.

Toes, I don't, or if.

You have one foot with six toes that's the thing, that's the thing.

Sorry, fills out of here.

By the way, Seattle is said to be one of the best city, the best cities for dating.

Seattle.

Oh really, I can see that they've got good little neighborhoods there, like Belltown, Fremont. Sure I'll see me too, all right, I see what you did there, Phil.

You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.

You and 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.