Wildfire Coverage Part 2 | Hour 1

in southern California and the greater Los Angeles area. Of course, news coverage will be coming as always from the twenty four hour KFI Newsroom. Where I'm going to focus my attention as I began to yesterday and today will continue to today, is on some subjects of Number one, fire

hardening homes against these kinds of fires. Number two, answering any of your questions that you may have, because we'll be taking calls as always, and we'll also hopefully be able to take calls on a full array of subjects, anything that you actually want to talk about. More on that in just a bit. But most importantly, I want to talk about what happens next, because slowly but surely,

these fires are coming under control. Okay, now, it's not fast, and that does in no way, shape or form means that we are out of trouble when it comes to these fires. The current status we will discuss briefly shortly, The Palisades Fire eleven percent contained. That's up a good three percent from yesterday in terms of containment. That's good news. Twenty four thousand acres burned, though, that is not good news. And fire is now twenty seven percent contained. That's a

big jump from yesterday. That's good news as well. The Kenneth Fire that popped up in the West Hills area on Thursday one hundred percent contained as of this morning, currently reporting, the Lydia Fire one hundred percent contained. The Hurst Fire eighty nine percent contained in the north near San Fernando. So we're making ground. We're making ground, but nowhere near the finish line for any of these blazes,

and new homes and new areas being threatened. Even now, now that the wind has started to rise back up again, worst wind day that we're anticipating for this week is going to be Tuesday. Are we going to see gusts in the sixty to eighty mile an hour category? It is not anticipated. It's anticipated that we're just going to see what we would call here in southern California normal Santa Anna wins. But believe me, those are enough, those

are enough to become problematic. So that's where we are currently. Ellie County is reporting I believe I haven't updated this number yet. As of yesterday, Ellie County was reporting eleven fatalities in association with these fires, more than twelve thousand

structures damaged or destroyed. And without question, these are now not just the most severe natural disaster in terms of wildfire to hit the Los Angeles area in its history, these are the costliest wildfire disasters in US history, totaling over right now an estimated fifty billion dollars in damages. So the big question is where do we go from here. I do not mean to make light of the ongoing battling efforts. That's why the KFI newsroom is going to

be continuing to update us. But what I wanted to discuss with you this morning is for those of you who have not experienced this yet, how do you defend your house against it? And number two, for those of you who have experienced not just oh there was a fire, and our house burnt, an area of our house burnt. Now, what happens when an entire neighborhood, when an entire region is burnt to the ground? How do we restart from that? What are some of the factors that you could anticipate,

and what are your next steps? We're going to try and cover all of that this morning. I am here with you as always to help in any way that I can. Of course, we're going to be taking calls. The phone lines are open now eight three three two ask Dean eight three three the numeral to ask Dean. We're up on social media. More on that later. Let me introduce our awesome team. Elmer is on the board. Good morning, Elmer, Good morning Dean, Good morning everyone. Producer Richie,

I believe is standing near a microphone this time? Is it true? So true? Good morning guys, Oh my gosh, what a rare occurrence. You've heard it? Yes, I rolled out of bed this time and came to the studio. Hey brother, good to hear your voice this morning. Glad to be here with her. Thanks. Eileen Gonzalez at the KFI twenty four hour news desk, how you doing, Eileen? Good morning, I'm doing great. How are you guys. We're okay, We're okay.

You know, we're just pushing through. I'm not really looking forward to all the stuff that I have to talk about in the next three hours, but it's important stuff. Sopping people out. You're doing a great service. We're just going to do what we need to do. Of course, sitting across the table from me, my better half, my design partner, my best friend in the world, Tina is here, my kid, clearing her throat. I was actually waiting for

that before I said anything. Welcome home, Good morning, How are you doing.

about your home and fires and or natural disasters. And I know we have a lot of listeners nationwide who listen to the podcast or listen to the live broadcast of the show right here and right now. For you, fire talk is always relevant no matter where you live on planet Earth. But the discussion specifically of the Los Angeles wildfires right now you may not feel is entirely relevant to you. But because of the scope of these fires, they are a natural disaster that has affected entire region.

And so our response to that the question answering the question how do you rebuild? What does that process look like after an entire region has been devastated by a natural disaster? Hopefully, and I think you will be able to glean a lot of information, a lot of truth from our conversation, regardless of whether it's fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, or what have you that affects the region where you live.

No place on planet Earth is immune to natural disasters, and so knowing what to do and basically what happens after the fact. We have a lot of precedent for it. It is not an unknown, although there are a lot of specific unknowns with every disaster in every situation. So we'll also be going to the phones. Let me give you the number eight three three two. Ask Dean A three to three the numeral two. Ask Dean eight three three two. Ask Dean anything that's on your mind that's

got you scratching your head about your home today. As always, I will be prioritizing fire related calls, though, just so you know, and you know, and if we don't have any of those, I'm still going to the phones. Would be nice to be able to just kind of take a breather and take a break from all the fire talk as well. So I am wide open to whatever you may want to be discussing about your home today, as always, eight three three two Ask Dean. Ritchie is

standing by screening calls right now. Phone lines are open and there's a clear path for you. Just to give him a call. He'll tell you everything you need to know. Popy into the queue, and then we'll put our heads together and we'll figure out what's going on with your place, all right, let's get to it. A quick review of what we covered yesterday. I don't want to recover it.

I just want to make you aware, especially if you are a podcast listener, that there is a previous episode Part one of this coverage was yesterday's or the previous episode to this episode. I've not I've got too much stuff to cover with you to do a full review of that, but I am going to repeat this because this is worth saying every single day. I want to begin today's program with appreciation for all the brave and dedicated men and women who have been tirelessly fighting these fires.

I want to show appreciation for the cooperating out of area fire services who've rushed in to assist. Tina and I were on PCH at the Zuoma Beach Command Center on Thursday to see firefighting teams and equipment from cities and counties from all over California, as well as states Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Idaho.

If there is a silver lining I said this yesterday to a natural disaster, it is that, in my opinion, for a time at least, the immediacy of the threat and the need sets aside all the other bs that we normally get caught up in and can bring out the very best in human beings. And of course, for

those who have comfortable, safe vantage points. These events are already being criticized and politicized, But for the countless people who are in it on the front lines, the volunteers with food and water and blankets, the neighbors offering shelter and open arms and kind words. I mean, we do not live anywhere well, I shouldn't say anywhere near. We

do not live in threat of these particular fires. When the Wolsey Fire happened in twenty eighteen, just a mere six years ago, we were just a few hundred feet away from evacuating. But these fires have not threatened our location this year. And yet this week, nothing but calls coming in from friends, from loved ones saying, hey, are you okay? I've heard, are you guys safe? Do you need anything? If you guys need a break from the smoke or this, come on over that kind of stuff.

That's what I'm talking about that happens a minute for minute during these kinds of situations. And I'm happy to say I've made some of those calls to to friends who are a lot closer to the fire. So the food, the water, the blankets, the neighbors offering shelter, the open arms, the kind words. It is heartening to see the best of what it means to be human during a natural disaster. That does not make it a happy event. It simply

is encouraging, that's all. Okay, all right, let's start with topically with hardening your home, and then I want to move into Okay, your home is burnt down. Now what do you do. We've done fire hardening show. I do a fire hardening show at least once a year, okay, before fire season begins. So for those of you who are longtime listeners of the program, this is not going to be any new information for you. But we always have new people listening, and so I want to give

you this information. Start with the most repeated thing on this program in terms of fire ardening of your home and arguably the most important thing in my opinion, ember proofing your attic events. Okay, again, I will tell you this.

Even though the fire line, this is a relatively rare occurrence that a fire line because of the perfect storm of high gale winds and the location of let's say the Palisades, and both the Palisades and the Eaten Fire especially this is a rare occurrence that the fire line blazes through street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood after neighborhood. Okay, what is most common during a wildfire scenario when houses start to catch on fire is that houses that are

nowhere near the fire line start to burn. And the question is why is that eighty percent of homes that ignite as the enduring a wildfire event are not on the fire line. Why is that? It is because our attics of our homes have a susceptibility to them. They have been by building code vented to circulate airflow. Warm air in the attic rises and cool air is drawn in through lower events. It actually creates a vacuum and

embers that can travel miles. We used to say half a mile an ember could trial travel, and then we up to two a mile, and then we up to it to two miles. I'm just going to say this, embers can travel several miles. And the hotter the fire is and the more it's engaged in structures, the more embers there are, and the further it travels. Embers can retain their ability to ignite material and travel for miles and as they in their super light, drifty state pass

by a home. Under the eaves of a home, those embers can literally be and are often sucked into the attic space, which becomes at that point the perfect breathing

barbecue for igniting and maintaining a flame. Ember proof vents are a newer style event than the classic vent for attics, and they are a vent that has a smaller mesh screen that have baffles built into them that don't allow hot embers to travel directly in, but knock them down as they come through, therefore protecting in the biggest way possible a house from catching on fire if it's in

the vicinity of another wildfire. All right, We're going to go to a break and when we come back, we will continue this conversation.

news team right here helping you with that. I am taking the focus of our program, given my level of expertise with homes, and I'm turning it towards Number one, something that we talk about every year, but I'm going to talk about again this morning, which is fire hardening

your home against the risk of wildfire damage. And number two something that we haven't talked a lot about because this kind of disaster has not struck in this way, and that is what is the rebuilding process going to be when not just a home burns down or a couple of homes burned down, but entire neighborhoods or regions of infrastructure go down because of that. What's that going to look like? And what's the insurance process and the rebuilding process and the expectation all of that coming on

the program today. So go nowhere, stick with me. We were just talking about the number one most important thing in my opinion in regards to prepping your home against wildfire risk, and that is ember proof vents. It's also happens to be the one thing that most people don't end up doing, so I'm just gonna repeat myself until you're sick of hearing it. Emberproofing the vents around it that are flow into your attic is a key, a key that gives you a big advantage of not having

your home catch on fire during a wildfire situation. Now, let me be clear about this. When a when a forty foot wall of flame is sweeping through your neighborhood and approaches your home with you at somewhere in the area of fifteen hundred plus degrees, okay, the vent situation is not going to make necessarily a huge difference. Okay,

But understand the statistic, and it's very very important. Eighty percent of homes that burn in a wildfire area when a wildfire is raging, eighty percent of homes that typically burn are not on the fire line when they catch on fire. And those homes, those homes are experiencing ember

related ignition happening. And that's why we change out the vents. Okay. Now, another option that we've talked about just this last year, and I will now continue every year to discuss this not only in terms of fire hardening, but in terms of remodeling. A new design for home holmes Another option, now which I am a strongly, strongly an advocate of, is if you are planning on remodeling your home, that you also include remodeling the attic and turning it into

what we call a conditioned attic space. A conditioned attic space simply means this, instead of the attic being outside the insulated envelope of your home. In other words, the attic insulation is on the floor of the attic and that's keeping you know, the home below it cool land or warm, you know, when you need it to be. But the attic itself is technically outside. It's it's not part of the conditioned space. Making the attic part of

the conditioned space. That means taking the insulation off the floor of the attic, putting it into the rafters of the roofline itself, so that the roof is the envelope that is insulated, and therefore the attic is going to be roughly the same temperature as the rest of the house when you're cool the house. If it's seventy two degrees in the house in the summertime because of the air conditioner, the attic is close to that as well.

If it's nice and toasty warm in the house during the cold of winter, the attic is toasty warm as well. What is the point, Dean of doing that. Well, I'm not going to belabor the other designed advantages of that, meaning you could utilize attic space for storage without compromising insulation, or the fact that it is typically a better seal, a better insulating quality, and energy efficiency for the entire house.

That it makes your heating and cooling equipment last longer because they're not freezing and baking in those extreme temperature situations the equipment itself. And there's plenty of other efficiencies about that, But here is the number one reason that I'm mentioning it this morning. I'm mentioning it this morning because a remodeled conditioned attic space that is now part of the regular conditioned house has no vents, no standard

attic vents. Now, there is some vapor weeping vents at the top, but those are not in any way, shape or form vents that are susceptible to embers or wildfire conditions. So a conditioned attic space home is a home that doesn't need to have its vents changed out to ember proof ens because it doesn't have vents. It doesn't in any way, shape or form, invite embers into the inside of your home. And that's why I'm mentioning it today.

So make a note consider you can do a little bit of an investigating and of course you can go back into our archives of last year's shows and on the podcast and find my show on the New Attic in which we discuss all of those advantages. And also, by the way, pests bugs a non issue with a conditioned attic space because no vents, no easy form of

access into the attic. So food for thought. I dealt with this yesterday in terms of a caller who called in asking about fire rated windows, what's the mystery of fire rated windows? Very quickly because it was on yesterday's program, But I'm going to put it on our list today.

There is no mystery about fire rated windows. A fire rated window is essentially nothing more than a standard window that instead of having regular what we call annealed glass, which is regular old, good old window glass, it has

tempered glass in its place. And the reason is that tempered glass is produced at incredibly high temperatures in the factory five thousand degrees plus, and so a fifteen hundred degree or two thousand degree wall of fire picking up against a tempered glass piece of glass is not going to cause it to shatter and crack and burst open. And that's the problem with a non fire rated window is that the cool of the inside of the house and the heat on the outside unevenly heats the glass

of regular glass and it shatters. And as soon as it shatters, now the fire has a hole to enter your home through. Okay, So in southern California new construction and major remodels, it's code requirement now in the state of California to have fire rated glass. If you are up against an urban wildfire interface area facing the wilderness area, at least those windows have to be fire rated glass.

Your sliding glass door, if you have one of those, which most people do, is already fire rated in the sense that a sliding glass door has to be tempered glass because it's glass that goes all the way to the floor and it's kickable that strength. So not the sliders the windows to change them out. Now, again, what if that's not in your budget right now and you're concerned about maybe two or three years, Dean before we get around to switching out those windows. Can I do

anything to protect my windows until then? Yes, you can. We'll talk about that right on the other side of the news.

your future. So okay, let me pause for a second and just to get this pushed out of my brain on most of these here or what I'm trying to do is offer you number one ultimate long term best solution, and then if I can offer you short term help, get it better solutions. Okay, So, ember proof addic vents

are a really good idea, and we've covered that. A better idea in my opinion, if there is a remodel in your future is to include in your remodel budget a remodel of the attic space into a conditioned attic so that your attic doesn't have to have vents at all. Okay, we also, right before the break talked about fire rated windows. Fire rated windows are and they aren't a special manufacturer out there where you got to go, and now you're can have windows look weird and they don't match the

rest of your house. Every major manufacturer of window makes fire rated windows in almost all of their models of windows, because it's really not about the window frame or the structure itself. It's essentially about and there are a couple exceptions there, but it's essentially about just replacing the standard annealed glass, which is very heat sensitive, with tempered glass, which is not heat sensitive. Because if a fire line

passes by your house, here's what you don't want. You don't want the heat from the fire cracking your windows. The windows shatter, and now you have a penetration and opening a wide open window literally for the flames to lap up and reach inside the house. Okay, that's what a fire rated window is all about. Now, if a fire rated windows, they're pricey and you get a lot of them facing the open space. If a fire rated window is in fact not in your financial future, but

you are concerned about the windows, that you've got another option. Again, we discussed it on the previous episode here a yesterday's show is fire rated window film? Yeah, the kind of film that goes on like you know, tinted windows on a car. Okay, what does fire rated window film achieve? Well, you could, of course add some tinting and if you want a little less light coming in, I wouldn't advise that. Generally speaking, you can add some reflectivity for energy and heat.

But in terms of the fire, what a fire rated window film does is it is rated to withstand the heat of fire for an hour. That's a class A fire rating. Anything that's class A fire rated is designed to withstand flame for an hour before it moves through it and during that time as the fire line, which they move very fast, as you can tell right when fire lines are really moving fast, there are winds involved, and they move through your house or buy your house quickly.

So it's not as though you're gonna have to worry about like, well, what if the fire is right outside my door for an hour and a half. It's typically not the case. Fire rated window film that can resist flame and heat for an hour will not keep your regular glass windows from shattering. Because the glass is the glass.

It's gonna shatter with the uneven temperature. It will. However, it will hold that shattered glass in place so that an opening is not created when the glass shatters, and therefore the flame still don't have an opportunity to get inside the house. Much like a car windshield, an automobile windshield with safety glass on it, right, it is an automobile windshield is not tempered glass. It's a form of

safety glass. When a tempered windshield, I mean when a automobile windshield, as you have seen countless times, is cracked or shattered or even hit with a sledgehammer, right, it doesn't just low apart in all bits and pieces, because there is a film embedded in between two pieces of glass there on the automobile that holds the glass in place. Okay, that's the idea. That's the idea of fire rated window film.

Far less expensive. And are any of these things, by the way, a silver bullet that just solves the problem, No, not at all, But they help, they help Okay, so fire rated window film something is easy. This next thing that everybody has the ability to deal with right now, and that is get the junk away from your home. Anything that can burn, anything that would burn, anything that might burn. You got to get it away from your home. How far as far as you can. That's it. I'm

not going to tell you. Yeah, I've seen rules out there saying well at least five feet away from the house. Are you kidding me? Do you want things catching on fire five feet away from your house? Now? I understand the majority of homes in southern California are in tracts and neighborhoods, and the majority of side yard setbacks are five feet Okay, So when it comes to the side yards of your house, have nothing there, zero things there. Okay, don't just move them away from the wall to the

outside fence. Just get them out of there. And when it comes to the front and backyards, clear it out. Push things as far away from the house, pick them up, carry them out there. We're not trying to decorate your house. We're talking about keeping it safe during a fire threat. And so you move all of this stuff and you get it as far away from the house as possible. Okay, the next conversation that we're going to have is about one of my favorite topics that I have recommended again

and again. There is cost, and but as far as I'm concerned, it's worth its weight in gold, and that is having a supply and being prepared with FIREJEL, fire gel. What is firejel And how is it potentially going to save your bacon when it comes to a wildfire situation. We'll talk about that right after this has been Home

with Dean Sharp the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.