You're listening to KFI AM six forty on.
Demand, KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is La Fires, A Path Forward, our special presentation on the wildfires. What happened and what happens now. It's not even been six weeks since we first told you something dangerous was brewing.
We got reports out of the Santa Monica area. We've got a brush fire in the Palisades Highlands right now. You can see this smoke. Not sure about the size of this baby. They're usually quick to step to those there near the Palisades.
The warnings had come days in advance. The National Weather Service told us major Santa Ana winds were coming. A lack of rain for many months had left things dry and ripe for destruction. And that's what happened. Has heard on kfi's Gary and Shannon as it unfolded.
We now have a fire, Palisades fire is what they're calling it.
It started small in the Palisades, but with the conditions, the fire was poised to grow quickly.
This thing is living up to its potential, they say. Right now, the crews on the ground are furiously engaged in structure protection.
And then it grew even more.
The latest is that they're seeing spotting ahead of this thing a mile to three quarters of a mile out, which was the absolute fear. When you're thinking about the winds and the gusts that are coming with this wind event, that'll take a fire and carry it and keep carrying it.
Well, and that's well. I mean there's a couple thousand homes well within that range. Eyewitnesses started to call in with what they were seeing.
Caesar works at sunset smash and joins us. Now, Caesar crazy over there right now.
I bet it is very concerning at this point because there's black smoke. It seems like there's still in the area, and everyone out of here is just concern about what was going on taking fiction.
By the time that John Colebelt Show came on the air, homes in the Palisades were burning.
Pacific Palisades is on fire. I'm looking at several television news feeds and they have different homes burning on different stations. I see one home just starting to burn. There's a wall of flames in the backyard, wall of flames in the backyard of the neighbor's house, and then the.
Terror of it all became real as residents started to flee, clogging streets.
We're going to talk to a woman now who's trying to get out of the Palisades Kelly. Are you there, Kelly, Yes, can you hear me? Yeah? Thanks for coming on.
Oh yeah, no problem. Right now, I'm on Sunset and Palisades Drive and it's completely you can't even move. And as I'm sitting here on the corner of Palisade Drive, there's a palm tree on fire, so like we're kind of all sitting here in the car and watching. I mean it's like fifty feet away.
I think, oh, that's that's really frightening.
It's really frightening. It's really really.
Frightening, and you can't get away from it, no.
Because we we're locked in. It's kind of like, you know, we see those terrible movies where everybody's running from something and all the cars are stuck.
That's kind of how it is.
Yeah, Oh my gosh, Yeah, this tree is really.
It's on the corner or on the in the median.
On Palisades Drive and Sunset directly on the corner, there's a and I don't know if you can hear all the honkings.
I can. Yeah, I saw on TV there was a palm tree in the median that was.
Yeah, it's right now. I just I just don't know, Like people are getting out of their cars now, what if you think, yes, yes, all.
Right, go okay okay, Oh my god, that's terrifying.
The Mo Kelly Show comes on at seven, and by then The eaton Fire had also started barreling towards Altadena.
To Walla Sharp, I was telling your business because I think someone could have benefited from knowing how seriously not only are we telling them to take it, but how seriously we are taking it.
Producer Tawalla Sharp lives in Altadena. He rushed back home to help his family leave before coming back to the show.
The entire ride back to Altadena, the wind was the nastiest I've ever experienced. The debris things fly from the freeway. There are actual trees on the one thirty four, the actual trees from from I don't know where they're come from, but the small trees that are maybe on the side of the freeways or whatever, in the actual freeway.
It is absolutely crazy. K if I decided to go wall to wall with live coverage NonStop for days.
I'm gonna be with you all the way up until midnight, and then Tim Conway Junior is going to come back to the studio bless his heart, and go from midnight to three am. Neil Savagor will be in from three to five am, and then Amy King will take over the normal course of things with wake up call at five am.
The scenes of destruction were breathtaking. As I told Valentine on my FM while reporting from Altadna.
Whatever iHeart.
Reporters from KFI Michael Monks in the phone line, Michael, where are you right now?
I'm on the corner of Mariposa Street and El Molina Avenue. I'm standing in front of the Mariposa town Homes for rent. This sign has no damage to it at all, whatsoever? Mere feet behind the sign advertising the town homes. There are no town homes gone. They're burned to the ground. There is smoke coming off of the rubble that used to be these homes that the owners were trying to rent out.
We talk about the news coverage. We talked to victims who lost their homes out. What's happening for them?
Now I truly, truly.
Truly hope and pray that Alcadema can rebuild and that that character and that thing that grew up with can be there for future generations to see.
My biggest fear on January was the biggest problem is going to be is going to be the city and the politics, And that's kind of exactly what's happening.
We look at the.
Historic buildings and iconic businesses taken by the flames.
In a manner of hours. So many were lost, so it's sort of unfathomable to even still get your arms around.
We hear from the local government about how we're supposed to move forward. We examine the economic costs not just to victims but to all of us.
We predict that talking projects will still increase in the long term.
And then the independent phone app that many relied on for up to the second information.
I would have assumed that you know, the same folks who build roads and schools.
And infrastructure or going to be building a larning systems to keep us informed.
And although they exist, they're not really properly used.
And how the disaster has given LA the opportunity to come together.
There is a silver lining through this. It's a LA has been really mobilized to where we've seen the best of our city.
LA fires, a path forward.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Kf I Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is our special report on the LA wildfires. When those fires broke out, a familiar voice from afternoons here at KFI suddenly picked up a new shift carrying the airwaves in the overnight hours.
By Am six forty.
It's Conway Show, a little bit late to our early whatever wherever you are, but we are on There's First Respawn.
Tim Conwley Junior knows LA well.
On that Tuesday morning, I knew that we didn't have.
Helicopter footage because the President was in town, so I knew it was much worse than we were seeing, much much worse. Plus, I live in Burbank and I've grown up in the San Fernando Valley my entire life. I went to in Sino Elementary, Portola Junior High, Birmingham High School. I did the whole valley run, and I've been here, you know, greater than five decades, and I've never seen wind like that, and I've ever felt win like that.
I felt like our house was going to be destroyed by the by just the wind, not the fire, the wind. We lost five trees on our property. I'm not complaining a lot of people lost more, but I'm just telling you as a barometer, those trees are old, and they're tough, and they've never even shown any signs of being in any stress or blown and they were completely blown down, you.
Know, the Palisades.
And even during the aftermath when the fires had kind of gone out, going to cover it and driving on PCH, you could see, like, ah, I understand why people want to live here. I mean, like that is the California people's minds, right right. I mean that's the palm trees, It's the beaches, it's the little shacks that people are eating in there on the on the waterfront. What does it mean to have that California kana taken away from La Well?
I think that.
I don't really I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you. I don't think I've ever said this on the air. I never felt comfortable in Palisades. I always thought that those people were wealthier than I was, They had nicer cars than I did. They were just like an upper
class people that I felt uncomfortable around. And I remember going to a New Year's party there, no, I'm sorry, a Fourth of July party there last year, and I just felt like everybody around there was super wealthy and I felt like a scumbag in my twenty eighteen Lincoln Navigator. So I go to the track all the time, which is out in the Arcadia. I relate to those people. More guys would go to you know, Kmart, Walmart, you know,
Standard shoes, Orange Julie is the old school guys. You know, that's where my dad would be more comfortable hanging out. And I think, as you know, as his kid, I feel more comfortable with the people in the flats in Arcadia, past the DNA and Alta Dina.
I mean to that end, though, there's something equalizing about watching a neighborhood like that brought to the ground that you've been here a long time, and LA is sort of I mean, this is my perspective, but it seems like a disconnected place. You've got your part of LA and you know it well, and you don't necessarily know what's going on on the other side of town.
You don't even necessarily care. There aren't a lot.
Of opportunities for the so called La strong. You know, there's not a lot of let's come together, La. What have you seen as an LA guy in that respect? Is are you noticing some sort of neighborliness that has never existed here before?
Well that's a good point. I remember.
Look, I still if I were to get in the car right now and you'd say, hey, take me to Colt, and I'd be like, what, I.
Don't know where Colton is.
But I hear Colton on commercials when like a waterbed store is going out of business, or a Futon store.
You know, Colton, Colton, Colton water.
Bed store after fifty four years going out of business.
I'm like, good, So I don't know where a lot of these areas are. I only know, you know, La, I'm familiar. I'm now getting familiar with the Inland Empire because we go. I go up to Marongo so often that I can like buzz around there. But I think there is a and I hope it stays a sense of, you know, the wealthy people and the poor people, the people have been burned out, all getting together and helping
each other out. But as you know, this is LA and that lasts for a very short period of time, and then guys with money come in.
And they buy everybody out.
It's starting to happen in Pasadena, Altadena and the Palisades well.
Broadcasting live as the fires cleaned countless homes, Tim helped people understand the magnitude of what was going on.
What a day in Los Angeles. Everybody will remember where they were, if you're old enough, what you were doing, and what a nightmare this was for a lot of people, a ton of people, and a lot of people are gonna wake up tomorrow and have the one thing that we all cherish taken from them and beyond it, it's beyond their control. It's a fire. It's the worst thing that can happen to your home. It happened so suddenly.
Tim's knowledge of LA helped him understand the impact on the people who saw everything they own go up in flames.
It was the worst because you know these people who are you know, look when we do news and you know this, monks, when we do news on KFI, if it's a Wednesday afternoon, and there's a house on fire in Pasadena. All four helicopters are over it, you know, two, four, five, seven, nine eleven. Everybody's over it, talking about it. You can see the smoke forever. It's the lead story on every newscast.
The home, nice home in Pasadena burned up. Well, multiply that by fourteen thousand and we've never experienced anything like that before.
Nobody knows how to handle it.
And even after the fires, nobody knows what to do with the debris, with all the you know, with all the trash and all the you know, they the the what is it called the debris and the toxic chemicals, nobody knows what to do with it.
And with more fires erupting, even as the Palisades and Alta Dina continued to burn, kfi's regular voices found themselves in the host chair much later or earlier than usual.
You'd be surprised how many people were listening overnight, you know, from midnight to five am.
And one particular incident I thought was.
I hate to use the term powerful, because you know, I sound like an a hole, but when the fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills, I think they called the Sunset Fire and it broke out in Hollywood Hills. Chris Christy is the first guy over it on Channel seven, and there's no fire trucks around, and we kept telling everybody, if you're on Gardener or Le Brea or Fountain or Franklin, you.
Got to get out of that area. You know, this is this fire is coming to you.
And then we heard back from people saying that they listened to that and they got out of their home, they got in their car and they started driving because they heard that.
I thought that was really cool.
Up next, we talk with folks from right here in our studios who lost homes in the Palisades and Alta Dina.
It's really hard to describe the loss because there's certain things that you'll just you know, you can remember, but you'll never get back.
And then the landmarks, we all lost a complete erature of historic destinations.
It's sort of unfathomable to even still get your arms around what was here and what is now gone.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is La Fires a path forward, our special look at what happened and what happens next. The wildfires that engulf Pacific Palisades and Alta Dina burned about thirty miles from each other, torching different examples of life in La County. The Palisades the quintessential southern California postcard image, waves crashing into the sand, palm trees blowing in the breeze, Stately homes casting their
silhouettes towards the famous Pacific Coast Highway. Alta Dina showcased day's small town existence and in otherwise mega city, old school business districts, cozy homes on tree lined streets with mountains on the horizon. But the experience during the fires were wildly similar, including the holding onto hope that the forecasts would prove wrong or any fires would pass by.
I wasn't thinking about losing the house, or losing the neighborhood, anything like that. I'm just thinking, just in case his life. I have to be gone for the weekend. Sure, I'll grab a few thieves, I grab a week's worth of stuff, and I said, Okay, I'm gonna go back to work.
Let me know if anything happened to Walla. Sharp is the producer of Leader with Mo Kelly here at KFI. His family has lived in Altadena for decades. David Howard, vice president of sales here at iHeartMedia, was also hopeful at his home in the Palisades.
We knew that this one felt a little bit different. My wife came home and she so we got to get out of here. And I wasn't ready to go yet because the wind. I wasn't trying to be a hero, but the wind had shifted, and you know a couple of us, like women, trying to stay and to our best to save the property.
But the worst did happen, and both communities were nearly entirely leveled. So much was taken that both men say they got lost driving on streets they'd been down countless times.
There were you know, houses and burning on both sides of sunset, embers flying, and we kind of paused for a second and asked ourselves, is this a good idea as it's safe? And my younger one asked me that, and I said, you know, it's safe until we have to turn around. And so we got through and I made a sharp ride on Chatauqua which is the street that takes us up to our house. And I literally lost my I had no frame of reference as to where
I was, and I was like, where are we? Like I felt, you know, almost lost, and I realized that there wasn't a structure as far as I could see in any direction. So it was like, holy gosh, this is this is a this is a total loss.
When I first re entered the city, I did not know where I was because there were no recognizable landmarks for me to know what street was what. I didn't even recognize my own street because the different houses that I know, I don't have to have a street sign. I know where I'm at just by the houses or or the car wash or whatever. To see all of that gone, it tears the very hard out of me each and every time.
And now David Howard and Touwalla Sharp are reckoning with the immense loss.
It's amazing because literally every day, every night you'll kind of wake up and go, oh my god, that's gone to or you know, how do I replace that? Or maybe I don't replace it, So that part is, you know, it's hard to It's so overwhelming because there's just so many things to take care of in addition to remembering the things that you lost.
There's no way by the time the warning, the sun rose on the next day and we got the reports that everything was gone. Even still there's no I couldn't believe it. I could not believe it. Everything is gone.
And they both have questions for the government about preparation and response.
Those of us who have been impacted are suffering, you know, and so that that's the part that sucks. And it's like even now we're having conversations where they're like, by the end of February, phase one of the cleanup removal of debris should be done. By hopefully end of March, we should be done with phase two as far as cleaning up a lot of the toxic debris and all
of that. But then then you should be able to be like, we should be able to what we should be able to move in and be right to mac dab in the middle of what looks like a DMZ. What are you talking about that's going to be having ongoing construction.
Yeah no, yeah, no, no, thanks.
No thanks. You know, said that they were ready for you know, several days, and they weren't ready at all. So it just its just I feel like I think everybody feels it. As bad as it was, it could have been less bad because but there was just no fight. There was no resources at all, and it just it's hard to comprehendo that happened. That makes this whole thing
even more difficult. And you know, if I know that homes would have burnt, the wind was insane, and you know, the structure protection, you know, it would have been a challenge in any way, shape or form. But to let the city just burn and not have anybody trying to save that part and there was no one saving it. It was burning, and that they just kind of let it burn. So it's hard to hard to get your head around that.
Now. Of course, there's all types of governmental organizations that are saying we will help, but you know what they're helping us with. They're helping us to get stuck in red tape and bureaucracy and oh, you've got to call this department, and this department says you got to call this depart and then you get the run around. I love all the politicians who out in front of the cameras saying we are here to help help us do what help us to get a busy signal, or help us to be called back.
As they navigate the aftermath to Wallace Sharp and David Howard keep their happy memories.
Every every memory I have of life is in Alta Dina. Every memory that I have, my my fondest childhood memories. The things that make me who I am come from living in Alta Deena. If you've ever heard me on Later with mo Kelly or the mo Kelly Show, you hear me go on and on and on about the Pasadena Alta Dina area, because it is so just etched into the very fibre of my being.
Take us to a better time.
When you first moved into that house, what was it about it that let you know that was going to be home?
I mean it was, you know, it was was everything you could ever dream of, you know, the incredible town, incredible unity, people that really cared about each other, people that took care of each other and still are by the way, And it was just an amazing place to raise kids.
And there was one happy discovery in the pile of ashes that was once David Howard's home.
My wife had left your wedding ring in the safe that we had in our bedroom.
He found the safe but couldn't open it the handle had melted away.
Frustrated, he gave up, like I said, I can't do this anymore. And I sat down on the cement on the driveway and I picked up the safe and I tilted it on its side, and by the grace of God, I don't even know how it safe door opened. I was like, oh my God. I looked up at the sky and I said, really, I really, like, is this really happening? I said, was God, please let me find
this ring, and please let it be intact. And after a few minutes of pulling out you know, debris, ash and stuff that probably you know, just burnt, I felt the I felt the ring and I pulled it out, and I was like, oh my God, and it was there intact. And I started just bawling, you know, just shaking.
And now the focus returns to building again. Somehow.
Every time I drove home, I literally but I think, would be so thankful and so appreciative that I had the opportunity to, you know, to build a home there and raise my kids there.
I truly, truly, truly hope and pray that Altadena can rebuild, and that that character and and that thing that I grew up with can be there for future generations to see.
I just, I just, I just. I don't know.
In our next hour the government response, if trust has been damaged in this disaster, can it be regained? But first, the place is lost in the fires that we all.
Know, the places you know, we're anchored in terms of why people loved being in the Pupa or Altadena.
When La Fires.
A Path Forward continues after this report for the KFI twenty four hour News Room.
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on.
Demand, KFIAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News. This is La Fires A Path Forward, our special look at what happened and what happens next. The images, especially the ones from the sky showing what used to be Alta, Dina or the Palisades, are shocking to see the scenes of devastation up closes
a different experience altogether. Once vibrant neighborhoods, loving homes, active churches, and busy tourist destinations turn to a heap of smoldering ash in a matter of moments, fireplace chimneys, all that remain on many lots, standing in rows like gravestones in a neighborhood cemetery. To lose one's home is a tragedy most of us will thankfully never know. But we've all experienced the loss of a favorite restaurant, a quirky shot, we loved, a landmark that meant something to us, And
that's what's relatable in the case of these wildfires. Even if we didn't live in the Palisades or Altadena, we probably knew something there or wanted to know something there soon, and now we can't. Will Rogers Ranch House, Moonshadows, Altadena Community Church, the Bunny Museum. Those are just some of the landmarks taken by the fires.
These places help you know, we're anchors in terms of why people love to be in the life. Loved being in the Palisades or Altadena. But it's really a stronger sense of community and the people, and we always say people plus places in terms of our work. It's not just about saving historied buildings, about the stories and the people that are connected to those places. So when you
lose an entire neighborhood like James Hillage, in Altadena. Yes, it's a loss for every one of those wonderful, sweet little nineteen twenties and thirties houses, but it's really about the loss of the community and what that represents, how important that is to both of these places that you know, experience such profound and incalculable losses.
Adrian Scott Fine is the president and CEO of the LA Conservancy, which documents the history of old buildings and landmarks and often fights to preserve them. I know that your organization works hard to preserve historic landmarks across LA. They face a variety of challenges, maybe neglect, maybe the threat of development, but it's not often that we have a disaster of this magnitude that takes so many beloved
properties all at once. I mean, just share with me from a preservationist perspective what these fires were like.
Well, we've never had anything like this in terms of the sheer number of places that have all been lost at one point in time. In preservation, we're used to working to help save places, but you know, usually it's
a building by building situation. In this case, you know, in a manner of hours, so many were lost, So it's sort of unsaddenable to even still get your arms around what was here and what is now gone and the kind of places that told stories that about the Palisades and Altadena that there are no other places that can impart that story.
The list of historic properties, tourist destinations, and community centers reads like an obituary for the spirit of Altadena and the Palisades.
It was just, again, just seeing so many places disappear. I would say that part of it was for myself, and certainly I was hearing from others. And since then, is this understanding that we take historic places for granted, that we're learning about places that we didn't know were there before and that we now wish we had visited
and seen an experience before they were gone. So I think part of that is is what we're dealing with that, I would say everyone, whether you lost your you know, your individual house or business, or it's a very significant historic place, it's a profound sense of loss in terms of what collectively we're all experiencing.
The wife of legendary funny man Will Rogers, donated their Palisades property to the state of California. It's now known as Will Rogers State Historic Park, but ninety years after Will Rogers' death, his ranch, house and other structures were lost in the Palisades fire.
This was his ranch. This is a place that he was very you know, firmly connected to in terms of his persona, and it's been a beloved place for generations of Angelinas and others visiting to go to experience. We just had a we do a heritage project with high school kids, and we just had our most recent class out there, you know, visiting the ranch and learning how the lasso and other kinds of things that you know, without that house, without the barn and the stable and
other buildings, it's less real. The land is still there and you know the ranch, but you know, those physical built aspects are now missing in terms of being able to illustrate his full story.
Zane Gray may not have reached the same level of fame as his contemporary Will Rogers, but the novelist also owned a home lost in the wildfires, a sprawling estate in Altadena.
This house was very much, you know, the gem of Altadena in terms of, you know, just a really seminal place in terms of that community. And it's been a private residence and it was in the process of being restored by you know, owners that loved this house, and for that to be gone is again just one more, you know, as these losses add up, but this is certainly a big one in terms of early Altadena in Los Angeles history.
Fine says, the profound loss of so many landmarks, all all at once can impact a community sense of self.
Then you have places that make up our fabrics of our communities, the places that we come to love and we expect to see on a daily basis. They are the legacy businesses like Altadena Hardware, or like the Bunny Museum. You know, kind of a colectic, very unusual. Only Altadena had a bunny museum. So it's these kinds of places that really form and are the essential ingredients to what
makes community special and you know unique. It's about the people, but it's also about the community that formed around these kind of institutions, from churches to semagogues to you know, museums, all these different aspects and certainly restaurants that you know, are all part of the fabric that are is now missing in any way.
He says.
One of the other important pieces of fabric the community that made Altadena and Pacific palis As home must be put at the center of the rebuilding effort.
I think that is one of the biggest concerns that we have, is that people will get pushed out or displaced and it will become something entirely different than it ever was before. Certainly there are efforts to you know, think about pattern books and guides to streamline reviews and offer you know, off the shelf kind of designs for houses that had some semblans of what was there before.
And then that's part of this. But again it goes back to community and people and making sure that they're they're they're front and center and any rebuilding effort.
In our next hour, the government response is it fast enough, is it efficient enough?
And the estimated cost.
Of the damage has skyrocketing and is forecast to hit all of us in various ways. When LA fires may pass forward continuous KFI A M six
Forty KFI A six on demand