You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty.
And this is KFI AM six forty. You'll handle here in the morning crew on a Thursday. Unfortunately, very hot, not only well hot in terms of the fires that are going around.
It is September twelfth.
Later on Mo Kelly at eight fifty and then Joel Larsgard eight o'clock with how to money. All right, we've got to have well, we are having our reporters from all over southern California, Blake Trolly, matter of fact, we'll start with him and the Bridge fire because that.
Is the big one.
Then we'll go to Amy to report on the other fires that are happening around the south land. Blake, what's going on with the Bridge fire because that's the big one that we're dealing with.
Yeah.
So in the latest update that we got Bill, we got this a few hours ago. We actually got some positive news on this Bridge fire. Keep in mind, this is a fire that exploded massively, started on this side of the hill here in La County, spread into Rightwood over into sam Bernardino County. We are told that the fire's behavior has moderated, and this is because humidity has
raised and temperatures have fallen. They say that firefighters yesterday and I was in there with them, Bill, they were making really good progress on the ground, not only establishing containment lines, but also providing structural defense for some homes that flames were still burning right up on. Well, we're told they made good progress. They also were able to get air resources, including four helicopters into the area, continuing
water drops. And so today the real focus is continue trying to get those containment lines down, put retardant in those containment lines, and continue structure defense. I mean, there are still structures that are being threatened. We don't have an exact number. We're waiting to get our morning update. But that said, they say fire crews are still actively engaged in structural defense. And Bill, I saw this take place on one particular home yesterday. The La Times has
a photo of this same exact home. It's right off Highway too, kind of in between right Wood and Big Pine.
And what we saw yesterday was just big.
Orange flames, black smoke coming off this fire, a lot of vegetation right behind this home burning up, and firefighters just continued to hammer it with water. Also carve out lines, and I believe they were able to save that home. We're gonna have to get an update on that later this morning, but I went back through about two hours later and the home was still there from when I saw them originally fighting.
That's great, that actually is good news. And we talked to a firefighter yesterday, Blake, Thank you, because I'm going to go on we're going to report on the other fire. So we'll probably talk to you more this morning and should certainly be you'll be reporting on the bridge fire. Thanks much, Amy. Before we get to the airport fire
and the line fire is just a quick word. Yesterday we had my friend Chuck Lover, who was with County of LA for thirty years firefighting, and he had mentioned, when you see that water and the fire retardant, they're not putting out the fire. What they're doing is they're going in front or to the side of the fire, cooling down that area so the crews can establish those fire lines.
That's what that's about. And I had known that until he.
Had said that, because I asked, I mean, how do you put out fires like that? He goes, we don't even try. What we want to do is contain the fires. So, Amy, what's happening the latest of the airport and the line fire.
Okay, So the airport fire is the one that started in Tribuco Canyon on Monday, and it started in Orange County. It has since spread over into Riverside County and it has burned some homes in Lake Elsin Or. It's about twenty three thousand acres now a little bit over that and is five percent surrounded, so they're starting to build some lines around it.
That's good.
And then the line fire is the one in the San Bernardino County Mountains. It's thirty six thousand plus acres and is eighteen percent which is up for me yesterday, so they are again eighteen percent surrounded.
It is the part that is really rough.
I mean, they're going to be able to take these out obviously as the weather.
Cools down and we're done.
Amy, you had reported that the heat wave is basically over, and we could feel that it's cooler, it's.
A little bit more humidity.
I mean, when it's one hundred and fifteen degrees out there like it was with the virtually no humidity, that's not good news for firefighters or the rest of us. But what the climatologist the weather people are telling us is this is just the tip that we are looking at the beginning. This is the beginning of fire season, and it is going to be very, very rough this year.
And even though the acreage, well, I think the biggest fire we've ever had in California was north of a million acres that burned up in northern California where two massive fires joined up and just destroyed a huge amount. So we're looking at the acreage here, fifty thousand for the Bridge fire. Do we know the acreage of the airport and the Line fire. I'm just throwing that at you, Amy, Yeah.
Yeah, twenty three thousand for the airport fire and thirty six thousand for the line fire. So it's right about just over one hundred thousand airs total.
And that's if you put those two together, those three together, that is a massive, massive fire. The other thing that is the fairly good news in terms of the firefighting capabilities, when it was nighttime. As soon as it got dark, all air resources had to cease. They could not fly at night. Now with the technology, helicopters can fly at night. You still have aircraft that can't and don't, but the
helicopters can. And again keep in mind when you say they don't have that much water, it's not about put out the fire as it's moving. It's about the containment area, letting the firefighters dig around. And that's what as yesterday Chuck Lover said, containment is about setting up these fire breaks where the fire is going to only burn within those fire lines that are established. So we'll be reporting all through the day. We've got Blake and who else is out there, and we've.
Got Porman out yesterday.
Yeah, so if yeah, we had virtually everybody out there. So at this point the fire that's the most out of control is still the Bridge fire, I'm assuming, but it's getting better.
It's getting better all the way around. All right.
Now, this has to do with a report that just came out commissioned by Congress, released this week that NASA is in a lot of trouble.
Aging infrastructure.
Short term thinking ambitions far outstrip the money that's being spent.
Why, First of all.
It's not being funded because it wasn't so exciting. It's getting more exciting now now that we're talking about missions to Mars. The problem is Everything that NASA is involved with is falling apart. The only thing that's really working a SpaceX and it's going to be Elon Musk that's going to make it, if anybody's going to make it to Mars. In the meantime, what the federal government is spending, the money that they do spend is on the web,
the Hubble satellites. They're going with space missions for scientific endeavors, and there's just not enough money that's being spent, and a lot of it is just maintenance. And that's the point of nobody cares. Maintenance is not exciting. So let's go back to when the space program was as exciting as it ever got and ever will get.
And that was the Apollo mission that went to the Moon.
And how did we get to the point where four hundred thousand people were working on the Apollo missions that in July July twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, you had Americans walking on the Moon.
I mean, that excitement level was just insane.
Two reasons why we hit the high point for the Apollo the Apollo program. Number one, that statement that JFK made in nineteen sixty one, we're going to put on a man on the moon and bring him back safely to Earth. Not because it's easy, but because it's hard. That took everybody for a loop. No one knew he was saying that. No one knew he was going to say that, so NASA had no idea that they were going to do that.
He was going to call for that, no idea how they were going to do it.
When he said that the US experience in spacecraft and space and in the space program and putting man into space, we had exactly fifteen minutes of an American in space, one spaceflight, Alan Shepard.
That was it, and JFK called for putting a man on the moon. Actually there are three reasons.
Reason number two was we're just at the beginning of the space race. In the Cold War, Russia and the United States were going.
Balls to the wall.
Here's a little fact that very few people know about is that Kennedy, as money was being spent, said, you know, we're spending way too much money on this.
This is costing us a fortune. No one reports that.
There's actually audio that was recorded in which he says that that way, maybe we ought to slow this down because the efforts and the money that's being spent is astronomical. So now what's solidified the race to the moon. What put it in ink? That could not be a race that was even beyond that, that was etched in stone, and that's JFK being assassinated. And what ended up happening was once that happened, this became and we were going to put someone on the moon in honor of our
dead president. This is what he called for and this is a memory of JFK. And it went full blast after that. You could not get out of that. We could not get out of that. He called for it, he died, and we are going to honor We were going to honor our assassinated president. At that point, there was no going back, and there was no budget limitation. The amount of money that was spent on the Apollo program was just astronomical.
And by the way, what did we.
Get by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking along the Moon?
What did we get? We brought back some moon rocks?
Was there any more understanding of the universe? Probably not now. Spacecraft that goes to other planets, that's scientific achievement. Spacecraft that go and circle the Sun, or go beyond the Solar system. We actually get information for understanding our universe. Did we get a lot of understanding from the space program where man walked on the moon?
Now, I mean we.
Got a lot of political help on that. I mean the whole world was watching the figure. A third of the world was watching the moon landing. And at that moment there was probably more good good will to the United States, and humanity felt more together and in tune with each other than ever in the history of the world. And it'll never happen again, maybe when the first sky walks on Mars and Arnold Schwarzenegger is too old for that,
and so I don't know that's going to happen. That's a reference to that movie, by the way, Yeah, I forgot the name of the movie. But other than what's going on now, we don't have a dead president that we are honoring.
We don't have a space.
Program, a cold war that we are fighting the Russians to see who's going to be first.
On the moon. Oh.
The other thing that very few people know about the Russians, It was a matter of weeks before the Russians were going to land someone on the Moon. They were working so hard and as a matter of fact, as the astronauts were on the way to the Moon, the Russians launched a vehicle that was going to go to the Moon, pick up moon rocks and pick up moon soil and return it to Earth. They were going to make a political move to undermine our walk on the Moon, and
that mission failed. So we're in a very different place. Just not I give you a little history of what's going on.
All right. I just love this stuff, you know.
I don't know how many documentaries I've been watching because I got so excited about this moon race. I talked to Rod anyway, because he knows his stuff better than anybody.
All right, So much for that. Okay, while we.
Were just going to break, an earthquake hit a few minutes ago, and Amy and Neil and I think, and they were experiencing the shaking. Amy said, oh, we're shaking right now.
What it's pretty good here on the eastern side of Los Angeles. And I'm still getting texts and monitor X a bunch of people saying that they felt it at Northridge. So far, felt it pretty big. It says it was out of Malibu.
Is that right, Amy?
That is correct?
Five point one downgraded to a four point six.
I think no, it's been upgraded then back to four point seven. And then it was followed a couple of minutes later by a two point eight, which we probably didn't feel.
Sounds like our ratings, doesn't it. Oh boy? Focus? Oh yeah, all right. I did not feel it.
And I'm in Orange County, as Amy pointed out, and I didn't even get a shake alert.
Well I think that might be you, though, because Chris Adler just texted me and she's in Orange County and she said she felt it.
Now, I just got a pop up ad that Dominoes has thirty percent off their pan pizza that I got, but I did not get the shake alert, which and I'm on shake Alert and I'm on the other one. I'm on both program ms that we have that go.
Ba, it wasn't a Shaky's pizza. Oh yeah, that was that? Would you know what? That's even better? You know what, that's even a better line. You know. I hate when you do that. I hate it when you do that. It's it's not me, it's you.
Okay, So now, but if we heard of any damage or anything like that, because I it started setting off car alarms here, which is pretty rare.
It's no, that's people stealing our cars. Yeah yeah, but you I noticed that probably for around ten seconds. You kept on saying, we're still feeling it, We're still feeling it.
It rolled on for a bit, and I know that in the studio there as well. The building is on wheels. And if you've never experienced an earthquake at there at Burbank, it's at the studio.
It's very weird. And it continued. It's just it's bizarre. Just the building is on the way. Our building is on wheels. Yeah, oh yeah, I did not know that. Yeah.
Where now it's studio city.
Yeah that's why. Yeah, there's another one. Guys, stop it. Stop being clever. I hate it when you're more clever than I am. I cannot stand it.
It's not that we're more clever than you, it's that you're less clever than everyone else.
Okay, take a page onto the handle you know the handlebook, all right, So the bottom line is what is the final as of right now?
And it changed literally within ten minutes.
It was a five point one, it dropped to what a four point one, and then now it's up to a four point eight or nine.
It's a four point seven officially from the US Geological Survey right now, and then a two point eight.
They've changed that one.
It hit at seven thirty and then a two point four after shock at seven thirty one, all about three and a half miles northwest of Malibu and just under five miles southwest of Agora Hills.
Okay, did any of you feel the after shock?
No, you probably don't feel something under three.
Yeah, you don't.
And when we're looking at a four point seven, and Neil had asked, is that enough for any damage whatsoever?
And I don't know. You see cracks in the walls.
Well, it depends way where you're you know where it hits.
I'm seeing things.
Rich Yourmuro originally said that it might have been out near one thousand Oaks. I know a lot of people in the Egura thousand Oaks, Westlake Newbury Park area said they felt it.
Pretty significantly. Yeah, if you're on top of it, you're gonna feel four point seven.
Sobardino felt it, so says Kno.
So yeah, I'm wondering why in Orange County? And were you getting any text from Orange County at all? Because I did not feel it, and I did not get an alert on my phone.
Chris Adler is in Orange County. She said that she felt it, and you know that we got the shake alert here. I got it on my phone, but I didn't get it until after the shaking started, Like.
Oh, that's not good.
No, come up like thirty seconds before.
Yeah, it's supposed to be like a heads up type thing, right, Yeah, it didn't work this time for me.
I got my pop up ad on time.
All right, I'm on a raised foundation, and it almost like it almost started at the other end of the house, and like somebody was walking towards my studio and then and then it started happening. So it was kind of an odd sensation, this one.
All right, here's what's going on.
And I always bring up by LA Unified because I grew up in the l LA Unified school district. I started in kindergarten and I finished at high school. So there's the K through twelve. I am one of the poster children of LA Unified, and LA Unified is one of the poster children of let's just say a public school system that has dropped dramatically in its ability to graduate students. I mean with a huge number of Latino students, and the dropout rate.
Is unfortunately astronomical.
And is it because LA Unified in and of itself is so poorly run? Well, I am convinced that it is ungovernable simply because of its size. New York is the only school system that is bigger than ours.
And you know, I don't know.
What reputation it has because I concentrate on LA Unified. Well, here is the latest, okay, because there's never enough money, and that is air conditioning. Now, when I went to school, air conditioning wasn't an issue. We never thought of air conditioning in schools. It was hot, but you knew it was going to cool down. And of course climate change has changed everything.
And now you have students that.
Are really in a lot of trouble. Schools are in a lot of trouble. How many stories has Amy done in the last during the hot spell where schools were just shut down, didn't let students into schools, they couldn't let students outside.
Football practice had.
To be eliminated or suspended because the heat was so great. And so we have an aging infrastructure here in an LA Unified and it's the only place private schools have a ton of air conditioning. But private schools, well, if you look at the tuition these days in private schools, so aging facilities, not enough money to buy air conditioning, not enough money to maintain air conditioning that in and of itself may be decades old.
When there is a new school being.
Built, granted, air conditioning is put in and has for a number of years, but how many new schools are being built? They're not Why because the number of kids going to school is actually dropping and the schools are scrambling, and charter schools have increased, and the politics of it. Teachers and administrators particularly fight like crazy to make sure that vouchers. Private schools simply either a don't exist or have a hard time even being created. And at the
same time there isn't money, and the kids suffer. The kids suffer.
Do you know when I went to school, you ready for this?
They used to hand out crayons, they would give pencils, they would give book covers, they would give those rulers, you know, those twelve inch rulers. I don't even think they have them anymore, but they were perfect for the teachers to smack you in the head with them and they had corporal punishment. That's a different issue. But imagine that we've gone from the schools having enough money so the kids have equipment and they have enough tools. It's
a very different animal today, unfortunately. And you're going to see the issue of air conditioning becoming more and more prominent. Why is that, Well, look at the temperatures in our last heat spell that just ended a few days ago when the fire started. Now the last couple of days it's being helped. Wait till next summer and see how many students are affected.
It is horrible. You know, it's a shame too because.
Actually, at the time that I went through LA Unified, you actually got a pretty good education. You actually came out of the LA Unified school district in good shape.
Today it is much much more difficult.
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