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Speaker 1: Sara Dar Salcedo grew up in a rancho in rural northern.

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Speaker 2: Mexico in a beautiful ranch.

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Speaker 1: When he was a teenager, his family moved to the

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Speaker 1: La area, a far cry from ranch life, but Sal

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Speaker 1: took to his new home and found his life's work.

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Speaker 3: I worked on some of the best salons in La

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Speaker 3: as an assistant, and then I got my own chair

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Speaker 3: and I decided to open up my own space at

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Speaker 3: age twenty eight. And my salon is about to be

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Speaker 3: seven years old and Carnovo Art Salon, and I love it.

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Speaker 2: It's a safe space where everyone's welcome.

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Speaker 3: When where people can come in and make the dreams

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Speaker 3: come reality.

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Speaker 1: Sal also moved to a neighborhood that he really.

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Speaker 3: Loved, Altadina. It's the most in my opinion, the most communal,

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Speaker 3: beautiful place.

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Speaker 1: Two weeks ago, Sal took a vacation in Baja, his

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Speaker 1: former hometown, and as he drove back to his home

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Speaker 1: in Altadena to his family, his partner called him, she's.

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Speaker 2: Be really careful. The wind's getting crazier getting clothes. Maybe

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Speaker 2: like about an hour away from Altadena, and.

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Speaker 3: I call another friend of mine who lives really close

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Speaker 3: to the mountain I said, Jess, how are you? She says, dude,

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Speaker 3: look at this and the fire's like right outside her house,

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Speaker 3: and she's like, we're grabbing everything.

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Speaker 2: Where are you?

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Speaker 3: And just start really just feeling, you know, like, oh

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Speaker 3: my goodness.

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Speaker 2: I start speeding up.

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Speaker 3: I started driving faster and faster, skipping trees and branches,

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Speaker 3: and all I see is lines of cars getting out

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Speaker 3: of Altadena.

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Speaker 1: Sal was heading towards the fire as people were fleeing

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Speaker 1: from it. He got home to his six year old

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Speaker 1: son and his partner. It was around seven pm and

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Speaker 1: the power had been out for hours, so they all

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Speaker 1: put headlamps on and started packing, grabbing clothes, documents, water,

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Speaker 1: and crates for their pets.

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Speaker 2: We have about three cats and a dog.

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Speaker 1: They spent about thirty minutes loading up the car.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I did grab honey, honey in a pack of butter.

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Speaker 3: That's what we grabbed because we love honey and butter.

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Speaker 3: We figured it will be all right.

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Speaker 1: They hugged, prayed, and left. Sal was headed for his

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Speaker 1: hair salon in downtown LA without a plan. During the drive,

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Speaker 1: friends started calling asking if he and his family had

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Speaker 1: a place to go, and a couple of hours later

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Speaker 1: they ended up going to a close friend's house in Crenshaw,

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Speaker 1: an area safe from the fires. Sal didn't sleep much

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Speaker 1: the first night away from home.

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Speaker 4: I kept waking up. I will fry it.

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Speaker 3: At one point I had a dream myself us like

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Speaker 3: my family on fire.

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Speaker 4: And then.

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Speaker 2: The next morning I just felt like I had to go.

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Speaker 1: So he drove to Aldadina alone. Police cars, firefighters everywhere,

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Speaker 1: houses still on fire. His neighborhood turned to ashes.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know emotionally what to do. You know, it

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Speaker 2: was just odd. It was odd.

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Speaker 3: Some houses were just completely gone nothing. There was a

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Speaker 3: lot of chimney standing.

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Speaker 1: And then South saw what was left of his house.

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Speaker 3: So my chimney was standing, maybe like parts of the

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Speaker 3: wall were standing, like the arches. Mainly all the ceramics stay,

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Speaker 3: you know. So there was this wall, the entrance of

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Speaker 3: a wall. I have a Buddha, a Buddha statue. He's

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Speaker 3: there meditating, and then there's a sun in the moon

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Speaker 3: that I got in and baja like little clay, and

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Speaker 3: all the pots from my plants are there.

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Speaker 1: South thought of all the things he wished he had

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Speaker 1: brought with him.

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Speaker 3: It's almost like when you you know, life flashes before

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Speaker 3: you looking at things like I have some pictures of

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Speaker 3: my parents. Pictures that we have are pieces. I mean,

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Speaker 3: I love boots. I have these beautiful leather boots. If

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Speaker 3: I would have done, I would to grab my boots

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Speaker 3: because those probably were my precious things.

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Speaker 2: But I didn't, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, because you're looking at your your animals, and you're

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Speaker 3: looking at your family, and I kept checking on my

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Speaker 3: son that he's okay, and so it's almost like every

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Speaker 3: time you're thinking about grabbing something, you just don't, at

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Speaker 3: least for us, because it's just a sense of like, no,

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Speaker 3: let's make sure that.

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Speaker 2: We get out of here.

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Speaker 3: We did not think for a one second that our

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Speaker 3: house would have been burned. We're very very faithful people,

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Speaker 3: very spiritual people. You start thinking of beautiful things that

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Speaker 3: happened there, you should thinking how do I share those

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Speaker 3: with my family?

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Speaker 2: How do I tell my son? How do I tell

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Speaker 2: my parents?

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Speaker 3: That's really when I broke down, when I called my

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Speaker 3: my dad.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Sal remembered the first time his dad came to

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Speaker 1: see his new house. How his dad joked with Sal

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Speaker 1: telling him that he'd never be bored as a homeowner

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Speaker 1: now because it would always be something to fix. The

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Speaker 1: landlord who no more landlords.

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Speaker 3: Son, I learned to love our house because I was

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Speaker 3: always on the move, you know, I've always I never

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Speaker 3: owned anything, And so for me, the idea of loss

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Speaker 3: is very interesting because I did allow myself to attach

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Speaker 3: to this beautiful place where it's the American dream.

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Speaker 2: Really, you know, I came from another country.

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Speaker 4: I made it.

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Speaker 3: I thought I have a place, I have a business,

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Speaker 3: I have a beautiful family, and then just to see

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Speaker 3: it be gone in a matter of hours. I still

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Speaker 3: don't comprehend what it's like. Like, like I said, the emotions,

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Speaker 3: like you hear me, I'm like laughing, I'm biggling and

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Speaker 3: I'm crying.

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Speaker 2: Like it's really hard for them mind to wrap around it.

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Speaker 4: So we are.

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Speaker 3: A thin that sadds me the most is my son's

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Speaker 3: school being gone, because those people, those children are just

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Speaker 3: amazing and so all the parents. You know, it's I

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Speaker 3: call a heaven on Earth.

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Speaker 1: From evacuation day on every day, sal has been happily

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Speaker 1: overwhelmed with support. Support that shows up in different ways

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Speaker 1: social media fundraising efforts, surprise visits at his hair salon

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Speaker 1: from friends and clients, and in the kind of cross

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Speaker 1: cultural solidarity that's very on brand for La. He has

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Speaker 1: his Chinese in laws dropping off Chinese Tamalis and his

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Speaker 1: Mexican family dropping off Mexican Damalis. Sal says he's grateful

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Speaker 1: for the love he has experienced and is trying to

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Speaker 1: focus all his energy on rebuilding.

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Speaker 3: Like my son, the beautiful things I heard, he was sad.

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Speaker 3: He said, oh man, my school burn. I'm not going

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Speaker 3: to be able to go play anymore. And then a

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Speaker 3: couple of seconds lighter, he said, well, maybe I'll buy

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Speaker 3: my friends to go play in the ashes. You know,

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Speaker 3: I think children get it as always possibilities. I hope

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Speaker 3: we can continue to see possibilities.

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles has never seen this level of destruction, this

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Speaker 1: level of loss, and with social media, many of us

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Speaker 1: are seeing things that are breaking our hearts from afar,

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Speaker 1: like that video outside of the McDonald's when the winds

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Speaker 1: were so extreme that the flames seemed to be spreading

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Speaker 1: sideways by a blowtorch, or the aerial images of thick,

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Speaker 1: red and orange clouds moving like a strong undersea current.

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Speaker 1: Local TV outlets have allowed us to witness moments of solidarity,

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Speaker 1: like when this Telemundo reporter Alex Basquez walked through the

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Speaker 1: rubble in Altadena wearing a face covering. He panned the

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Speaker 1: camera to residents who were using a garden host to

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Speaker 1: put out the leftover.

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Speaker 4: SMOKEAVSCA, no there in the karade.

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Speaker 1: The firefighters have told people not to stay home.

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Speaker 2: He says, you live.

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Speaker 4: Here right I live right there. Okay, they saved your house,

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Speaker 4: Your neighbors saved your house. My neighbor, I work for him.

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Speaker 5: I work for my neighbor, and I helped his family,

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Speaker 5: and he helped mine.

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Speaker 1: Subasino or moments of strength, like this young Latina nurse

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Speaker 1: standing in a light haze outside of a nursing home.

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Speaker 1: She spoke to Chris cavezas a reporter from Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: Telemundo about helping elderly folks evacuate.

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Speaker 6: Cos because I got up Alidad and suskas Perianos or

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Speaker 6: the La Silla.

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Speaker 2: Wou See.

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Speaker 1: She says, they had to help patients who couldn't move.

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Speaker 1: It was four of us, she says, me, someone who

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Speaker 1: works in the kitchen, and two police officers struggling to

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Speaker 1: get people out.

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Speaker 2: And most persona's Joe.

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Speaker 1: She said she hadn't fully processed everything that happened. I

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Speaker 1: mean how do you process something of this magnitude. Dozens

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Speaker 1: of people dead and over two hundred thousand people displaced,

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Speaker 1: entire communities burned to ashes. This is reportedly going to

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Speaker 1: be one of the costliest natural disasters in US history,

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Speaker 1: and it's happening in the city with the largest Latino

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Speaker 1: population in the United States. From Futuro Media and PRX,

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Speaker 1: it's Latino USA. I'm Fernande Chavarri in for our host

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Speaker 1: Marino Jos today the devastation of the Los Angeles fires

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Speaker 1: and the solidarity that has sprung from the places to

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Speaker 1: help us get some context and a better understanding of

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Speaker 1: what things have been like in Los Angeles for the

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Speaker 1: past couple of weeks. We are joined by my dear

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Speaker 1: friend and former Latino USA producer, Antonia Si Djuilo. She

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Speaker 1: is the host of Imperfect Paradise out of LAist, Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles Public Radio station. Thank you so much for your

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Speaker 1: time and for all the work that you and your

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Speaker 1: colleagues are doing day in day out on this story,

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Speaker 1: and so thank you for taking the time and for

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Speaker 1: joining us today.

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Speaker 5: Of course, thank you so much, and I mean the

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Speaker 5: outpouring of support nationally for Los Angeles and our city

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Speaker 5: has been really moving, so I'm also really grateful for

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Speaker 5: everyone sending love and support our way.

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Speaker 1: Of course, can you start by giving us an idea

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Speaker 1: of just the scope of destruction up until this point,

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Speaker 1: you know where we're not in the first few days,

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Speaker 1: anymore more than a week has gone by. What are

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Speaker 1: we talking about here?

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Speaker 5: I think we're still a ways away from fully understanding

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Speaker 5: the scope of what has happened. The death toll is

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Speaker 5: at least twenty four people. Two hundred thousand people had

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Speaker 5: to evacuate, and tens of thousands of structures, so that

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Speaker 5: includes businesses, schools, homes, They were all destroyed. It's really

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Speaker 5: an incalculable loss that the city has gone through. It's

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Speaker 5: still not over, so we're very much still in this devastation,

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Speaker 5: still don't know what's to come, and hopefully the fires.

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Speaker 7: Can continue to be somewhat contained.

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Speaker 1: And are there stories of people that you and your

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Speaker 1: colleagues have met that sort of show us the different

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Speaker 1: levels of devastation that we're talking here, loss of structures,

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Speaker 1: loss of history, loss of jobs, loss of community that

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Speaker 1: you can share with us.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're just hearing these overwhelming stories from folks

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Speaker 5: one of my colleagues, Aaron Schrenk, spoke to a USC

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Speaker 5: professor named Laura Muskita, who's an expert on geriatric care.

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Speaker 5: She was volunteering at the Pasadena Civic Center where a

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Speaker 5: lot of nursing home residents had been evacuated.

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Speaker 8: To you have nursing home residents who are developing pressure

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Speaker 8: ulcers or their pressure ulcers getting worse because they're left

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Speaker 8: sitting upright because they've run out of cots. They brought

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Speaker 8: in cots last night that were the height of massage tables.

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Speaker 8: You know, they're higher than my waist. You can't lift

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Speaker 8: somebody who's ninety five years old and put them up

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Speaker 8: on there and expect they're not going to ball off

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Speaker 8: onto the concrete floor.

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Speaker 5: People who you know, need assistants using the restroom, and

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Speaker 5: they don't have access to bathrooms or in continence care,

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Speaker 5: and so they're having to change in public, in front

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Speaker 5: of everyone.

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Speaker 7: With no privacy. So just a really difficult scene.

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Speaker 5: Of course, another aspect of this fire that is really

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Speaker 5: heartbreaking is that Alta Dina is one of the places

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Speaker 5: that's been most affected. This is a historic black and

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Speaker 5: minority neighborhood during the Civil rights movement. It was one

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Speaker 5: of the few communities that offered housing loans to Black

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Speaker 5: Americans that were redlined out of other parts of Los Angeles.

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Speaker 7: We spoke to people whose.

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Speaker 5: Homes held four generations of a black family that had

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Speaker 5: been redlined, and now that home is gone. So to

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Speaker 5: think of the history there that has lost the community,

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Speaker 5: it's staggering.

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Speaker 4: My concern is worth the black Alcademians who have bought

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Speaker 4: a home and we can't come back to that home.

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Speaker 3: And I was exciting that my parents were red.

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Speaker 1: Lines to live where they lived. They couldn't live on

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Speaker 1: the east side of Lake, they had to stay on

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Speaker 1: the west side. That's why I'm real estate.

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Speaker 2: And they bought it in nineteen eighty five.

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Speaker 4: Or one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars, so that

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Speaker 4: was worth like what a million? One million?

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Speaker 8: May we can't love that, I can't come back.

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Speaker 5: And another story that's sort of sticking with me is

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Speaker 5: Fernando Lopez. He's one of the founders of leg Lagazza,

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Speaker 5: which is a very popular Wahakan restaurant here in La

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Speaker 5: He started a mutual aid fund for domestic workers. So

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Speaker 5: his mother was a domestic worker and he immediately realized that,

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Speaker 5: you know, we're seeing a lot of these images of

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Speaker 5: these really fancy mansions, specifically in the Palisades on the

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Speaker 5: West Side, being burned down. And while you think, okay,

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Speaker 5: that's a really wealthy person who's affected, a lot of

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Speaker 5: people who work in that neighborhood are gardeners, are house cleaners,

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Speaker 5: and they're people who have, you know, their route where

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Speaker 5: they travel every day. And there's people who've lost all

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Speaker 5: of their clients because it's on their gardening route, it's

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Speaker 5: on their on their house cleaning route, and they're going

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Speaker 5: to have to start from zero. And so Lopez created

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Speaker 5: a mutual aid fund for people who want to specifically

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Speaker 5: help domestic workers during this time.

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Speaker 1: That really is, you know, something to pass in think about,

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Speaker 1: because there are folks landscapers, house cleaners that are completely

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Speaker 1: out of income.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, we're still we're starting to get

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Speaker 5: stories of farm workers that are affected, that are still

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Speaker 5: picking crops during these fires. Who you know, it's already

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Speaker 5: because of pesticides and other issues, the air quality in

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Speaker 5: those areas is not the best. And on top of that,

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Speaker 5: now with these wildfires and the burning embers, so people

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Speaker 5: doing really difficult things to make sure that all of

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Speaker 5: us get fed under very dangerous conditions for themselves.

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Speaker 7: There's a lot of gratitude.

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Speaker 5: And a lot of sadness, I think when you think

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Speaker 5: about what they're enduring right.

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Speaker 1: Now, coming up on Latino USA.

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Speaker 5: In the middle of all of this anxiety, I hear

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Speaker 5: the horn of my local Chicharroun guy that comes around

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Speaker 5: once a day.

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Speaker 1: Will be right back, Welcome back. I'm Fernande Chevri in

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Speaker 1: for our host Marino Josa. Today we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: devastation and solidarity in Los Angeles after the historic fires

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Speaker 1: this month. We're going to get right back to our

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Speaker 1: conversation with Antonio Sirijido, host of Imperfect Paradise out of LAist,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles Public radio station. Can you tell me a

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Speaker 1: little bit about I know your newsroom, the LAIS newsroom

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Speaker 1: is in Pasadena. What's it like in your newsroom and

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Speaker 1: with your colleagues because you're all reporting on this, but

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Speaker 1: you're also living in the areas. Some of you might

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Speaker 1: be living in the areas where where you're directly affected

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Speaker 1: by it and the newsroom itself.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I know of at least three of

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Speaker 5: my colleagues that have lost their homes last week and

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Speaker 5: they're continuing to work through this moment. A lot of

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Speaker 5: us were evacuated filing stories. And then our building is

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Speaker 5: in Pasadena, like you said, and so the second floor

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Speaker 5: right now, no one's using it.

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Speaker 7: It's so full of smoke.

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Speaker 5: And on the first floor we're only using two studios

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Speaker 5: right now. We're running these like industrial air purifiers twenty

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Speaker 5: four to seven to make sure that our hosts are

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Speaker 5: able to get in and continue to broadcast. And there's

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Speaker 5: very limited access to the building in general. So thankfully

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Speaker 5: the building is safe. We're all really grateful for that.

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Speaker 5: But the work, we don't know how long it's going

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Speaker 5: to be before we can go back into our office.

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Speaker 1: And there's no way that we could talk about this

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Speaker 1: without talking about climate change. And we know, because a

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Speaker 1: science is there that natural disasters are intensifying hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires.

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Speaker 1: So what do we know about the conditions that made

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Speaker 1: these particular fires spread to this magnitude? Like how how

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Speaker 1: did they get this bad?

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Speaker 5: That's a great question, And the answer to that is

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Speaker 5: this phenomenon that is being called weather whiplash. So here

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Speaker 5: in Los Angeles, the past two years were record amounts

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Speaker 5: of rain, which was surprising for southern California, which is

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Speaker 5: a place that people normally think of as where it

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Speaker 5: doesn't rain a lot, but very heavy rain, which meant

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Speaker 5: that a lot of vegetation grew on mountain sides around

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Speaker 5: Los Angeles area. And then this year there's been very

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Speaker 5: low amounts of rain, and so what happened is all

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Speaker 5: of that vegetation that grew over the last two years

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Speaker 5: it dried out, so you have a ton of vegetation

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Speaker 5: that is highly flammable, and the impact of climate change

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Speaker 5: on that is that both the rain and the drought

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Speaker 5: is more extreme than normal. Fires here in southern California

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Speaker 5: have always been very normal, but that's what's intensifying things.

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Speaker 5: And then the other thing that was very unique to

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Speaker 5: what happened here in Los Angeles is that these were

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Speaker 5: extremely extremely fast winds like the Santa Anas, which are

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Speaker 5: the winds that come from the desert to the ocean

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Speaker 5: that are very hot and dry. Those winds are very

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Speaker 5: intense winds, like higher than a regular Santa Ana year.

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Speaker 5: So all of those things together really led to a

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Speaker 5: very unique and terrifying combination of conditions that allowed for

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Speaker 5: these wildfires to spread.

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Speaker 1: I want to end with just talking about LA because

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Speaker 1: La is such a special place. The cross cultural solidarity

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Speaker 1: that can happen in LA is really unlike many other

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Speaker 1: American cities. I want to know what you have seen

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Speaker 1: that sort of crystallizes the spirit of solidarity among Angelino's.

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Speaker 7: It's been so beautiful in LA.

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Speaker 5: To me, is like the dream inside the American dream.

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Speaker 5: It's like, I mean, my show is called Imperfect Paradise,

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Speaker 5: and it's really about how this city is a place

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Speaker 5: made up of like dreamers and schemers and people who

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Speaker 5: are like here because they want to enjoy the beauty

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Speaker 5: that a place like Los Angeles has to offer, but

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Speaker 5: also because they want to create beautiful things. I mean,

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Speaker 5: I think people forget Black Lives Matter started in Los Angeles, Hollywood,

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Speaker 5: the factory of dreams started in Los Angeles. Like, I

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Speaker 5: think all of us who live here are feeling tremendous

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Speaker 5: amounts of pride to live here. Another moment sort of

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Speaker 5: you know this this, we're in this terrifying situation. We

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Speaker 5: I'm at my house, you know, figuring out how to

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Speaker 5: do the best coverage, whether my husband and I have

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Speaker 5: to evacuate where what we're going to do with the cats.

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Speaker 5: In the middle of like all of this sort of

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Speaker 5: anxiety on the edge of my seat, and I hear

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Speaker 5: the bossina, like the horn of the my local chicherrun

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Speaker 5: guy that comes around once a day.

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Speaker 7: And this guy is he's so inventive.

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Speaker 5: He has a golf cart where he has all of

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Speaker 5: his accouterments.

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Speaker 9: So this this this guy is honking the little like

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Speaker 9: horn to alert the neighbors to come out and buy

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Speaker 9: his snacks when the air pollution is like, do not

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Speaker 9: go outside, do not know?

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Speaker 1: And this guy's like, listen, you want a snack? And

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Speaker 1: I got to make money exactly.

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Speaker 5: And I think that that's like it's a very resilient city.

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Speaker 5: It's a city full of hustlers. I just want to

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Speaker 5: say that I love la I love everyone here. It's

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Speaker 5: such a beautiful place. I'm so proud to live here.

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Speaker 5: And I'm really proud of my colleagues. They've really been

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Speaker 5: working under extreme duress to keep people informed, to give

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Speaker 5: people information, to keep them safe. And I hope that

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Speaker 5: we don't have to do it for much longer and

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Speaker 5: that the city doesn't have to go through much more.

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Speaker 1: I hope so too. Antonio Sidehi, the host of Imperfect

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Speaker 1: Paradise for Last Los Angeles Public Radio Station, thank you

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Speaker 1: again so much for your time, stay safe, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for all the work that you and your colleagues

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Speaker 1: are doing day in and day out in Los Angeles.

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Speaker 7: Thank you foranana.

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Speaker 1: As the wildfires in LA have continued, there's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of information shared on social media about how about

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Speaker 1: a third of the firefighters out there are incarcerated individuals.

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Speaker 1: Many of these firefighters are young men of color who

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Speaker 1: are risking their lives to save homes and communities, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes they become so committed that they continue the work

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Speaker 1: even after detention. Latino USA spoke with someone a couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago who is part of an elite hotshot crew,

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Speaker 1: someone in his early forties who was first introduced to

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Speaker 1: firefighting in his mid teens at an unexpected place, juvenile detention.

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Speaker 1: Here's his story of perseverance, which we first brought you

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 6: Dear listener, before we start, a quick warning, there's a

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Speaker 6: brief mention of suicide.

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Speaker 1: Take care.

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Speaker 4: My names are Mondo Perez and I am a hot

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Speaker 4: shot for the Eldorado hot Shots.

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Speaker 6: Are Mondo Perez, or Mando, as he likes to be called.

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Speaker 6: Never imagine that he would be responding to some of

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Speaker 6: the worst wildfires in US history, But for the past decade,

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Speaker 6: Mondo has worked as a wildland firefighter with the El

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Speaker 6: Dorado California hot Shot Crew. Hot Shots get that name

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Speaker 6: because they work on the hottest part of wildfires. Mondo's

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Speaker 6: career in firefighting wasn't just unexpected, it had a pretty

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Speaker 6: unusual start as well.

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Speaker 4: When I started getting to my teenageers young teenageers, I

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Speaker 4: started running around with my local friends and we started

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Speaker 4: getting into trouble. When I was sixteen, I got sent

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Speaker 4: to juvenile detention and I did two years, and that's

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Speaker 4: where I kind of got introduced to firefight.

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Speaker 6: At least thirty states in the country have laws that

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Speaker 6: allow for the employment of the incarcerated population in emergencies

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Speaker 6: and disasters, and the work is not always voluntary. The

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Speaker 6: constitution explicitly denies incarcerated people the right to refuse to work.

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Speaker 6: Prisoners only get paid one or two dollars per hour.

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Speaker 6: In some states, like Texas and Georgia, they don't get

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Speaker 6: paid at all. And then, perhaps the worst part of

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Speaker 6: it all once they get out of prison. Many of

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Speaker 6: these firefighters have extreme difficulties pursuing a career because of

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Speaker 6: their background, but Mondo persevered and became an exception. He's

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Speaker 6: an example of the paradox and transformative potential that this

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Speaker 6: kind of work represents.

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Speaker 4: I mean that work was hard work, but it was worked.

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Speaker 6: To understand why Mando and thousands of other wildland firefighters

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Speaker 6: continue to risk their lives under increasingly difficult and record

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Speaker 6: breaking fires. Mando is going to recreate what a typical

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Speaker 6: day for him is going into the fire and also

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Speaker 6: coming out of it.

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Speaker 4: I don't want to come off as bragging or cocky,

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Speaker 4: but like the top of the wildland firefighters, we're considered

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Speaker 4: a type one fire line crew, right, you're a national resource,

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Speaker 4: so we get scooped up pretty fast. We're starting to

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Speaker 4: see fires when we normally didn't see him around January February,

442
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 4: so it's year round and it's starting to be more common.

443
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 4: So it never gets easier, it's actually getting harder and harder.

444
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 4: I wake up in the morning, I hug and kiss

445
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 4: my wife, go downstairs, get my coffee, lock up, and

446
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,120
Speaker 4: then jump in my car and take off and then

447
00:26:53,359 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 4: I'll see them in two weeks. You get there a fowl,

448
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:02,719
Speaker 4: you guys get all geared up. Okay, it's game time, right.

449
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 4: You get that feeling like oh man, you start looking up,

450
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 4: you see the fire. Then you break down into your

451
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 4: squads or your mods, and one mongo's going away to

452
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 4: the mogos the other way, and you kind of try

453
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 4: to attack the flank of the fire. Right. You just

454
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 4: start hearing the chainsaws fire up and start cutting brush,

455
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 4: and then you know it's like, okay, we're here, we're

456
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 4: doing it. The biggest thing is going out there and

457
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:31,360
Speaker 4: making sure the guys can cut line right efficiently. It's

458
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 4: pretty much the act of removing fuel. So let's say

459
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 4: you got a forest, right, and you got brush or

460
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 4: bushes and trees, just continuous fuel. We're trying to get

461
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 4: on one side of the fire and remove a line

462
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 4: of brush sec a fuel break, and we're going over

463
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,439
Speaker 4: with the chainsaws. Chainsaws do cutting right, and then you

464
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,479
Speaker 4: have a group of folks behind the chainsaws, which are

465
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 4: the scrapes or the hand tools, and they scrape back

466
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 4: show organic material, so it ends up looking like a

467
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,399
Speaker 4: trail good enough for us to get in and out

468
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 4: and then create that fuel break. I'm just running around

469
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,159
Speaker 4: and then listening to the radio traffic. People on the

470
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 4: other side of the fire, the other side of the

471
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 4: line down the road. They're throwing bits and piece out there,

472
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 4: and you kind of get all that information you start

473
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,439
Speaker 4: putting together as you're going up and down these hills

474
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 4: and trying to find time to squeeze in a snack

475
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 4: while still trying to get productivity out of your folks.

476
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 4: You got people sweating, hard, tired. If you're close enough

477
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 4: to the fire, it gets extremely hot. You're like, man,

478
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 4: my face is burning every now and then you pop

479
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 4: out trying to get a little bit of fresh air

480
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 4: away from the heat, get back in it, start thinking like, man,

481
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 4: it's almost quitting time. I hope nothing crazy happens. Nowadays,

482
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 4: the fires are too intense or too complex to get

483
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 4: in there and do it safely. So we've been doing

484
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 4: more burning operations than anything, where we go in there

485
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 4: and light to fire ourselves, kind of keep ourselves a

486
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 4: buffer zone so when the fire does come, it kind

487
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 4: of just peters out there and it doesn't continue. On

488
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 4: a fire, our shifts are typically sixteen hours, but if

489
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 4: the need should or ride. You will do whatever you

490
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 4: need to do twenty four thirty two. We've done seventy

491
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,239
Speaker 4: two hour shifts before. They're not the best, but when

492
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 4: you're lacking resources and the fire is just pushing your hand,

493
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 4: you have to do what you got to do. And

494
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 4: as long as we kind of secure the edge and

495
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 4: they feel good and you could say it's not out,

496
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 4: but it's contained, right, the hotchhogs can walk away and

497
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 4: then it can bring another resources behind us and they

498
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 4: could monitor it until they put it out computing. Once

499
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 4: the fourteen days come up, we're done. They send us

500
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 4: home and when you start driving home, I got thirty minutes,

501
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 4: thirty five minutes to kind of start winding down, because

502
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 4: you go from going to one hundred miles an hour

503
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 4: like intense fighting fire, and your brain's always going to

504
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 4: coming home and you have to find that shut off. Right.

505
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 4: It used to be two days they just passed on

506
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 4: recently where now we get three days off mandatory, which

507
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 4: is awesome because two days was not enough. My kids

508
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 4: they love what I do, even though that they miss me.

509
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 4: I think they get a sense of pride knowing that

510
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 4: their dad is a wildlamd firefighter or even more than

511
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 4: that a hot shot. So you get home, you try

512
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 4: to decompress. You sit there with your family, try to

513
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 4: absorb what they're doing, and you're trying. You're trying to

514
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 4: fill in two weeks of time you missed in two

515
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:22,640
Speaker 4: or three days, and it's impossible. It's impossible. So you

516
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 4: just got to kind of slow down and just take

517
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:31,719
Speaker 4: what's there and make the best of it. It's fire stressful, man,

518
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 4: it's extremely stressful. Not to get all dark and gloomy,

519
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 4: but the suicide rate for a wildlam firefighter is high

520
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 4: for any firefighter. Actually, you do this long enough, you

521
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 4: start seeing too much, right, You start seeing people pass away,

522
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 4: you start seeing people get hurt, and then you feel

523
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 4: like you don't have the support from everyone around you,

524
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 4: and it kind of starts bothering you and you start thinking, like, man,

525
00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 4: is this really worth it? Everybody got to find that

526
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 4: help what works for them, whether it's actual medical help,

527
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 4: mental health. I don't know. Obviously, as you climb the ranks,

528
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 4: you get paid better, but I mean, starting off, I

529
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 4: wouldn't say it's the dream job as far as the

530
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 4: finance part of it goes. I definitely don't do this

531
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 4: for the pay. I don't love fires, but I love

532
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 4: fighting the fires. I feel like I'm good at what

533
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 4: I do right. I love being outdoors. I love being

534
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 4: a new country out there, seeing what's out the nature.

535
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 4: It's beautiful. The challenge, it makes you step up, right.

536
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 4: I want to stop this. I want to help out

537
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 4: and knowing that you're saving someone's property or someone's livelihood,

538
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 4: like you're doing sort people you never met, right, and

539
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 4: it feels good. Crews are having hard time staffing for

540
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 4: whatever reasons, but there's still a bunch of us out

541
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 4: there that care and are continuing to do the hard

542
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 4: work people around me, and I think that's what keeps

543
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 4: me coming back. I don't see myself doing anything else

544
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 4: other than hotshoting for a while.

545
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: That was Armando Perez, a hot shot firefighter, sharing his

546
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: story with us back in twenty twenty two. Today, he

547
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: continues to fight fires and has since been promoted to

548
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: captain with El Dorado Hotshots in Northern California. This episode

549
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: was produced by me Fernando chavarri In for our host

550
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 1: Marie J.

551
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 2: Josa.

552
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: It was edited by Maria Garcia. Production assistance by Noor

553
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: Saudi and Andrea Lopez. Gruzzlo. It was mixed by Stephanie Labaud,

554
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: Julia Caruso and j J.

555
00:32:57,080 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 3: Carubin.

556
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Lays to Report, Aaron Schrenk, Aaron Stone

557
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: and Brian de Losantos, and extra shout out to Janis Yamoca.

558
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:11,480
Speaker 1: The Latino USA team includes Jessica Ellis, Victoria Stradra, Dominique

559
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: Estrosa Renaldo Lanz Junior, Dasha Sandoval, Luis Luna, Marta Martinez

560
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: and Nancy Trujillio, Maria Jojosa, Penille Ramirez, Marlon Bishop and

561
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: Maria Garcia are our co executive producers. Join us again

562
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: next time, and in the meantime you can find us

563
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: on social media and at Latino USA dot org. Laios.

564
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: Latino USA is made possible in part by California Endowment,

565
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 1: building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians,

566
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for more than fifty

567
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: years advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better

568
00:33:54,960 --> 00:34:00,040
Speaker 1: world at Hewlett dot org, and funding for Latino the

569
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: USA is. Coverage of a culture of health is made

570
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: possible in part by a grant from the Robert Wood

571
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: Johnson Foundation,