Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getdy show.
Speaker 2: It was like a hurricane.
Speaker 1: This fire no water, but like eighty miles an hour
Speaker 1: plus it felts a real.
Speaker 2: It's a fire like racing down the hill at that point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well that's what's scary about this.
Speaker 3: It just was shooting like a blow torch, like a
Speaker 3: blow tort It was literally just shooting off of the mountain.
Speaker 4: Man, I just watched a video I hadn't seen this
Speaker 4: doorbell camera captures early moments of the eating fire. That's
Speaker 4: the one up by Altadena and Pasadena and these people.
Speaker 4: She was coming home from work and she saw a
Speaker 4: little orange glow off in the distance underneath the power lines.
Speaker 4: That's why they're now reporting. The La Times is reporting
Speaker 4: that they they get started under the power lines. But
Speaker 4: it's got the minute by minute on here of how
Speaker 4: fast it went from tiny little fire to a pretty
Speaker 4: big fire to holy crap, and they loaded up their
Speaker 4: car and got out of there. It's just crazy how
Speaker 4: fast that happened. And also I found the the three
Speaker 4: letter Warning for.
Speaker 2: Today comes up with this stuff.
Speaker 4: They declared it a PDS for Today Particularly Dangerous Situation. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's like the official and I guess when you declare
Speaker 4: something a PDS, then all.
Speaker 2: Kinds of things happen. Do we need that, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's what I wonder.
Speaker 3: So I would say it's a pleasure to talk to
Speaker 3: our next guest, and it is in a way, but
Speaker 3: it's a terrible, a terrible topic. Rick Dickard is a
Speaker 3: legend of LA Media Fox eleven Morning News, among other
Speaker 3: credits for years, certified broadcast meteorologist, heard many, many, many
Speaker 3: many times on our beloved affiliate seven to ninety KABC,
Speaker 3: and he joins us, Now.
Speaker 2: Rick, how are you, sir?
Speaker 1: I'm well, given what's happening here. Thank you for having me,
Speaker 1: Jack Joe. And you mentioned the PDS, and that is
Speaker 1: an official term used by the National Weather Service to
Speaker 1: express the heightened risk of severe weather, and here it's
Speaker 1: a wildfire or the potential of more wildfires that they
Speaker 1: usue those PDS's force severe weather, hurricanes, tornadoes. So this
Speaker 1: is an extreme situation. And unfortunately we're looking at another
Speaker 1: powerful wind event, not quite what we saw last Tuesday,
Speaker 1: but close to it in terms of wind velocities that
Speaker 1: are anticipated over the next forty eight hours.
Speaker 3: Wow, and I want to get to that in just
Speaker 3: a second, But first, can you describe to folks what
Speaker 3: the weather was like last week when the fires started?
Speaker 3: Giving your perspective of reporting on this sort of thing
Speaker 3: for years and years.
Speaker 1: And I worked in the broadcast media here in southern
Speaker 1: California for thirty plus years, twenty of which I spent
Speaker 1: up in an airborne capacity in a helicopter covering these events,
Speaker 1: these wind driven events. This is the worst I have
Speaker 1: ever seen, and I was on the ground for this one.
Speaker 1: And essentially what happened dynamically in the atmosphere. Things came
Speaker 1: together to produce these hurricane force wind guts in those
Speaker 1: areas that we call the urban wildland interface here in
Speaker 1: southern California, two of which above Pacific Pali States, above
Speaker 1: that iconic shoreline if you're on the East coast you've
Speaker 1: seen it in pictures and movies of Malibu. And then
Speaker 1: the eaten fire above just to the north and northeast
Speaker 1: of the iconic Rose Bowl and Colorado Boulevard where you
Speaker 1: see the Rose Parade every year. Those two areas, there
Speaker 1: was some sort of trigger in the wild land just
Speaker 1: above those communities, those two sparks happen, and then dynamically utroologically,
Speaker 1: we have this powerful wind event that allowed that fire
Speaker 1: to spread. You heard what people in those areas said,
Speaker 1: like a blowtors. It was a firestorm, eighty mine hour
Speaker 1: wind deests burning that chaparral, that forest land, those dry tinder,
Speaker 1: dry bloodshed. We had months of no precipitation essentially here
Speaker 1: in southern California. That Breashcot fire, the winds ignited and
Speaker 1: that fire spread directly down into those communities. They eaten
Speaker 1: fire Pasadena over towards Altadena, Sierra Madre, and then the
Speaker 1: Palisades fire incumbassy Pacific Palsas there even part of Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: and then up the past towards Malabu.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought I knew what these videos would be
Speaker 4: like when I started watching them. But some of the
Speaker 4: videos they had in sixty minutes last night, and somebody
Speaker 4: saw this morning on my phone. It was so windy,
Speaker 4: it was like it was like CGI special effects. I'd
Speaker 4: never see anything like that anywhere, No wonder it's been
Speaker 4: so difficult to fight, and it was like a machine
Speaker 4: gun of embers being shot over tremendous distances miles.
Speaker 1: That those embers that Ember cast and the Ember intrusion
Speaker 1: as we call it, it gets caught up in the
Speaker 1: eaves of homes two miles away from the fire zones
Speaker 1: because it was so dry out there, it ignited homes
Speaker 1: well away from that major fire zone. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened for a good twelve to twenty four hour
Speaker 1: period after these two fires started. The Palisades Fire started
Speaker 1: at ten thirty am Pacific Standard time on Tuesday. The
Speaker 1: Eaten Fire above the Rose Bowl north and east of
Speaker 1: the Rose Bowl in the Angels National Fire that started
Speaker 1: shortly after six pm on the same day. Worst case
Speaker 1: scenario with the weather in play and where those two
Speaker 1: fires ignited, allowing those fires fanned by those dusty, powerful
Speaker 1: hurricane force windows out of the north and northeast towards
Speaker 1: the south and southwest into those communities of Pacific Palisades
Speaker 1: of Alcadina and Sierra.
Speaker 3: Madre, including bizarre fire behaviors racing downhill driven by the wind,
Speaker 3: which is something normally that doesn't happen. Rick Dickert, a
Speaker 3: longtime meteorologist reporter in LA Online. Rick talk to us
Speaker 3: about what's expected this week weatherwise.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, we set it that pds issued by the National
Speaker 1: Weather Service heightened fire weather encompassing parts of southern California,
Speaker 1: Ventura County, the Porto Ranch area, Simi Valley, San Fernando,
Speaker 1: the West Santa Monica Mountains. That's very close to the
Speaker 1: Palisades Fire from Pepperdine University over towards Point Mavie. Wind
Speaker 1: guts again not as strong as what we saw last Tuesday,
Speaker 1: but close to it. We're talking about wind gusts of
Speaker 1: forty five to seventy miles per a sustained wind of
Speaker 1: thirty nine miles an hour that's tropical storm force. A
Speaker 1: sustained wind of seventy four miles an hour that is
Speaker 1: a Category one hurricane. Those wind guts, in addition to
Speaker 1: the relative humidity values of eight to fifteen percent, that's
Speaker 1: what's going to produce the red flag conditions. When a
Speaker 1: red flag warning is issued for southern California, you're watching
Speaker 1: and listening from other parts of the country. That means
Speaker 1: explosive fire growth potential, just like what we saw last
Speaker 1: Tuesday into Wednesday, that blow towards effect. You get that
Speaker 1: ignition and then the fire spreadent I do want to
Speaker 1: mention that Jack and Jodd a fire. These fires aren't
Speaker 1: started by the weather. They're driven by the weather. There's
Speaker 1: some sort of ignition. It could be something in terms
Speaker 1: of our infrastructure. Unfortunately, there's arson. People love startheas fires. Accidentally,
Speaker 1: the trigger occurs, the atmosphere conditions are in play, and
Speaker 1: that's what allow these fires to spread so rapidly and
Speaker 1: create the devastation that we've seen.
Speaker 4: I'm really glad we had you on. What a great report.
Speaker 4: Nice job, Yeah, terrific, Rick, We're big fans.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry it's under this circumstance that we talk to you,
Speaker 3: but fabulous job.
Speaker 2: I hope we can stay in touch.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, stay safe out everybody. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: It's interesting he brings that up about the obviously the
Speaker 4: weather conditions don't start the fire, they spread the fire.
Speaker 4: David Spade, the actor comedian, is offering five thousand dollars
Speaker 4: for anybody with information on the arsonists to start the fire.
Speaker 4: So clearly he's under the impression that some human beings
Speaker 4: started this on purpose.
Speaker 2: Is I've often wondered.
Speaker 4: This with with with our you know, you start a
Speaker 4: you go into a building and start that on fire,
Speaker 4: that's a you know, specific thing, but starting a fire
Speaker 4: in an area that it catches on and then burns
Speaker 4: and burns and burns and burns. You got you gotta
Speaker 4: be prepared for that, whether it's an arsonist, a lightning strike,
Speaker 4: an electric breakdown. You've got to have some way to
Speaker 4: keep that from getting so out of control, don't you know,
Speaker 4: the forest management we're having enough of water in your
Speaker 4: fire hydrants to fight it or whatever, because there's always
Speaker 4: going to be something a.
Speaker 3: Lot more sparked or I don't think there is anything
Speaker 3: you can do to be ready for that weather after
Speaker 3: that long and drought and getting sparked. You have to
Speaker 3: work like a maniac to make sure that in those
Speaker 3: conditions nothing gets sparked, and there's super quick response if
Speaker 3: it does. But with one hundred male par gusts, lots
Speaker 3: and lots of seventy five mile prou gusts, you're just screwed.
Speaker 3: To summarize, although, and we made this point a couple
Speaker 3: of times, and it's worth making again because a particular
Speaker 3: aspect of this cannot be blamed on bad governance. Is
Speaker 3: no reason to not talk about the awful, awful governance
Speaker 3: of California slash LA that was a contributor. Maybe it
Speaker 3: doesn't explain it, but it should still be identified and
Speaker 3: rooted out.
Speaker 4: I wish I could remember where I heard some fire
Speaker 4: chiefs saying we could have had every fire truck in
Speaker 4: America here last Thursday night and it wouldn't have made
Speaker 4: any difference when it was gusting to one hundred miles
Speaker 4: an hour, which makes sense.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, the one gent I heard, I think it
Speaker 3: was on sixty minutes point doubt that if they have
Speaker 3: a fully involved structure, they want three fire trucks there typically,
Speaker 3: and that there were as of when they interviewed him,
Speaker 3: something like twelve thousand structures had burned. He said, do
Speaker 3: the math. There aren't that many fire trucks.
Speaker 4: I was trying to find the quote that man Gavin
Speaker 4: got beat up for on Friday. It was similar to
Speaker 4: what you're talking about. See if I can find it
Speaker 4: real quick.
Speaker 2: Oh, Gavin Newsom he was.
Speaker 4: He did an interview on a liberal outlet, which also
Speaker 4: got him some pushback, like you didn't have the guts
Speaker 4: to go on where he was going to be challenged
Speaker 4: at all. He said, let's stop with the finger pointing.
Speaker 4: I'm not interested in who's to blame. Oh really, that's
Speaker 4: interesting because a lot of people are interested in who's
Speaker 4: to blame, Like.
Speaker 3: A lot of people with no homes are pretty interested
Speaker 3: in that. Yeah, yeah, that's funny, Kevin. A quick word
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Speaker 2: Armstrong and Gaddy, thank you. That makes ana. We've got
Speaker 2: more on the way. Stay with
Speaker 3: Armstrong and Getty