Dan Munsey
Appearances
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
Thanks, Charlie. Hey, I'm sorry you don't have any partners right now, but I'll see if I can fill that gap. We've been doing pretty well in San Bernardino County. Our firefighters are keeping the fire small. We've had about half the wind speeds I think we've seen in L.A. We were blessed a couple of days ago to start getting a little snow on our upper elevations.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
All that's been real helpful with keeping our fire small. We have sent quite a few resources over to L.A. County and L.A. City. Our hearts are just... or just with our brother and sisters over there. They got a tough job with what they're facing. This kind of devastation in 29 years, I'd love to say it's unheard of, but it just seems like it's becoming more and more commonplace.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
Over the last 20 years, the fires have just increased in magnitude and frequency. I think it's double what it was when I first started. It's a shame, you know, and it's not lack of effort by these firefighters. They are the acts of bravery that we've witnessed, that we've heard the stories from talking to the fire chiefs in this area. They are fully committed and engaged and definitely have saved.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
Well, it doesn't seem like it. They've seen, say, billions of dollars in property and saved countless human lives. And I think that's going to be the true testament as we walk away from this. What can we do different as we move in the future? What could we have done differently in the heat of the moment?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
But at the same time, recognize the efforts of the men and women that truly put their lives on the line. One story, for instance, I was talking with our strike team leaders that's over in the Palisades. And at the time I talked to him, he said he hadn't slept in 36 hours and his crews were still actively fighting fire operations. That's what our firefighters are facing year-round.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
It's not just the fire season anymore. It's January. This is a new year. This is not supposed to happen, but this is a reality that we face.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
As a layman, I live in a small house. If I take a shower before my wife and I go too long, she doesn't have a hot water. Why? It's because you only have so much water in tanks and our water heater needs to heat up, right? The same thing is occurring here. So you have more and more firefighters taking water in the system. Look at that fire. I mean, you need hundreds of thousands of gallons a minute
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
to be able to combat something like this you essentially have more water flowing out of the system than what's flowing into the system number one you deplete your reservoirs the second is our water systems in our urban areas especially in what we're showing on the video right now they're not gravity fed they're often fed by pumps these pumps could be supplying tanks that are on hills that are gravity feds but often it's used to pump the pressure
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
So when you see these kind of trees that are on fire in these houses, you can imagine utilities are also affected. You lose power to your pumps, and now you have less pressure. Finally, look at this house that's burning down. What you're going to find when these houses are done burning is that the water is just running out of this house until you go turn the water meter off.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
So you have so much water that's being wasted as well. With this kind of devastation on this kind of scale, It's absolutely predictable that your water system is just not going to be able to maintain the fire flow that's required. Fire flow is just never designed for this. And I would go further and say it's not really feasible to examine, you know, how do you increase the pressure?
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
How do you increase the diameter of the pipes? We're talking billions of dollars in infrastructure that would be required. Now, the state of California did a good thing. They sent a lot of water tenders into the fire. But let's talk about that. A water tender is a truck that's going to carry 2,500 gallons or larger is what the state requested.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
They're going to have to go find a water hydrant that has water and then drive back and supply these fire trucks. And then they're going to turn around again and they're going to go find water. At times, they might find a static water source like a pool or a lake, generally fresh water, and they'll draw water from that. But it's very time consuming.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
So one of the best things we can start doing is restoring the water system. Utilities as a whole is going to be very impactful in these particular areas until they're able to do that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
Yeah, storm drainage. I'm not a water manager. I spent a couple of years elected in our water districts. I think you're right. There is a lot of water that we allow to return to the sea. There's a wide variety of reasons of why that's occurring. Having that water that's available that we can use for firefighting is always going to be beneficial.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
But in reality, too, I'm going to go back to the scale of this fire. You can only put so much water on the fire. There's only so many firefighters. Having an uninterrupted supply of water isn't going to stop this fire. It may save more structures, definitely. It may save human lives, definitely. But we're talking about an absolute natural disaster. We're talking about high wind speeds.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
We're talking about ember casts. There was a video earlier of embers just being blown by the wind. Those embers are traveling at times up to two miles. They're catching vegetation on fire. They're getting up underneath the eaves of houses. They're starting spot fires. As a firefighter, you're chasing the fire at this point.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
You're not making a defensive stand and stopping the fire with any kind of control breaks.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
As an industry, I think we do pretty well knowing that conditions have been hot and dry. We've been putting out the signage. We've been doing radio announcements. We literally in San Bernardino, we fly our helicopters over the homeless areas and announce to them when danger is going to occur.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
At the end of the day, unfortunately, a lot of the fire service is in business because people tend to do unsmart things. They're negligent. There are several fires that are caused each year in our jurisdiction, other jurisdictions by homelessness. There's a wide variety of why the homelessness have fires.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
And in the case of this January, it's just simply cold and they have warming fires or they may be cooking food or cooking other things. They are using it to sometimes make money if theft, for instance, if they're stealing copper wires, they'll strip the coverings of the copper wires. All of these fires have the chance of getting out of control. But we also have citizens doing things like this.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
Unfortunately, a couple of fires have been on more than once have been citizens that have been outside welding on days that have fire dangers. And that just a little spark gets into a brush next thing you know, you have a large fire. So this is a problem. If I were to give you a percentile, I would say that over half of our wildfires that we respond to are human caused by negligence.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
maybe about 25% could be attributed to some sort of homelessness activity. But generally, we're keeping those fires pretty small. They don't tend to just go make a warming fire in an area that they know that's going to spread a vegetation because they want to really be left alone.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
I think you can always donate to the United Way and Red Cross. At these points, we have people that want to volunteer and help. Look to those organizations. Typically, the fire agencies will be inundated by people wanting to help out. But remember that we're totally engaged in this fire. We're going to remain engaged in these fires for quite some time.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
You can also donate money to those organizations that will help those in need. Really what I need you to do to move forward though is realize citizens, you're a part in keeping fires small. We need you to work with your local fire authorities. Please go to their websites. Look at what fire safety looks like in your particular area. Almost 80% of Californians live in a wildland urban interface.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
That's a huge percentage of our population.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
Start with your house, making sure you're meeting with contractors, making sure that your house is constructed in a safe manner to prevent wildfire, that you're following those guidelines that you'll find on the websites about removing fuels away from your house, that you're examining the trees, the shrubs, the grasses, removing them, creating fire breaks around your property will keep those fires from spreading and destroying your house.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
My heart goes out to the L.A. City and L.A. County firefighters that are working so hard and citizens that have lost their houses. Charlie, thank you for highlighting these issues and having me as a guest.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Trump's Cabinet Will Change D.C. Forever
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