Ask Dr. Drew
My Pasadena Home Is Surrounded By CA’s Eaton Wildfires w/ OC Fire Chief Brian Fennessy & John Phillips – Ask Dr. Drew - Ep 442
Sun, 12 Jan 2025
Dr. Drew lives in Pasadena, CA, which is currently surrounded by massive wildfires. This is a special breaking news broadcast covering the nearby Pacific Palisades & Eaton wildfires, with Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy, John Phillips, and more SoCal residents. [Broadcast LIVE on January 8, 2025] Brian Fennessy is Fire Chief of Orange County in California. Previously Chief of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (2015-2018), he established their helicopter program and served there since 1990. His career began in 1978 with federal agencies, advancing from hotshot crew to superintendent. Fennessy chairs FIRESCOPE and the California Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, holds a business administration degree, and specializes in fire/rescue/EMS operations. Find more at https://ocfa.org/ Orange County native John Phillips is the host of The John Phillips Show, airing Monday – Friday from 12-3pm. Listen at https://www.kabc.com/johnphillips-2/ and follow him at https://x.com/Johnnydontlike 「 SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS 」 Find out more about the brands that make this show possible and get special discounts on Dr. Drew's favorite products at https://drdrew.com/sponsors • FATTY15 – The future of essential fatty acids is here! Strengthen your cells against age-related breakdown with Fatty15. Get 15% off a 90-day Starter Kit Subscription at https://drdrew.com/fatty15 • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get 15% off your first order at https://drdrew.com/paleovalley • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at https://twc.health/drew 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 Portions of this program may examine countervailing views on important medical issues. Always consult your physician before making any decisions about your health. 「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/firstladyoflove). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the current situation with the Eaton Canyon Fire?
So in the intervening time, since I was on noon and this now 3 o'clock Pacific time stream, I went out and drove with my son up into the fires here locally. So we sit near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Now, I think people know the fires were in Malibu and the Palisades, which is about... 30 miles from here, something like that. Take us an hour and a half to drive there. Nowhere near where we are.
No smoke, no nothing from that one. But a new fire broke out in Eaton Canyon, which is exactly where the fire broke out in the 90s that was so devastating. I think they called it the Altaloma Fire then. Maybe somebody looked that up for me. And by the way, and so there is now smoke here where we live because there's the fire surrounding us.
And so my nose, my chest, everything, ashes all over the place.
It's snowing ashes.
And in fact, when you look out the window of our house, I mean, the smoke is, it looks like a very cloudy day.
Kind of orange.
An orangey color. Remember when the fires from... It was in Canada, the smoke descended out of New York City, and you had that sort of orange cast and everything. We have that here, but it's hard to breathe. It messes with your nose and everything. It's nasty.
And one of the interesting things I want to point out is, I think it's about five years of no gas-powered vehicles are the equivalent of what just went into the air here in Southern California. We've completely, whatever CO2 we are worried about putting into the atmosphere in California, we have completely undone anything we could possibly do by allowing these fires to occur.
So one of the questions I want to ask the fire chief is, is this all preventable? And if it was preventable, why it wasn't prevented? So anyway, we drove up into the fire zone, the nearest one to us. Two areas are broken out here near us within the Eaton Fire. Eaton Canyon Fire is probably about 10 miles from us, something like that.
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Chapter 2: How is the air quality affected by the wildfires?
Well, I'm going to talk to John first. Hold on. I'm going to talk to John first. John, this is Drew. Do you know that you're on the stream now. Do you know that all those campers, those broken down campers that people cook You're streaming right now. I was saying, do you know all those broken down campers that are all along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, right? Okay.
They are all not up to fire code. They all have butane tanks. They cook on the butane. Wind kicks up. Those are a really serious hazard. Are you aware that most of those, my understanding is, are run by the local LA gangs and they require the homeless to hand over their disability checks to them to stay in those campers? No. No. I've heard that.
And the other thing is, do you have any idea why some of the most costly real estate on the planet is powered by power lines which are on poles, like essentially pine poles that were hammered in place in about 1890, as opposed to being buried in the ground where they should be. And they're allowed to remain a fire hazard and may have been what triggered this fire. Who's responsible for that?
I don't know, but I can tell you this. In my neighborhood, and it's purely because they don't want them to obstruct the view of
Interesting. And do you have any opinion about the lack of water to fight these fires? I know in Altadena, which is a fire near where I'm sitting right now, they've said no water. I know the Palisades has trouble getting water on the fire hydrants. There's a Trump up here, a Trump ex-post up here about no water. Do you have any sense of how that happened?
Well, it's the government not working. I mean, we learned in Lahaina that if you don't have access to water, how dangerous that can be. I mean, we saw what happened to those poor people whose homes were burned down, the businesses were burned down. And you would assume that that would be something that they would
they would check and they would make sure is is certainly um filled with water particularly in areas that are that are prone to fires but that just was not done this time i mean rick caruso who is a candidate, former candidate for mayor, a certainly prominent businessman here in Los Angeles said flat out, there was no water in Pacific Palisades. He is the source of that story.
And that seems to be something that is being repeated by other homeowners in that area. And it's just totally unacceptable, especially when you have money as a government to spend on, you know, different pair of drug paraphernalia to give to drug addicts in MacArthur Park.
And you have money for health insurance for illegal immigrants and everything else under the sun, but you don't have money to put water in the fire hydrants. That's what government is supposed to do is to protect you with police and fire and roads and those sorts of things. And boy, did they drop the ball.
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Chapter 3: What factors contribute to the severity of wildfires in California?
So did the fire chief show up yet?
Yes, he's here. But let me bring the fire chief in. It is Brian Fennessy. He's the fire chief of Orange County, Los Angeles. As I said, I gave, Brian, I gave all your particulars before you got here. I appreciate you being here very much. Did you hear some of the things we were talking about and our concerns about really what could have been done to, forget the response.
The response, I just, my heart goes out to the victims and the firefighters and everybody's trying to manage this thing. But my concern is the things that could have prevented this in the first place.
No, I did. And, you know, you asked some really good questions, you know, in terms of the, you know, power lines and whatnot. I know that the utilities up and down the state are working towards undergrounding them. But you ask a good question. I have no idea why you've got above ground, you know, power lines down along PCH there. But, you know, a good question for Edison.
I'm assuming it's a Southern California Edison thing. I mean, I'm not in that business, so I don't know. I don't know what the fire start was. I think it's still under investigation, so I don't know if it's utility or
homeless encampment or i mean who knows what i will tell you though brian let me start let me before you comment i just want to say that i have a friend that runs a lot of the air response to the fire here and in all over the hemisphere frankly and he said that pretty much all the fires are caused by homelessness and power lines and that's it that's that's who causes our fire would that be accurate pretty much no no that's not accurate i mean there's a percentage and i know i i
If I'd have known this question was coming, I would have got that for you. But no, there is a percentage, obviously, of each. But, you know, certainly it wasn't lightning, right? We know it wasn't lightning. So could it be human or something else? And utilities there, but it's not as great as you'd think it was. But, you know, on the water side, because I get that a lot too, right?
We get a lot of fires, obviously, here in Orange County. And I was the fire chief for the city of San Diego before I was here. And What happens in these fires, and I've been doing this for 47 years since 1978, started with the Forest Service in the LA area and been to a lot of these Santa Ana wind-driven fires over many decades.
And what a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, the pressure, you know, for our hydrants, for your waters at home is all through, you know, a pump system. And you won't, you won't They're not really obvious where these pump stations are. In fact, I was up in Altadena this morning, and there was one on fire, and the person who was with me was like, what is that?
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Chapter 4: Is the Eaton Canyon Fire preventable?
Three in the morning, I'm getting calls from them going, hey, the fire is across the street. And I couldn't get my- Oh, my God. But I've never seen fire travel into a community as deep as it has. On this fire. And yeah, you looked at least when the sun came up this morning or became daylight, you'd look to the mountains, right? The foothills there. There wasn't a lot of smoke.
You could tell there was a fire. All the smoke was in the community. I mean, were the dozens of homes that were were burning. Yeah. Yeah. Just incredible. Just incredible. Yeah.
Uh, so, uh, chief, we're, we're, for us, we're staying put. Um, cause it looks to me like for us to get over here, we're on the other side of the Arroyo across from the, you'd have to, you'd have to get through the Rose Bowl parking lot to get to us. Is it reasonable for us to stay here?
Yeah, I, I think so. You know, in what I drove and yeah. Yeah, I went to John Muir High School, so I'm really familiar with the area that you're talking about.
And with the winds really subsiding as they have, they're not done, but they were – even in the time I was there, from about 7 in the morning, 6 in the morning, whatever it was, until about when I headed back south in noon, the wind had really tapered off. It was still strong.
There's nothing now. Wait, we're – It's still now in this area. Yeah, so right now, just FYI, right now, I'm going to let John in here to see if he has any questions for you in a second. But it's still right now. And I drove up Lincoln past John Muir because it looked like the fire was right there at the high school. It is not. It's way up Lincoln a ways.
But it's starting to threaten those businesses there on sort of Montana and that area.
I agree. I mean, even Lake, you know where Lake is. I couldn't believe that Elliott, you know, junior high or middle school, whatever they call it now, was on fire. I mean, there was fire all the way down to New York Drive. And so to me, it was just shocking. And these are businesses, commercial businesses, as well as residential structures.
But to your question, Dr. Drew, yeah, I truly, I'd feel pretty comfortable based on the area that you're talking about. You know, the thing with these fires is, and maybe you don't hear it very often, there's not a lot that we, the fire service, can do when the winds are blowing like this. We can get people out of the way. We can get behind where the wind's blowing, try to hurt it.
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges with water management during fires?
Sheltering in your own home.
We've had people, I know people that have, well, not known them, but have been on fires where people have died in their cars escaping the fire. And guess what? Their home survived. Should they have maybe sheltered in place? So all those things we've thought about.
So I think the big headlines are think things through, be prepared, do what you're told by firefighters. Do what they tell you. Take their advice. Chief, I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your service. I appreciate your candor. And hopefully next Tuesday will not be that big a deal. And I look forward to one day shaking your hand.
And thank you, Foster, at TWC for setting this up today. I appreciate it.
We love Foster. It's good to meet another Pasadena out to dinner.
That's right. We've been marching through the same hoods here for quite some time. And I figured that business about the fire breaks you could relate to because it was such a vivid part of the hillside. And it's just not there now. And you know that forestry management and fire management preparedness is part of what's going to be criticized today. in the government.
And I know you don't want to talk about it, but I got a problem with at least getting the forestry management back to a standard of 1978 or whatever it was you said when you were on the cruise. You know, this is 50 years later and we're going backwards.
I won't argue with you there. I'm with you on that. Absolutely. Fair enough.
Chief. Thank you so much. Oh, wait. Go ahead, Caleb. Quick question from a viewer. They're wondering if stuff like firefighting foam is available for the average consumer and if that's a good idea for people in these areas to have on hand instead of just water.
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