The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | January 9th, 2025: LA Wildfires Intensify & Israel Mulls Plan To Break Up Syria
Thu, 09 Jan 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First, we’ll begin with an update on the devastating fires in Los Angeles, where firefighters are battling to contain massive blazes tearing through the city. Then, we’ll examine reports that Israeli government and security officials have been holding covert talks about the future of Syria, including an initiative for an international summit to break Syria up into different administrative divisions. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the latest updates on the LA wildfires?
It's Thursday, 9 January. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. Today, we'll begin with the devastating fires in Los Angeles, where firefighters are battling to contain massive blazes tearing through the city.
Later in the show, we'll dig into reports that Israel is calling for an international summit, or at least considering calling for an international summit that would divide Syria into different administrative divisions in order to guarantee the safety and rights of Syrian ethnic groups. But first, the PDB Afternoon Spotlight.
Chapter 2: How severe is the damage from the wildfires in LA?
I want to give you an update on the wildfires raging through Los Angeles. They've destroyed entire neighborhoods and forced nearly 180,000 people to evacuate. Let's start with the Palisades fire. It first broke out Tuesday afternoon and has already become the most destructive wildfire in LA's history.
This fire has already ravaged the upscale Pacific Palisades neighborhood and is being fueled by hurricane force winds with gusts of up to 100 miles per hour. Now, these are part of the Santa Ana winds, which are common in Southern California during the cooler months.
As of this morning, the fire has consumed more than 17,000 acres and crept dangerously close to iconic landmarks including Sunset Boulevard, the Santa Monica Pier, and the Hollywood sign. The scope of destruction is, well, staggering. Late Wednesday, Cal Fire confirmed that 300 structures had been destroyed.
However, during a tense press conference, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney suggested that the true number is in the thousands, making it the most destructive fire in Los Angeles' history. Adding to the chaos, evacuation orders expanded deep into Malibu, a neighboring community still reeling from the Franklin Fire that burned 4,000 acres just a month ago.
The Palisades Fire remains at zero containment. Further inland, the Eden Fire is also delivering devastation to the region, doubling in size within hours. The fast-moving blaze scorched 10,600 densely populated acres north of Pasadena. Los Angeles County Fire estimates roughly 970 structures there have been destroyed.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has reported at least five fatalities, alongside what it described as, quote, a number of significant injuries to residents and firefighters. As of now, 13,000 structures are under imminent threat from the blaze, prompting tens of thousands of residents to evacuate. Like the Palisades blaze, the Eden fire remains at zero containment.
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Chapter 3: What actions are being taken by local authorities during the wildfires?
Further west, the Hurst Fire in the San Fernando Valley erupted with shocking speed, ballooning to over 100 acres within 15 minutes of the initial blaze. The fire has since spread rapidly into the Angeles National Forest. By Wednesday night, it consumed 855 acres, forcing thousands to flee. Fire crews have managed just 10% containment on that blaze.
Meanwhile, the Sunset Fire in Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills neighborhood, though smaller at 60 acres, which is roughly the size of 45 football fields, has fire officials on high alert due to its explosive growth potential. According to CAL FIRE, the wildfire grew by half its size in under an hour.
Chapter 4: What political fallout is occurring due to the wildfires?
Now, as residents grapple with the unprecedented destruction, political fallout has already begun. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has come under fire for being overseas in Ghana when the blazes began returning just yesterday, despite advance warnings of extreme fire risk.
Criticism has been particularly sharp regarding her administration's budget cuts, which slashed Los Angeles Fire Department funding by nearly $18 million in the current fiscal year, with comparisons to prior budgets showing that the year-over-year reduction is actually closer to $30 million.
Public outrage is growing after reports surfaced of dry fire hydrants, that would be fire hydrants with no water, in some of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the wildfires. In a strange moment, Mayor Bass was confronted by a Sky News reporter who asked if she owed residents an apology for her absence while homes were burning. She didn't respond.
She basically froze like a deer in the headlights, stood there in silence for almost a minute, and then walked away. And that is, frankly, not a case study in leadership. Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency earlier this week, has deployed more than 7,500 firefighters, air tankers, helicopters, and water tenders to combat the blazes.
On Wednesday, President Biden issued a major disaster declaration unlocking federal funds for those affected. In a rare move, Biden also canceled his final overseas trip as president just hours before departure for Rome and the Vatican in order to stay in Washington and oversee the firefighting response. Okay, well, fair enough.
Biden, nor really any president, actually oversees a firefighting response. The White House just happened to realize that the optic of Biden hobnobbing in Rome in the Vatican while Los Angeles burns wouldn't make for good TV.
Biden's decision to forego his trip, which included meetings with Pope Francis, Italian leadership, and a face-to-face meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky, underscores the severity of the crisis, or, I suppose if you were being churlish, underscores the sensitivities of the White House to what would definitely be a bad look. Now, the cause of the wildfires remains under investigation.
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Chapter 5: How is the federal government responding to the fire crisis?
The fires collectively scorching some 42 square miles, and that's an area nearly the size of San Francisco. They follow a warm summer and a prolonged drought that left vegetation dangerously dry. And that, of course, is a recipe for wildfires.
Poor forestry management and water policies could be another factor, as could be an outdated utility system that could have played a role in sparking some of these fires.
Coming up next, we'll take a look at reports that Israeli government and security officials have reportedly been holding covert talks about the future of Syria, including an initiative for an international summit to break Syria up into different administrative divisions. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let's talk about your online security.
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Chapter 6: What factors are contributing to the wildfires in LA?
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Ever since the Islamist group HTS overthrew the Assad regime in Syria last month, concerns have been mounting in Israel about the risks of a resurgence in sectarian violence that could once again destabilize the country and region.
In the immediate aftermath of Assad's downfall, Israel moved to seize the former demilitarized zone along their border with Syria and capture several strategic positions, including the Syrian peak of Mount Hermon, as a precaution to guard against attacks from radical groups.
Now, we're learning that Israeli government and security officials are mulling over a covert plan to split Syria into different administrative divisions, or cantons, in order to guarantee the safety and rights of all Syrian ethnic groups. That's according to a report from the Times of Israel.
The initiative would include holding an international summit to discuss the finer details of how to break up the country, though little other information is known about the classified discussions. But according to sources who spoke with the newspaper Israel Hayom, a chief concern for Israel is the safety of Syria's Druze and Kurdish minorities under the new HTS-led government.
While HTS has vowed to unify the many ethnic factions within Syria, their ties to Turkey, which has long fought the Kurds in Syria's northern territories, have left Israel doubting whether their pledges of unity are in fact genuine.
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