EXTRA HOUR: 9am fire update

Hi Larry

Would just like to point out that the Flora that's currently burning is often discarded as "brush" or "overgrown" or "dead from drought".

While this is partially true, the chaparral area burning is a unique, very lively and highly specialized plant and animal community. The plants have become highly specialized to survive in our Medittanean climate. In fact, of the 5 Mediteranean type climates of the world, the Southern California plants tolerate and thrive in the harshest and driest temperatures.

The plants DO NOT need fire to reproduce. They are adapted to somewhat frequent fire, but can live hundreds and hundreds of years without fire.

So when people dismiss the brush burning as just "brush" it is a community of unique and endemic plants that should be treated with respect.

Thank You for the great coverage!

In a response to the recent caller about not working on the this fire at it's start:
I was at JPL ,trails ,riding my bike when the Station Fire started and there where 6 tankers, fixed and helicopters, working the fire at 5pm on last Wednesday till sunset. They were pulled from the Morris fire which was much bigger and more threatening at the time. When I left the JPL parking lot around 7:30-8pm, it appeared that the fire had been knocked down.

thanks
adam austin

I hope that the five people who refused to evacuate when given a mandatory evacuation order are heavily fined. I would think that they should at the very least reimburse the city and county for man-hours taken away from fighting the fire and wasted on investigating rescue strategies on these nit-wits.

Great show and great coverage as always. You guys at KPCC are my primary source for news.

Cheers,

Lance Holt

Hi Larry,

Air talk has provided consistent and intelligent talk radio with guests like Richard Halsey from the Chaparral Institute. Thank you for having him on the show. As destructive and catastrophic as the fire may seem now, if another 30-50 years can pass before the next one the area has a chance to recover.

It might be interesting to explore the effects of this huge fire on the bark beetles that have been devastating the forest populations in the Angeles.

Richard brought up an important point about the performance of the LA County Fire Department and their support system. They have done an amazing job protecting structures and lives during these fires. They are a dedicated and well organized group.

Thanks to KPCC and Airtalk for their consistent and comprehensive coverage of the fires.

In response to Ms. McNamara's critique of news coverage of the fire over the weekend, or lack thereof, I just want to say that the Station fire only became huge over the weekend and was not at all large until then. On Friday it was 2000 acres, and now it's hundreds of times larger. The news coverage was proportional to the fire's size. It probably seemed bigger to her because it was very local to her. Thank you and keep up the great coverage.