LA Wildfires

Summary

Flightless Bird – "LA Wildfires" (January 21, 2025)

Host: David Farrier
Co-host: Rob
Theme: Exploring the unprecedented LA wildfires of January 2025 through first-hand accounts, community responses, the practical realities of disaster, and the unique American context—told with curiosity, empathy, and candid reflection.

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Episode Overview

David Farrier and Rob tackle the chaos and trauma of the recent Los Angeles wildfires, sharing the surreal experience of witnessing disaster unfold in their own city. They move beyond the headlines, capturing the lived reality: from eerie normalcy blocks away from devastation, to personal loss and community mobilization. The episode weaves together their own observations, listener stories, expert interviews, and the unsung heroes of the crisis—all infused with empathy, dry humor, and Kiwi-in-America wonder.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Experience: Watching Disaster Unfold

• Disruption of Normalcy:

  • Despite blue skies and clean air in their neighborhood, both hosts grapple with the dissonance between normalcy and the catastrophic losses just miles away.

  “Our neighborhood seems fine, the sky is blue… But meanwhile the city is grappling with so much loss and so much chaos and just trying to figure, like, what the hell is going on.”
  — David Farrier (02:43)

• Surprise and Escalation:

  • The wildfires felt sudden even with Santa Ana wind warnings; expectations were of minor disruption, but instead, entire neighborhoods burned overnight.
  • “It was the first time I felt unsafe in weather… I just looked out to the left and there was just this glow of red… That’s when the Eaton fire had kicked off.”
    — David Farrier (05:26)

2. Community and Chaos: Living Through It

• Spontaneous Neighbor Connections:
  • In the absence of clear official guidance, neighbors began checking on each other, reminiscent of the early pandemic confusion.

  “It felt like the beginning of the pandemic where there was no official line of, like, what you’re meant to do.”
  — David Farrier (07:37)

• Evacuation Stories & Anxiety:
  • Real-time fear as evacuation orders blare overnight, windows are blown out, and power goes out citywide.

3. The Changing Nature of California Wildfires

• Scale and Ferocity:
  • Listeners and hosts alike note these fires move faster and burn more fiercely—“apocalyptic” is a word that keeps surfacing.
  • Historical context from listeners: While wildfires have always plagued southern California, the sheer force and frequency are escalating.
• Climate & Urban Expansion:
  • Drought, wind, and proximity of wildland to dense urban neighborhoods are a “perfect storm.”

4. Wildfire Responses: The Strange American Patchwork

• Private Firefighters for the Rich:
  • Wealthy homeowners in LA hire private fire protection services, underscoring the unequal American approach to disaster.

  “If you’ve got money… you can have someone… protecting your home, that’s happening.”
  — David Farrier (12:17)

• Incarcerated Firefighters:
  • Prisoners join firefighting crews for sentence reduction; hosts discuss the ethics and the reality of incarcerated labor in disaster response.

  “It’s horrific that prisoners… are being sent into these life-threatening situations, they’re not trained firefighters.”
  — David Farrier (13:44)

5. Misinformation & Polarization

• Conspiracy Theories and Political Spin:
  • Wildfires spark conspiracy theories (weather manipulation, “directed energy weapons”) and are weaponized in political arguments, especially about budget cuts and failed management.

  “With every disaster in America, there can be slithers of truth, but also don’t believe every tweet you read.”
  — David Farrier (15:21)

6. Health Hazards Beyond the Flames

• Air Quality Anxiety:
  • Toxic debris from burned homes (lead, asbestos, plastics) poses invisible, long-term danger; comparison to 9/11 first responders’ health fallout is noted.
• Behavioral Changes (Masks, Purifiers):
  • Daily routines transform: hosts wear masks outdoors, obsess over air purifier readouts.

7. Economic Fallout and Disaster Profiteering

• Rent Gouging:
  • Displaced residents face sudden spikes in rental prices; the community responds by making and sharing a “shit list” of gouging realtors.

  “Realtors in LA… always being slightly, you know… It takes a certain kind of piece of shit to try to turn this into a money making exercise.”
  — Rob (21:01, 21:14)

• Insurance Crisis:
  • Growing failures of the insurance system: dropped fire coverage, slow payouts, and bureaucratic nightmares for survivors.

8. Stories from the Frontlines

A. Loss & Resilience: Lydia’s Story ([26:23–34:39])

• Lydia and her husband, creatives living in Altadena, lost their house while abroad.
• The surreal ordeal of learning you’ve lost everything via texts on the other side of the world; heartbreak over lost art, mementoes, life’s work.

  “You never think that it’s gonna happen to you… all those little things, yes, it’s just stuff, but when you’re faced with the reality of losing it, it’s a really hard thing.”
  — Lydia (31:09)

• Uplifting side: Immediate, overwhelming support from friends, neighbors, and strangers; community caring for the displaced.

  “So many people have offered to let us stay in their homes indefinitely free of charge… The community, it’s been really amazing to watch.”
  — Lydia (33:11)

B. Survivor Perspective: Mike Rothschild ([36:16–43:20])

• Mike, a journalist and conspiracy theory expert, recounts escaping his 100-year-old Altadena home with his family in the middle of the night as the fire overtook their neighborhood.
• Details the fog-of-war in disaster (confused orders, no power, zigzagging evacuation), and the emotional numbness of survival.

  “You really, you have no choice. We’ve got young kids, we’ve got dogs, we have all these things that need to be done… You’re just trying to take it kind of minute by minute.”
  — Mike Rothschild (40:38)

• Notes unique multigenerational nature and diversity of Altadena; the tragedy is not just material loss, but the erasure of community and history.

C. Community Organizing: Mutual Aid LA ([50:11–52:29])

• Ellie Christie describes the relentless, improvisational efforts to help the newly unhoused and those impacted, outside of slow-moving official structures.

  “While it’s been frantic and devastating… it’s also been so wonderful to see the outpouring of support and community care…”
  — Ellie Christie (51:30)

9. Tech & Information in Disaster: Watch Duty App Deep Dive ([54:21–70:03])

• The wildfire tracking app becomes the episode’s unlikely hero—a nonprofit, volunteer-driven tool that offers real-time, clear, actionable information when official sources lag.

  “It’s the most useful information and the most clearly presented information you could have.”
  — David Farrier (54:54)

• Interview with Nick Russell of Watch Duty:
  • Background of the app, its origins in a tech entrepreneur’s personal wildfire crisis, now expanded to 22 states.
  • Explains the use of real-time first-responder feeds, user-first privacy, and how open data and context (rather than fearmongering) save lives.
  • Notable story: A user alerts elderly parents to evacuate; a celebrity’s pool is used to refill fire engines, saving homes.
• Hosts call for Watch Duty to win App of the Year, marveling at its clarity and not-for-profit mission.

10. Unintended Consequences: Leaf Blowers & Airborne Toxins ([71:01–74:41])

• City bans leaf blowers due to the risk of stirring up toxic ash and embers; yet, residents and workers keep using them.
  • Dilemma: is it fair to yell at landscapers just doing their job?

  “I just like, a crazy person went to the window, and I just, like, screamed, like, stop blowing.”
  — David Farrier (73:37)

11. Listener Voice Memos: Expanding the Perspective

• Historical perspective from Zoe (76:02):
  • Fires have always been part of life in Malibu, but they are much more intense and fast-moving now.
• Science/Epidemiology (Alyssa, 79:22):
  • Southern U.S. actually sees more wildfires by count than the West; American fires are everywhere.
• Wildland firefighter Carsten (81:00):
  • Emphasizes the overlooked respiratory risks to firefighters/locals; notes the brutal shifts required.
• "Smokejumpers" Factoid (85:06):
  • Introduction to elite airborne firefighters parachuting into remote blazes—a topic the hosts vow to revisit.

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Notable Quotes, Moments & Timestamps

• On Private Firefighters & Inequality:
  “Everything in America, it’s not all state funded… If you’re wealthy, you can have someone… protecting that home.”—David Farrier (12:17)

• On Prison Labor Ethics:
  “It’s horrific that prisoners… are being sent into these life-threatening situations, they’re not trained firefighters.”—David Farrier (13:44)

• On Information Overload and Fear:
  “What do we need to be scared of today? Is it the air I’m breathing?”—David Farrier (18:46)

• On Community Spirit in Crisis:
  “A lot of people already transplants here… It’s like this band of misfits.” — Rob (53:21)

• On Watch Duty's Power:
  “Direct, actionable information… because we’re a nonprofit… we don’t want your name, or your email address.” — Nick Russell (57:52)

• On Loss and Grief:
  “Yes, it’s just stuff, but when you’re faced with the reality of losing it, it’s a really hard thing.” — Lydia (31:09)

• On the Relentlessness of Disaster Response:
  "They're working two weeks straight, minimum of 16 hour shifts per day." — Carsten (Wildland firefighter) (83:15)

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Flow & Tone

The tone is candid and sincere, shifting fluidly from dark humor (“apocalyptic is an overused word, but…”) to vulnerability (admitting confusion, fear, or survivor’s guilt), and deep empathy for those blindsided by loss.

• The conversational Kiwi-American outsider's lens highlights the eccentricities of U.S. disaster response and politics.
• The show takes frequent digressions into granular, very human moments—fear, frustration, generosity, even arguing (a bit sheepishly) with leaf blowers about the air.
• Even as the hosts, guests, and listeners ride the anxiety and trauma of disaster, community solidarity and resourcefulness remains a constant thread.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–02:58: Opening mood-setting, context, and immediate personal impact
• 03:00–10:59: Recounting the wildfire onset, regional reaction, and early confusion
• 12:17: Private firefighters and inequality
• 13:44: Incarcerated firefighters and ethics
• 17:14–18:50: Air quality fears and social media panic
• 19:40–21:18: Price gouging and insurance issues
• 26:23–34:39: Lydia’s story of loss and resilience
• 36:16–43:20: Mike Rothschild’s evacuation and aftermath
• 50:11–52:29: Mutual Aid LA’s grassroots response
• 54:21–70:03: Watch Duty app deep dive: origins, impact, and growth
• 71:01–74:41: Leaf blower anxiety in a toxic landscape
• 76:02–78:34: Listener Zoe’s history of California wildfires
• 81:00–83:34: Firefighter’s view on overlooked dangers
• 85:06: "Smokejumpers" and American firefighting ingenuity

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Closing: Meaning, Loss & Community

The episode concludes on notes of existential anxiety and meaning (what is lost, what is remembered, what is truly valuable), but ultimately reframes it through the lens of lived experience, the persistence of community, and the camaraderie of strangers in the face of loss.

“It’s one thing musing about this stuff when all our things are there… It’s another thing when it’s all been lost in a fire.”
— David Farrier (97:40)

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Takeaways

• Wildfires are a growing, “apocalyptic” fact of life—accelerating in speed, scale, and complexity.
• Disaster is managed both by institutions and, crucially, by neighbors, volunteers, and mutual aid.
• Tech, when built for people instead of profit, can be literal lifesavers—exemplified by Watch Duty.
• The American experience of crisis is deeply marked by inequality, political division, resilience, and generosity.
• Loss is traumatic on a practical and existential level, but is countered by community, memory, and meaning.

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Further resources, mutual aid links, and stories referenced in the show notes.

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(For voice memo and interview quotes, speaker attribution and timestamps are embedded above.)

Transcript

[David Farrier]

Hi. I didn't call a New Zealander to kick off today's episode because, well, this week has been chaotic and I just didn't do it. But as I always say, I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. And never have I felt more weird about being in America. Full transparency. We're recording this on Thursday, January 16th, and by the time you listen to this, the inauguration will have happened. That's assuming there isn't an alien invasion by then, which, at this point, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me. In today's Flightless Bird, we wanted to look at the Californian wildfires, which, as we record, continue here in Los Angeles. Last week we got you to send in voice memos and we'll get to those. And Rob and I just want to look at how this is all felt before checking in with some who have lost homes and with some that are helping. As I said, I've never felt more weird about being in America. If this episode feels a little chaotic, that's probably why. Thanks for being here. This doesn't seem like the time to do a whimsical line leading into the episode, so I'll just say this is the wildfires episode.

[Lydia]

Flightless. Flightless.

[Zoe]

Flightless bird. Touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird. Touchdown in America.

[Rob]

Still found a clever way to exit that intro. Well, thank.

[David Farrier]

I did. I got. I got there. I just didn't want to do a joke, you know, it's like. So grab your r. Fire, like, gear and get into it.

[Rob]

Grab your extinguisher.

[David Farrier]

It didn't seem like the right thing. No.

[Rob]

But we got there anyway.

[David Farrier]

We got there anyway. How are you doing? How. I just got my air purifier. I literally turned it on before I left. And it's got. It's like a. Green is really good, red is chaotic. I'm right in the middle with an orange, which could be just because I have a dirty apartment. I don't know.

[Rob]

Yeah, an old, old, dirty apartment.

[David Farrier]

An old dirty apartment. That might be something to do with it, but it's a weird time still. As we record this, 24 people have died in these wildfires and about. I think we're up to sort of 15,000 structures. Last thing I read, we're in this sort of odd situation where we. We live in la. It's like normal.

[Rob]

Yeah. Yeah. Things have kind of settled down and gotten a little more back to normal. For those of us that didn't have their part of town torn through.

[David Farrier]

And that's the strange thing. Right. Where like our neighborhood seems fine, the sky is blue, you don't smell smoke in the air anymore. But meanwhile the city is grappling with so much loss and so much chaos and just trying to fig like what the hell is going on.

[Rob]

Yeah. And I think, I mean is it worth just going back in time and.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Talking about what happened? Because I remember the days leading up to the fires. There were warnings about the Santa Ana winds. I remember I sent Natalie like news post about it. Yeah. And it, it just like it said like life threatening Santa Ana winds and I never seen that.

[David Farrier]

No, that's an extreme or headline.

[Rob]

I was assuming it was just being blown out of proportion.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Because a lot of headlines are blown out of proportion. Like it feels like every day it's just a barrage of chaos. Right.

[Rob]

Yeah. And I don't think it was ever linked to fire hazard.

[David Farrier]

Not in my mind. Yeah, totally. It was like it's going to be stormy.

[Rob]

You saw the warning high winds.

[David Farrier]

That's the thing. And I thought what will happen is because LA seems very like its trees seem fragile. They blow over at like the light wind. I just assumed there'd be some like downed power poles, some stuff on the road and that's kind of it.

[Rob]

That morning the winds did pick up. I had to like cut our wind sails down. We have like three wind sails in our backyard and some of them had ripped off and there's like metal.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Flying around rings on it that are just swinging around. And I was like, all right, I guess I should take this down.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

But from like I'm from Chicago where we have crazy weather and snow and rain and thund storms. It was like, okay, wind, wind doesn't seem like a big deal. We'll make sure we pick up stuff in our yard so it doesn't blow all over the place. But wasn't kind of anticipating it being a big deal.

[David Farrier]

No. And I think the thing that surprised me about this because in my mind ever since I've been here, there's always been fires kind of out west. Right. Like Malibu way. There's like, it's not an uncommon thing, but it's always felt very far away.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And then it felt like this time those fires got very big. And I was hearing from friends that are more out west that were getting worried about that stuff. But in my mind everything was like still very far away. Which as I talked a bit about this last week, my friend needed to Pick up a harp that they were renting. And it was out east and we're driving out there and it's the first time I felt unsafe in weather. Like the winds were crazy and the freeways were just like covered in shit. Trees were coming down and I just felt, I turned to my friend, I was like, should we be driving? Like, you know when you're driving you can feel the car being like buffeted. Yeah, this doesn't feel good. And people were kind of driving a bit erratically. And then it was that thing where as we got close to Pasadena, which is, you know, it's a 20 minute drive from where you and I, the area we're in, I just looked out to the left and there was just like a glow of red. And I was confused because I thought, is my geography completely screwed? Like are we not in, are we in the wrong direction? But of course that's when the Eaton fire had kicked off. And when by the time we were at that harpist house, residents were out on the street in dressing gowns, they were like wondering, like talking about actively like do we evacuate? And it's those winds just picking up those sparks and just sending them friggin hurtling.

[Rob]

Yeah, those videos of the like palm trees on fire and the winds going and how quickly it's just spraying them everywhere are terrifying.

[David Farrier]

And that's the kind of stuff where people start saying it's. I know it's like a missed, like an overused term but like apocalyptic, like it did feel apocalyptic. And LA is. I associate it here with like at night the skies are like open and bright, the days are sunny. It's. Even though it's like this horribly dirty city, it did. It just transformed into this whole different beast.

[Rob]

Yeah. So then that night our power went out at like 7:00'.

[Mike Rothschild]

Clock.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, I was out at 9.

[Rob]

Yeah. I don't think there were a lot of talks of fire yet that we were hearing.

[David Farrier]

It still felt far away, right?

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah. And then our neighbor's window from the side of our house, their like kitchen bay window just flew out of the window frame.

[David Farrier]

Right. Just gone.

[Rob]

And we just heard this like crazy loud shatter. And then like Calvin and I walked around and like just saw this window had ripped out of the frame and just flew into the side of our house.

[David Farrier]

See, that's not normal. Yeah, that's like, has that happened since you've been living here?

[Rob]

And then like our neighbor's an old, old man and his husband is in Japan, so he's by himself in there. And, like, peeks out of the window frame and is like, are you guys okay? And.

[David Farrier]

And that's the thing. It was like from that night onwards, it was suddenly talking to neighbors you hadn't talked to before, necessarily going like, are you okay? What's happening? And that's why I said last week it felt like the beginning of the pandemic where there was no official line of, like, what you're meant to do.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

It's like you're in a situation where you don't understand the next move, and that's a really confusing place to be in.

[Rob]

So then power's out all night. I remember waking up then next morning. I think it's Wednesday morning at that point. And you can kind of see the city skyline out of our kitchen window. And at like, 6am, sun's coming up and, like, the. The sky just looks insane. There's smoke.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, it's just orange. Reedy vibes. Right.

[Rob]

You can see hills on fire behind the skyline from our window.

[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

So that morning was like, here's something on this whole hill behind the city on fire. And then just these insane clouds above.

[David Farrier]

It's at that point, I think I started hearing from some friends that definitely were evacuating and were worried about their houses.

[Rob]

Yep.

[David Farrier]

I walked up to Griffith and just observed, like, both fires, which was just basically, like, very dark, smoky. Like, you could see the smoke moving across the sky, like, billowing out from behind the hill. And from there it was like. Yeah. I ended up driving an hour north to get out of town.

[Rob]

Because you went north.

[David Farrier]

Sorry, south. South, Sorry, South. Yeah, it went in the absolute incorrect direction. I went south. And because there was a fire in Runyon Canyon, which is very close to us, it took off and. Yeah. And there's a situation now where we're back in town again. I'm putting a mask on outside because there's, like, a lot of debate about the air quality around, and I'm just trying to, like, play it safe.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

But the fires are getting more and more contained now, which is great. The winds as of today have, like, dropped. Right. That all those high wind warnings are mostly gone, I think.

[Rob]

So from my understanding, the Santa Ana winds are somewhat normal. Yeah, they happen. They just normally happen further north from la. And the fact that they came down to LA was really what is why we're seeing a lot of havoc and.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, just months and months of dryness and then these winds and it all kicked off.

[Rob]

I feel like when it was first happening on, like, Wednesday morning, no one really in the city. Knew quite how crazy it was.

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

Like, I remember even just pulling up maps online. I had to come here because we had no power still. But the office had Internet, even though it's closer to the Eaton fires.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

So it was like, could see the Eaton fires driving here for the studio.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

The air definitely getting a lot worse towards here, but I don't think it was until, like looking at the maps of where the fires were and the severity of it of like, oh, there's fires on all sides of us. We have Griffith park right in the middle that easily. Like with these winds with. So the Watch duty app everyone in LA downloaded that morning and you can see where the fire is and where the wind is blowing.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And we were just a little blue dot that felt like being in the middle of all of it.

[Rob]

Yeah. With the wind blowing directly at us.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Didn't feel great.

[Rob]

Yeah. So that, that was when, like, my anxiety kicked in and was like, oh, shit, this is getting crazy. I don't think we hadn't been hearing from people yet that they had lost houses. And I think both the fires were really just kind of getting started at that point.

[David Farrier]

I just remember having that distinct thought of, you know, we're just starting 2025. You know, like, this feels unexpected and chaotic. And I'm also thinking, like, I feel disorientated. I'm fine. Like, nothing bad has happened to any of my stuff. There's, you know, we're going to talk to your friend soon and a friend of mine and they've lost homes and that's just a whole different situation. So I can't imagine what headspace they're in. A few things leapt out at me. Just sort of going through the news that I've sort of found interesting. And I don't have any great insight into this, but just thinking about, which I hadn't thought about and didn't know about the idea of private firefighters. Certain people could, you know, if you've got money, there's like everything in America. It's not all state funded or federally funded. You got this private firefighting service. So if you're wealthy, you can have someone. I've seen a few photos of, you know, there's a, you know, outside a house, there's this private thing that no one else can access and they're protecting that home that's happening. And like, yeah, there's been, there's been a couple of specific houses that have been protected by like, hired help, essentially.

[Rob]

Wow.

[David Farrier]

Which I found fascinating.

[Rob]

The Other thing with the firefighters that has been popping up is the inmates.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. No, essentially if you're incarcerated, you can get time off your sentence or various other bonuses if you fight fires.

[Rob]

How do you feel about that? I didn't realize the time off piece of it, I thought it was just like, hey, you're in prison, you've got to come do this.

[David Farrier]

No. So I think it may differ as well between states. But I read a really interesting thread on threads on the Internet from someone that had been incarcerated and they had seen all the criticism about the incarcerated firefighters being used and he was like, look, just so you know, I got time off my sentence for this and sort of went through some of the positives overall. I mean it's. I think it's horrific that like prisoners, even if that's the incentive to get time off, that they're being sent into these life threatening situations, they're not trained firefighters. That's crazy to me.

[Rob]

It's not forced labor. They're volunteering to a degree.

[David Farrier]

Yes. But again, I want to look more into this because it's like how, what does volunteering mean when you're already in those situations? I want to find out more and maybe it's something we can nail down into later on. Various arsons have been happening around town as well. There was a really arresting image my friend sent me a couple of days ago about someone who just lit a palm tree on fire. Like I think, was it in Holly? I don't want to spread misinformation.

[Rob]

I feel it was sort of seen West Hollywood.

[David Farrier]

It was West Hollywood way.

[Rob]

I think it's from like a doorbell camera. It was someone that strolls up to a palm tree and the prawns are hanging down and they just light one of them on fire and then the whole thing's up.

[David Farrier]

The incredible thing is that they look exactly like my friend's friend. So they're just all giving. It's not them, for the record. Just looks similar. And yeah, of course with all these things, a bunch of conspiracy theories have all leapt up from it. We've got the usual like pedophilia rings, satanic rituals.

[Rob]

Didn't Margaret Taylor Green say something about using the weather control to just stop them?

[David Farrier]

Sounds like Marjorie. That sounds like her vibe. There's a lot of that stuff going on. There's a lot of debate about the idea that budgets have been cut from the police. I'm sorry, from the fire and put into the police. That's just going to read a little news excerpt on that. Because I think it's kind of interesting. Critics have blamed the scale of the fires on alleged budget cuts to firefighting at the state level and locally by LA Mayor Karen Bass, who is getting a lot of shit right now for a variety of reasons. The California Firefax website contests that narrative, arguing that Califier's budget and number of personnel have both nearly doubled since 2019. By Mashable confirmed that while there were cuts to the initial proposal for wildfire funding this year, the state's 2425 budget ultimately provided more funds than previously. So that's information that I think got a little bit out of hand.

[Rob]

Yeah. You've been seeing the wildfires kind of weaponized from a political sense, unfortunately.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Like any disaster in America that seems to happen.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

With every little thing. So I think it's just, you know, there can be slithers of truth and things, but also don't believe like every tweet you, you read. Also just reading from this LA article, issues with the water supply during the early days of the Palisades and Eaton fires drew controversy as well. Hydrants at higher elevations in the Pacific Palisades did indeed run dry during the worst of the firefighting, but rumors about poor maintenance and regional water shortages have not panned out so far.

[Rob]

Yeah, what I read about that the water supplies were not at any lower of a level and I think the hydrants running dry, a lot of it was from the actual pumps. They had to, they had to cut power in some of these areas because it was a fire hazard. If these fires are tearing through and these power lines start more fires.

[David Farrier]

It's also the ultimate case of, I think Comedian made this point of just people at home like in their basement being like, I know how to manage a fire and just like knowing everything and getting stuck in.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Before we get into some of the interviews we've been doing, Rob, there was one other article from Yale that I found really alarming, I suppose in a way. Just said the death toll from LA's catastrophic wildfires has risen to 24 and is expected to increase further. The 16 direct fatalities from the Eaton fire alone make it California's fifth deadliest wildfire, while the Palisades Fire, with only eight deaths, ranks as the state's 14th deadliest. However, the eventual death toll from the disaster is likely to be far, far higher once the health effects from the toxic smoke from the fires are fully realized. Additional deaths can be expected in the coming years because of the large scale disruption to people's lives. Similar to what has been found in the aftermath of major hurricanes.

[Rob]

Yeah. I feel like that's what's going on a lot now is people's anxiety about the air quality.

[David Farrier]

Big time.

[Rob]

Rightfully so.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

That the, like, old houses with the lead paint and the asbestos, those burning up and those particles going into the air. Because even in Los Fields where we are, there's ash come, like, the days after the fire, there was. You could see visible ash.

[David Farrier]

A white car. And it was all over the car. That's the thing. And, yeah, that's not just from, you know, like, trees that have burnt and grass. It's from, like, the most toxic that we have in our homes, which is not a great vibe.

[Rob]

Yeah. So there's just a lot of stuff on social media, too. Being like, the. The stuff you're breathing in now is what people at 911 were breathing in that turned into cancer in 10 years.

[David Farrier]

And that's just a wonderful background thing to have floating around in our friends as life goes on.

[Rob]

Well, and it's just like being shown as social media posts that are scaring people.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And I think I'm trying to find the balance.

[David Farrier]

It's a balance. Yeah.

[Rob]

What to be afraid of and what not to me.

[David Farrier]

And I think just in life outside of the wildfires, that's something I'm increasingly finding because I'm online way too much. You see me, like, I'm always looking at my phone and. Yeah, it's that thing. There's so much going on that we know about. Like, there's always been bad stuff happening. We know about it more now, and I think there probably is more terrible going on. But it's like, what do. What are we scared of today? Right. Like, what's the thing I need to worry about today? Is it the air I'm breathing?

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Is it a multitude of things? Should I be worried about the inaugurate? What? You know.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I don't know.

[Rob]

Well. And I feel like with this happening, the pace at which it's coming at us here is, like, really overwhelming. And even just like, being on a WhatsApp group for Vincent's preschool.

[David Farrier]

Oh, I can only imagine the discussion going on in there because you add in parents who are, like, scared about their kids.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

All that shit's gonna amplify so, so much. I did see a headline, my friend. It was Roosevelt Seen it through, about a bunch of influences who have now pivoted to, like, detoxing from the. From the air. It's all bullshit, you know, it's like, have the smoothie, buy this thing. The influences, they'll always be there for us.

[Rob]

Well, so speaking of that, there's also the like rent gouging. Oh, that's happening around la. There's a lot of people that are displaced.

[David Farrier]

They need places to stay. Yeah.

[Rob]

And there's a lot of stories coming out.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Suddenly weekly and monthly rents have gone up tenfold.

[Rob]

Yeah. It's 20,000 dol to rent a house.

[David Farrier]

The great thing. I. I'll include it in the show notes for this episode. Someone has made a Google sheet that they're basically putting in all the realtor's details. The link how much it's gone up. Basically a shit list. And it's illegal, but you're not allowed to do this. And so if you're experiencing this, tell them like, I saw what it was before, I saw what it is now. Is there a reason you're suddenly not letting me move into this place that I was due to be moving into? Give them all this about it? Because that shit's illegal.

[Rob]

The interesting thing about that is we saw one of those posts in our neighborhood and there's an acquaintance of Natalie's and like it's someone's wife that's a.

[David Farrier]

Realtor and she's gouging it up.

[Rob]

She's not gouging, but we. It was a post about the gouging and then she's in the comments very slightly defending it of like, well, you don't know that they furnish these houses so that the people renting them. Oh my God. Then have. It's a stretch what they need and like that can justify hiking the price up.

[David Farrier]

Well, as if that's all it was like loosely. Loosely adjacent.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

Also though, I think like just ethically, if you're a realtor in la, I feel like you're always being slightly, you know.

[Nick Russell]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And it's. It takes a certain kind of piece of shit to try to turn this.

[David Farrier]

Into a money making exercise.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

That's the other thing. Like out of this we've seen, as always with any disaster, you see like the worse in people fucking gouging. And then you see all the wonderful stuff that people are doing and coming together with. It's like both worlds are existing. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Quince. Now with a new year comes a chance to reimagine ourselves for the better and importantly, our closets. This year I'm resolving to Refresh a few things with quality pieces and stay on budget. And I can, thanks to Quince. I recently went to their website, went into the best sellers in the home category and I'm getting myself a new linen duvet cover. My current duvet cover, it's a mess. I want my bed to finally be looking good and this Quince European linen duvet cover has got me on track. And there's also no better workout motivation than some new activewear. Their performance tees and tech shorts are perfect for any movement. For me, that's a lot of hiking up big hills here in California. I love them so much. However you choose to refresh yourself, this year, all quince pieces are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. 50 to 80%. They're able to do that by partnering directly with top factories, cutting out the cost cost of the middleman and passing the savings on to you. Quince also only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. And that makes my duvet cover feel even better. And of course, they use premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feel in every piece. I talk about this a lot, but I love my puffer jacket from Quince. And yeah, this duvet cover. I'm just going to shut up now. You're sick of hearing about it, but it's just nice to have a bed that looks good. Upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag. Go to quince.combird for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com bird to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com bird support for flightless Bird comes from Bombus. Well, it's officially too cold to do anything. The upside? You can cocoon yourself in Bombus socks, slippers and underwear all winter long. As I record this ad, I'm currently wearing their socks. And good God, they're good. The secret is in their fabrics. We're talking about the good stuff, like merino wool, which feels as cosy as a ski lodge. But in saying that if you want to brave the cold on the slopes or on a snowy run, Bombus has athletic socks built for that too. Bombus also knows little things really do make a really big difference. So they removed all the itchy tags, fixed that annoying toe seam on the socks and perfected the fit of everything. No more socks that slip up or underwear that rides up. No one wants those things. My personal favourite, though, is their slippers. If Your feet drop to quite cold temperatures like mine or my extremities do. Then you'll love the warm, fluffy sherpa lining and the marshmallow like cushioning. Oh, marshmallows. But it doesn't matter which Bombus you get because every Bombus item gives back. And this is what I love. For every item you purchase, Bombus will donate another item to someone facing homelessness. Really? They've donated over 150 million items thanks to purchases like yours. And if for some reason you're not a fan of what you get, don't worry because they have a hundred percent happiness guarantee that covers free exchanges and returns. I have a lot of Bombas socks. They're cozy. They never drop down my leg. They look great. I wear them on hikes. I wear them when I'm out of the house anywhere. I love Bombas. They're my new favorite socks. So try Bombas. Now head to bombas.combird and use code bird for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B code bird at checkout. Okay, we're going to get to the voice memos that you sent in. Not all of them. Some of them that I found really interesting. But we wanted to kick this off. Rob, you spoke to someone about their experience in the fires.

[Rob]

Yep.

[David Farrier]

Oh, you explain it in here. Of course.

[Rob]

It's been a few days since the Los Angeles wildfires started. A number of stories from friends losing home starts to pile up, devastating story after devastating story. The wreckage is seemingly countless and the fires still aren't contained for a lot of us, not in the direct path to the fires we've been trapped inside. The air quality has reached peak levels and actual ash is raining from the skies. You try to avoid the Watch Duty app for a few moments to let the anxiety surrounding the reality of the situation lessening. But you open Instagram and watch story after story of people who have lost everything. I see a story from an old friend of mine, Lydia. I used to work with her at the movie theater when we were both in high school. There's countless heartbreaking stories like Lydia's on my feed, but this one hits me really hard. We've kept in touch over the years and have both been on similar journeys. Both leaving Chicago to pursue creative fields in California. Both trying to forge our own paths out here and find our way.

[Lydia]

Hey, Rob, I am in Pai, Thailand right now, so if you hear. Yeah, if you hear those roosters in the background, that's what that is. My husband Ryan and I are traveling with his parents in Thailand and then to the Philippines, where his dad is from. So we've been planning this trip for a while to have this like kind of trip of a lifetime, like family experience.

[Rob]

Lydia is now an art director for the Sphere in Las Vegas, working out of a studio in Burbank. Her husband Ryan is a cinematographer. They moved out to Los Angeles to Mid City in 2020. But through exploring the different parts of the city, they eventually found themselves in Altadena.

[Lydia]

Even at the time, I was like, how is this part of la? It just feels so separate. You know, it's just north of Pasadena along the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It feels like you're in a little mountain town. It's unincorporated, it's really quiet. There's cowboys and horses, you know, just riding down the neighborhood streets. It felt just really serene. And we knew that we wanted to move there eventually.

[Rob]

And they eventually did. They got married last year and found a historic Tudor style house in a neighborhood called Janes Village. A neighborhood filled with houses built mostly in the 1920s, filled with a lot of charm and a lot of history.

[Lydia]

Every day we woke up and we're like, we can't believe how much this has changed our experience of living here. We just, you know, we just adored it. We had a little space for our dogs in the back and down the street there's this park called Loma Alto park, and there's like an equestrian center kind of at the top of it. And you would always see cowboys and their horses. And it was just really beautiful and special. And through getting to know the community, there's so many little businesses that have so much personality, like just down the street from us. I think it has like, well, it had the Guinness Book of World Records for the most bunnies collected in the world. Weird things like that that just made it such a special and weird little place.

[Rob]

Then came the trip of a lifetime. Lydia and Ryan had planned a two week journey to Thailand and then to the Philippines with Ryan's parents. Lydia's mom offered to stay in their house and take care of their dogs while they'd be out of town.

[Lydia]

Sometime the night before we were supposed to leave, our friends Anthony and Victoria texted me and they were like, hey, the Santa Ana winds are supposed to kick up tomorrow. They're supposed to be really bad. And the last time they were really bad in Altadena, the power was out for a week.

[Rob]

A little freaked out by this, Lydia ultimately decided it wasn't worth canceling her trip. Over and Prepped her mom with everything she might need. Like a lot of us, she didn't expect much out of a windy night in Los Angeles.

[Lydia]

We felt like we did everything that we could do. So then the next morning we go to LAX to fly out and my mom took us to the airport. We still thought it was okay. She dropped us off, she drove home, and the winds had completely died down by the time she got back to alt to Dina and she took the dogs for a walk and she was sending me videos from the park.

[Rob]

Their first leg of the trip was a 13 hour flight to Seoul, Korea. As soon as they landed, Lydia's phone started going off.

[Lydia]

I have 20 text messages or something crazy on Instagram. Similarly, my inbox is flooded and I'm starting to go through these and we're learning that a fire started.

[Rob]

Lydia learned that her mom had evacuated to a hotel in Glendale with her two dogs.

[Lydia]

Once we found that out, then we started to feel the reality of the situation a little bit more.

[Rob]

Lydia and Ryan only had an hour to comb through the chaos, but there wasn't much they could do 6,000 miles away. It was time for them to get on their next flight. This time a six hour flight to Shanghai.

[Lydia]

We land and getting all these messages, we're starting to realize the severity of the situation and how out of control the fires had so quickly become. So we're talking to my mom and she had decided to evacuate from the hotel that morning. And that's when we really started to get scared.

[Rob]

They went to bed in Shanghai that night and woke up the next morning to more messages from friends that said.

[Lydia]

Hey, I don't want to scare you, but your street, there's a bunch of houses on fire.

[Rob]

She got another message from a neighbor who managed to get on their street and sent along a video of the damage. They received the news that they had been afraid of their whole street, including their home, had burned down.

[Lydia]

Yeah, I don't really know what else to say. I mean, you never think that it's gonna happen to you, that's for sure. And as this has escalated, so much of Altadena has been affected and wiped out. It looks like a war zone. Processing this from across the world with the time difference has been the weirdest experience of my life. It feels like I'm watching a movie about someone else. It didn't really sink in until one of my best friends, ellie, started a GoFundMe for us. And it's very humble, humbling, being on the receiving end of so much love and Support from your community is. Well, you know, it affects you really deeply. And we feel really loved and blessed in so many ways. You know, I have. We have our careers. We have a lot of things to be grateful for, you know, and my mom and our dogs are safe, but my husband's life work was in the house. We had everything on hard drives. And, you know, all of our gifts that we got from our wedding last year and little pieces of art that we collected on our honeymoon, notes from my mom that she sent me over the years, all those little things like, yes, it's just stuff, but when you're faced with the reality of losing it, it's a really hard thing.

[Rob]

Even across the world at a time of unimaginable loss, they felt the love and support from their community and loved ones. And that's the thing that's become really apparent during this time. At a time when the world has seemed as divided as ever, there's still an outpouring of generosity when people are in need.

[Lydia]

I really can't even put into words how grateful we are for our friends. So many people have offered to let us, you know, stay in their. Their homes indefinitely free of charge. So many local companies are putting together care packages with toiletries and clothing for people affected by the fires. Yeah, that side of it has been really amazing. Amazing to watch. I just want to thank. Thank my friend Ellie for setting up the GoFundMe when we were feeling uncomfortable about it. We need help. Everyone who is affected needs help. And my friend Jackie for offering her place up to us. Our friends Anthony and Victoria for offering their place to us and taking care of my mom throughout this horrific experience. You know, Ryan's parents for letting us cry through their vacation. My parents, too, because my mom was dealing with this alone, and she's just so strong. We love both of them so much for all the help they've given us.

[David Farrier]

I have that thought sometimes when I'm, like, leaving on a plane somewhere of, like, you're out. You're out of touch, you know, you can't do anything. It's like, this is like the worst example of what happens when you land in a place.

[Rob]

Yeah. Being disconnected for completely 16 hours. And then.

[David Farrier]

And those two legs of the flight as well, and, like, getting those messages. Houses on your street are on fire and there's nothing you can do about it. You're safe, which is great. But.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Holy.

[Rob]

Yeah. So they. I mean, they have a GoFundMe.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. We'll put in the show notes. I'm Gonna put a bunch of resources in there that people can jump in on. The bunny museum as well. Yeah, that was in the back of my head as a flightless bird episode at some point. I've been there. This quirky. Yeah. It's one of the Weir places in la. It's now doesn't exist anymore. It's burnt down. They got their cats out. If you know the bunny museum collect.

[Rob]

A lot of like 4,000 or more bunnies.

[David Farrier]

Insane. And like in their house. So you're in this person's house and you're walking through, like their kitchen and it's all like. It's a bunny museum. I don't know how to explain it. That's all gone. They got out. The cats got out. But it's. It's just surreal. Like, it's surreal thinking about these things.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

So I spoke to my friend Mike Rothschild. We had him on the conspiracy theory episode around the election. He came on that he's written the Storm is Upon Us, which is a book that I love and I like. A lot of us, I guess, scrolling through Instagram and just saw a post, oh, his house is gone and he's in a similar area to your friend. And so I rang him. It took a while to get through. We had it arranged to do it on one day, but when you lose a house, chaos all around you. But when I did catch up with them, this is the conversation we had.

[Mike Rothschild]

So we started having our fairly regular Santa Ana winds that come from the mountains and sort of blow through everything. It happens around this time every year. And they were extremely strong this year, historically strong. I know people who've lived in Pasadena for half a century and they've never been this strong. So we already had this high wind danger. And it's also been extremely dry this winter. We've had actually fairly wet winters the last couple of years, but this winter was extremely dry. I can't remember the last time it's rained and that combination, as far as I know. And you know, the causes of these fires are still really being investigated, but likely knocks down some power lines in several places that sparked fires that it was just. It was too difficult for firefighters to get to right away. And they spread incredibly quickly. You know, I can't speak much about the Palisades fire, but the Eaton fire, which is what took our home, that started probably about 6 o'. Clock. I was just getting home with my kids and we saw the glow of the fire in the distance and we thought, oh, you know, it's not A big deal. It'll get put out and then maybe around 8:30 or 9 we could start to see the fire creeping across the mountains to where the point where we could actually see the flames. And we thought, okay, let's pack some stuff up. We haven't gotten the evacuation order, but let's just, you know, better safe than sorry. So we packed as much, you know, as many valuable things into our two cars as we could, not really knowing what to take, not only knowing if we were going to have to leave at all or how long we'd have to go. And then we tried to get some sleep and we figured, okay, we'll, we'll see how it's going in the morning. 3:25am, my phone and my wife's phone both start blaring. Evacuation order. Get out now. So at that point our power had gone out hours earlier. We didn't actually know that our. So our house is like freezing cold. Our kids who are 10 and 8 are freaking out. I'm freaking out, my wife's freaking out. We grab a couple of other things and then we left and we ran outside and it's cold, it's pitch black because all the streetlights are out. It is incredibly smoky. There were no flames at that point. We don't think that came around for a few more hours. But it really was, you know, cars going north, cars going south. And we drove probably about 10 minutes to where my mother in law lives in Pasadena. And we stayed there for a few hours until we got an evacuation order to leave her house. And then we went to her church and we stayed there most of Wednesday, which is where we found out from neighbors that our house had been destroyed. And then I guess it would have been Wednesday night. We ended up driving out to Claremont, which is probably about 30 miles east of LA, and we spent a couple of nights with friends there and then headed up to the central coast where we are now.

[David Farrier]

How do you feel towards LA right now? Are you kind of like we're done? Are you, do you want to stay?

[Mike Rothschild]

You know, we really want to stay. We've built a real community, especially in Altadena. And one of the things that I think a lot of Altadena residents have been talking about is what a special community it is. It's, it's an unincorporated part of LA County. It's just north of Pasadena. It is full of 100 year old homes. Our house actually was 100 years old. It's just this little, little cottage. Not a lot of storage space, but you Know, really charming, lots of character. It's also Altadena has a really interesting history because it was a redline neighborhood. So black families who could not buy in much of Pasadena or the rest of the San Gabriel Valley moved to Altadena. So you have generations of black families that have lost their existences, their homes, their businesses. You also had Altadena starting to seem a little bit more of a. Of an artistic community and a lot of young families moving in because the real estate there was a little bit more affordable than the rest of la.

[David Farrier]

Look, how are you keeping it together right now? Because you seem very calm and together. Is that just the simple fact of, you know, you have to, you know.

[Mike Rothschild]

You really, you have no choice? You know, we've got young kids, we've got dogs, we have all of these things that need to be done, all these calls that need to be made. Our, you know, our mortgage company or insurance company, you know, my, my wife's job, the schools, you know, the community meetings. The kids need pants. We need pants. You know, you, you're just, you're trying to take it kind of minute by minute in a lot of ways. Try not to get too far ahead of yourself. You make a lot of lists. You don't get to the things on your list, but at least you've written them down. But it's hard. You know, the kids are having a hard time with it. We're having a hard time with it. You feel very unsettled. You just feel like you don't know what your life is going to look like tomorrow. We don't, you know, we don't know how long we're going to be staying on the Central Coast. We're probably going to move back in with my wife's mom, who lives in Pasadena. Her house physically is fine, but one of the things that we're figuring out now is is there smoke damage? Does she have to get rid of anything in her house that's porous because it may have taken in smoke? This ash that the fire created, it's not just, it's not a campfire that went out. This is melted plastic, exploded propane tanks, melted electronics. This is very hazardous. So we can't just go back to the house and start, you know, looking for stuff. The National Guard is in control of our neighborhood right now. We, we would get arrested, I believe, if we tried to go back. So the, the best thing that we can do to kind of get through this is to really give, give ourselves and give each other a lot of grace. Stay in touch with our friends, stay in touch with our community. We. The texts and calls and emails and Facebook messages have just been constant and really understand we're not alone. A lot of families are going through this. We. We know at least two dozen families personally that have been burned out. And we're all just sticking together and trying to help each other out as much as we can.

[David Farrier]

Look, thanks for your time, Mike. I'll point listeners towards your Patreon and yeah, just thanks for your time. When I imagine your. Your brain is just full of crazy right now.

[Mike Rothschild]

My brain is full of crazy. And I. You know what, it actually really helps to talk about this. You know, I feel like I've got this kind of unique position as a journalist who talks about disinformation and conspiracy theories to be going through this event that has become immediately such a generator of misinformation and conspiracy theories. And to be able to talk about it. I feel like I have this role to play and, you know, and I'm trying to do it and it, you know, gives me something to do.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. So that was Mike Rothschild's terrifying concept of going to sleep, which we all did that night. Yeah, we went to sleep, sort of assume it will be okay. And then. Yeah. You wonder how many lives are saved by those emergency alerts, which are always annoying when they go off on your phone at different times. It woke them up and they got the kids out. Like, terrifying also to wake up and just have your house icy colds and realize our powers me out for ages. And I think people forget when you're asleep, you sleep through all that.

[Rob]

The thing that I think gives me the most anxiety about. About aside from losing that, but the actual evacuation process and being like gridlocked, trying to get out of this place that's on fire completely. I think in the Palisades, people were like abandoning their cars and they were just driving through fire vehicles to push them out of the way.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Which I think there was that message that went out, like, if you abandon your car, leave your keys there so people can shift it if they need to. But, yeah, terrifying. I mean, when I was going south, that was my fear. Like, if I leave it too late, are the streets just going to be absolutely insane?

[Rob]

Yeah. You're just stuck and this fire behind you is coming closer and closer.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And that was chilling, seeing all those cars stop because you realize all those people had panicked and had gotten up and just ran, which is insane to me. I'll put Mike's Patreon in the show notes as well. He does some of my favorite reporting around conspiracy theories. So giving to Patreon is a way that you can help him out. But there are so many GoFundMes and Patreons and people needing help because, of course, the relief doesn't. Some people don't have insurance. Some people that do have insurance are going to be fighting for God knows how long to get those payouts. It's like, this is just going to go on in the city for years.

[Rob]

The news, too, of, like, insurance dropping fire coverage, not being able to even pay it out.

[David Farrier]

I heard that last year that that had happened.

[Rob]

I heard about that in Malibu. That, like, at some point the insurance companies were just like, we don't have any more money.

[David Farrier]

We're not insuring for.

[Rob]

We can't. That seems like a whole other episode and journey. But, yeah, the amount of people, like Calvin's teacher lost her house.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. That's the other thing that struck me with Mike is like, you've just got to carry on your life. Like, he's got to look after his kids and the dogs and. And that's why whenever I start to feel, like, slightly stressed, I'm like, I've got it fine. Like, we have it so, so fine.

[Rob]

One other thing, I liked both of those stories so much because it also just. Just talk to the charm of this, like, beautiful part of LA that went through this.

[David Farrier]

I think a lot of people think of LA as just being. Or I certainly did in New Zealand. That you think Hollywood.

[Rob]

Yeah. But it was like this whimsical little part of it. And Christmas Tree Lane is in Altadena as well, which they go all out with the Christmas lights each year.

[David Farrier]

I've seen video of this.

[Rob]

Yeah. I went with my mom and Calvin right after Christmas to drive down it, and apparently it's just gone.

[David Farrier]

Right.

[Rob]

Like, totally wiped out.

[David Farrier]

What's like Hawaii, like, just leveled and gone. You know, it's like. It's not like one or two houses. And that's what I can't quite conceptualize. So say you're Mike, right? And you're like, what are you doing? He rebuilds. So what, you rebuild and you're this one house in the middle of, like, the, like, carnage.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

What does that look like? It's such an unusual thing to me to, like, think about.

[Rob]

Well, and, like, with them having to fight insurance companies and get money, and I'm sure, like, cost of materials is going to skyrocket because we have entire zip codes that need to rebuild. And you have wealthy people in these areas rebuilding too, that can pay more. But then you have other people that can't that are trying to get as much as they can from their insurance company to rebuild what they can.

[David Farrier]

The dynamics around all of this, bonkers, I think. And that's why, I mean, there's a lot of anger out there, right? Like, that's why people are directing their anger towards all sorts of people, including, you know, I mean, people will lose their jobs over this obviously as well. And how this was handled or not handled, that's going to be really crazy to see play out. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is supported by Mint Mobile. If you haven't noticed already, 2025 is here and it's already pretty craz. And Mint Mobile has a resolution for you. Skip the gym. Skip all the fad diets the influencers are telling you about. Skip the BS resolutions you'll forget about by next month. I've already forgotten about all of mine. Instead, make a resolution to save some serious cash by making the switch to Mint Mobile. And right now you can get half off their three month unlimited plan. Now, when I was doing that mystery sound episode of Flightless Bird, I found out about Mint Mobile and where its towers are and what its coverage is doing. And I was really, really impressed. The other thing, it's just so much cheaper. I'm relatively new to the United States. I was paying over $80 a month for a mobile plan. And that is just as I've now discovered with Mint Mobile, completely ludicrous. You don't have to be spending that much money. So it's time to leave your overpriced wireless plans jaw dropping monthly bills and all the other bullshit. In 2024, Mint Mobile is dropping huge savings for the new year by offering any three month plan for only 15 bucks a month. Even their unlimited plan. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. And this is really important for me. You can even bring your current phone and your number. Ditch Overpriced Wireless With Mint Mobile, it's easy. You sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. Switch to Mint and new customers can get half off an unlimited plan until February 2nd. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to mint mobile mintmobile.combird that's mintmobile.combird $45 upfront payment required. Equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Going to something slightly positive. I reached out to Mutual Aid la, who are one of the organizations who are just, just helping. And the idea of Mutual Aid is that, you know, outside of politics, it's like we're all neighbors, we're all the same, so let's help each other out. That's the whole sort of concept. And so this is what Ali Christie had to say about her work with Mutual Aid la, because I think they're just doing amazing, amazing work.

[Zoe]

So my name is Ali Christie. I started organizing with Mutual Aid LA Network in January of 2022. I got invited to come build hygiene kits that were going to be distributed to unhoused folks around the city. And I met a bunch of really cool, like minded people there and have stuck around ever since. I think that, yeah, the frantic nature of the response has been incredibly overwhelming, but I think it's also been incredibly inspiring. We're watching people from all over the city and beyond really rally together to figure out what needs exist at different shelters, what needs exist in different neighborhoods, and get on trying to figure out how to distribute resources as best as possible. The people of Los Angeles are working together to make sure the needs of those affected by these fires are going to be met. And while it's been frantic and devastating, and you know, I think a lot of this is just us trying to juggle personal emotions and also making sure we're getting shit done, getting things done, it's also been so wonderful to see the outpouring of support and community care that has resulted from it. I think that the needs are evolving really rapidly right now on the ground when it comes to donation of items, volunteering, et cetera. But I don't think that that should discourage people. I think that. But it's sounding like we're having an influx of support and this is going to be a months, if not years long rebuilding process and they're going to be just as needed in two months, two years even as they are today. And I encourage everybody to get involved today, whether it's through volunteering or trying to pick up items. But know that even if you're not being tapped right now, that doesn't mean that there won't be a place for you here down the line.

[David Farrier]

So yeah, that was Ellie Christie from Mutual Aid la and I'll include In the show notes, a spreadsheet which is basically updated every couple of days, being like, these are the locations, this is what they need with stuff like, this place needs nappies, this place needs dog food, and also a list of jobs you can do to turn up for. And that's always shifting and it's not just now. They're going to be needing people for the next couple of years.

[Rob]

Yeah, I think that's the important thing. I think the community of la, I don't feel like it's ever felt as strong as right now, really.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. That's cool.

[Rob]

Louisiana feels, for one of the first times, like home to me now, too. And seeing everyone come together.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

In the parking lot here, there was a clothing drive and everyone is trying to pitch in.

[David Farrier]

It completely counters that stereotype of LA as being sort of like, full of. Of vacuous, sort of knobbins, you know, it's like you're actually seeing the. Yeah, it's a community here and that's what I love about it. And it's. We're seeing that like, tenfold, 100 fold right now.

[Rob]

Well, and it's a community of, like, creatives that have all come here and already in la. A lot of people already transplants here.

[David Farrier]

Completely, the strays everywhere.

[Rob]

So, yeah, when they all come together, it's like almost this. This band of misfits.

[David Farrier]

It's like this. This ultimate melting pot, right?

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, completely. It feels like everyone from LA almost, like, isn't. Most of my friends aren't from la. Right. They've, like, chosen to come here and it's their chosen family. And I think it's that. That's, like, coming up to the surface and that's.

[Rob]

Yeah. Making it feel, like, even stronger and more vibrant.

[David Farrier]

I wanted to talk now about Watch Duty, which is this app that we talk about a lot.

[Rob]

Yeah, it came up in my dog.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, it's the thing. It's like I'd never heard of Watch Duty before. These fires. It's been around for a number of years, but ESS actually, you know, it's an app. You download it, you jump in there and it just shows you exactly what's going on with the fires. There's been a bunch of articles about it. I got kind of curious about who's behind it, so I ended up talking to Nick Russell, who has been working with him for a long time. And I just got him to break down where this thing comes from and what it's about.

[Rob]

Looking at just, like, the maps that were out there. That first morning freaked me out so much and then I finally got watch duty because like everyone else did in the city.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, it's this amazing thing where there's certain apps here like Citizen, which is sort of maps crime. Citizen in my mind is just a panic maker. Like it's just there to make you scared to be alive, scared to leave the house. There's an axe wielding man 2km away, there's a rapist in that direction. It's not, it's information, but it's cluttered and it's. My argument doesn't really help anyone.

[Rob]

It's not useful information.

[David Farrier]

It's not useful, it's just panic. Watch duty is like when there is a wildfire happening. It is the most useful information and the most clearly presented information you could have. Right, right.

[Rob]

It's a, it's an interactive live map that you can see where the fire is. And they're constantly posting updates on this fire and that fire and they've got colors surrounding it. You can turn on, wind direction. I mean I was on it non stop from when they started and I downloaded that app to a day or.

[David Farrier]

Two ago, same and just jumping on and you can, you can see a fire, you can see how contained it is. You can see the warning levels. If there's a press conference happening in the city, it's linked to that. So. And the other thing that it might seem like a minor point, but apps can be such a horrible experience. Like, you get the app, I'm giving it my email. It's like this whole process, watch duty, there's none of it, you're just in. And it felt like an experience that I want to be having online all the time but never get. And that was also why I wanted to talk to them, to be like, how is it this good? Like, this isn't how the world works anymore. How is this so slick? So, yeah, this is Nick Russell.

[Nick Russell]

My name is Nick Russell. I am the Vice president operations at WatchDuty.

[David Farrier]

And how did you get involved with this particular app that suddenly everyone seems to know about and is using and is literally saving lives?

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, my story is a little bit colorful, so I don't come from a fire background. I spent the last 10 years of my life managing the largest organic dairy farm in Northern California. And my last year working there, I volunteered simultaneously at watch Duty, starting as a contributor, becoming a reporter, and then eventually building and deploying our echo radio devices that are now scattered throughout the west.

[David Farrier]

What is an echo device?

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, great question. So our echo radio Devices are a force multiplier for us. What they do is they monitor hundreds of first responder radio frequencies simultaneously, and then they send us alerts of potential wildland fire dispatches in our internal communication system, Slack. And then it sends us all the audio from that in one minute, snippets with the dead air removed, and then transcribes that into text. So that's how we're able to react so quickly of new wildfire ignitions.

[David Farrier]

And maybe this is a good place to zoom out about this whole situation because, you know, I downloaded the app five days ago, it's the first I'd ever heard of it. You know, I log in, incredibly clean interface. I'm getting a lot of information about the size of fires, where they are, wind directions, wind speed. This is a very big question, but how is this thing working?

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, no, that's. It's a great question. And I think it's probably best to zoom all the way out and kind of and talk about how it was conceptualized and how we are got to where we are today. So our co founder and CEO, John Clark Mills, had a very rich history in the tech industry. He had built several software companies, companies and sold those. And so after the last one, he moved to a rural area in northern Sonoma county, completely off the grid, making his own power. And about six months after moving in there, he had encountered several experiences with wildfire helicopters flying over his area with helicopter, excuse me, with buckets. And he was trying to figure out what was going on. And so he, you know, sometimes was able to piecemeal the information together, but it was always challenged. And then finally the final straw was he was evacuated due to the Wall Bridge fire, which devastated much of western Sonoma County. And so when he got to a safe area, he started looking and trying to figure out where the fire was, where it had started, which areas were threatened, resources for evacuees. And he was really coming up short. It took him a long time. He eventually visited five different social media pages and local government pages and was able to place, put a small piece of the story together. And he, he stopped and said to himself, man, there's got to be a better way to do this. And so he spent the rest of that year riding around on fire engines, learning more about wildland response and suppression, took some classes on wildland firefighting that year. And In August of 2021, Watch Duty was born and launched to the original three counties in northern California. Sonoma Lake in Napa County. That next June, we launched to the entire state of California. We finished that season covering many wildfires throughout the state, unfortunately, and continue to grow our user base. The next year, we expanded to 11 Western states. And then this year, we've now expanded to cover a total of 22 states and 1476 counties. And so the original intention for Watch Duty was to solve the problem that John was experiencing and get all this pertinent information into one place and then have a delivery platform that wasn't clogged up with the nonsense on social media of direct energy weapons and space lasers. Just clear, concise, actionable information so that folks could make a plan for what their next step was. And so I think that's really what's made it grown and popularity. And to your point, it's just so easy to use use. And because we're a nonprofit and we're not focused on the money, we don't want your name and we don't want your email address because we're not going to go back and bother you with marketing. So if you noticed when you download the app, you weren't asked any of those things. It was simply, which county do you want alerts for? And then once you've selected that, you start getting those. And so the magic behind all this is the people. Right. We've built some incredible data aggregation systems that all come into our internal communication system slack as Signals. And then our dedicated team of over 200 volunteers and 12 paid support staff, which are predominantly made up of active and retired firefighters, dispatchers, first responders, and radio enthusiasts, validate those signals. And what they're doing is trying to determine if this signal is in fact in Ignition of the Wildfire. And if it is, they start posting that information in Watch duty, starting by not sending alerts to anybody, but just putting the screen story together. Yeah, because our goal is to tell a. A storyline from the start of ignition until the threat passes or the last engine leaves. And we do that. Much like sports reporting, where we're giving you that play by play.

[David Farrier]

That's an interesting way to think about it. And you're completely right. As someone watching the app, you are getting the backstory so it's not suddenly a shock when there's an evacuation order. You know exactly how that fire is. Is spread and where that information is coming from.

[Nick Russell]

That's right. Yeah. That's the goal. You know, you need the context, you need the granular information. And. And what I always like to tell people is where I'm at. I need to know when the fire's five Miles away. I have livestock to move. I have pets, I have children. My neighbor, on the other hand, doesn't care until the fire is a mile away. And so that rings true throughout all of our communities. These, everybody's emergency is different. And so saying that here's the cookie cutter plan that's going to get you out of harm's way when the time arises doesn't always work.

[David Farrier]

Right.

[Nick Russell]

Giving people that context. Now they can take their own actions. Maybe they start a rooftop sprinkler system, maybe they're opening gates for their horses, maybe they're gathering their pets and going to a loved one's house. And so by giving them that, I think we give people that advantage and we give them those extra a few minutes they need to gather documents.

[David Farrier]

This is a very naive question from someone that's new to California and new to the United States, but what has made these Californian fires so, so big, so quick and, and bigger in Los Angeles than they have ever been before? Is it purely those wind speeds matched with the heat and the fact these fires have started somehow in the first place?

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, I mean, speaking to this situation specifically, I think it's really just a combination of perfect storm of events and taking forest and land management completely out of it. I just don't think that has a large effect when you have hurricane force winds stacked on nine months of little to no rain and then you have an offshore wind event that is, is that is bringing that dry air from inland and blowing it towards the coast. And so I think it's fair to say I, I have rarely if ever seen these kind of wind speeds sustained for this period of time.

[David Farrier]

You know, obviously watch duty is in the press a lot at the moment. People are talking about it. Is it, is this the busiest the app has been? It might be an unusual question, but is this like a particularly busy time for you guys?

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, I mean this is certainly the busiest we've ever been in January and that, that it really is unfortunate. But the growth that we experienced over the past five days has certainly been unprecedented. And we added 2 million additional users to our user base and covering 220 million push notifications we sent. And at the, the peak, peak, I'm going to call it the peak of the event for, for our communities. And that was when they received an erroneous wireless emergency alert to the entire county.

[David Farrier]

I got it.

[Nick Russell]

We spiked up to over 3 million users a minute. So a very, very high number. We saw some request spikes of 100,000 people per second. You know, so you're starting to pass people like Amazon on Prime day at that point, so certainly never anything that we, we thought we'd experience. But I, I guess the one thing I can smile about as we go through these events is we watched many other technology systems fall, fall down and not work work because of these traffic loads. And Watch Duty from the start of the event to today has had zero percent downtime. And it's a testament to our engineering team. They stayed up all night long in several instances, scaling the system to meet the demand. And I think it really just speaks to the labor love of this team.

[David Farrier]

Why do you think there was such a spike this particular time? Because your app has been around for a long time. Is that the fact is there's a lot of people in Los Angeles and it was affecting people in Los Angeles. Was it some social media trend of like, I've never seen such a big sudden uptake on an app like this.

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, I think it was the, the Wildland urban interface, which became the urban interface story that really gathered so many people's attention. I can't think of a recallable moment outside of Watch duty history where 10,000 plus homes were lost and multiple flyers. And so I think that's a big reason for the growth. But then the other side of it is all our growth has always been 100% organic. We don't spend money on marketing. It's always people on X or Facebook saying, hey, you got to download the Watch Duty app. And. And so I think we've done the right thing for so long. And in our user base was certainly large before it was about 3 million in people. And so there was many people in those initial hours from Sacramento, from Oregon, with loved ones in the Los Angeles area. And they started saying, hey, use was. That's what we use here. We experience fires five, ten times a year. That's what we use. And then as soon as people started seeing like, oh, this isn't just a dot on a map, this is contextual. You're showing evacuation zones, you're showing, showing surface wind, you're showing these red flags that could elevate the, the fire spread and everything in one place. And then people just magnetize to it.

[David Farrier]

Amazing. And just finally, finally. Are there any particular stories that you've heard from users of the app over this time or even, you know, something that might have been on social media that you've kind of gone, oh, yeah, that's, that's pretty cool.

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, I, I was actually reading through support tickets the other night just Trying to kind of ground it myself back in the. In the work we're doing because it's easy to get a bit clouded. And there's certainly two stories that ring out, and they're on opposite ends of the spectrum. The first one comes from one of our users in the Northern California area, and he saw these fires developing at, you know, shortly after 10:00am The Palisades fire. And he reached out to his mother and father in the Malibu area, who were unaware that a fire had begun. They were unaware that evacuations were underway, and he was able to get them 30 minutes of lead time. Now, they unfortunately lost their home, but, you know, they. They had some functional access issues, and they were able to get that extra time.

[David Farrier]

Amazing.

[Nick Russell]

I had the opportunity to speak with some celebrities in the Malibu Tuna Canyon area who also utilize Watch Duty, and my favorite one is there's a neighborhood, and I'm not intimately familiar with the area, so I'm not even going to try to quote it, but the fire department was able to save many houses because a celebrity had invested a pool drafting system which allows fire engines to connect to their swimming pool and take all the water out of it. And so they learned about the fire from the watch Duty apple. Not terribly close yet, but engines were beginning to assemble about three quarters of a mile away from their house. They drove down to the fire engines and said, hey, we've been following this on watch duty. The firefighters all had it, which is exciting, but they said, hey, we have a draft system built on our pool. Here's where our house is. And so all of those engines were cycling through and refilling the engines out of their pool, and they were able to save many houses because of that.

[David Farrier]

Ah, that's so cool. That's a celeb story I can get behind. I love it. Hey, look. Thank you. I could talk to you all day. You've. You've been beyond amazing. I appreciate your time on short notice as well and appreciate you and appreciate what you do.

[Nick Russell]

Yeah, no, thank you very much again for the coverage and happy to talk anytime. So, again, thank you.

[David Farrier]

You see, I am nominating Watch Duty for App of the Year. I'm a big supporter. I've never been excited about an app since Raya. Raya was oversight about Raya.

[Nick Russell]

Wow.

[David Farrier]

You can go on a dating app, look at celebrities. Very funny. To me, Watch App has surpassed Raya as by far the best app on planet Earth.

[Rob]

I'm hoping that at some point we don't need it. I don't need to use it as much as.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I don't want to be using it daily.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

But as far as, like, a resource, like, it's funneling all that information from all these different sources into this one place and spitting it out for dummies like me to actually understand, like, what the hell is going on.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

So good. And a. Not for profit. It's just. They're never going to sell out. They're just funded by some users and holy shit, what a success story.

[Rob]

I think we also have to talk about leaf blowers.

[David Farrier]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay, so talked about this briefly last week, right?

[Rob]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Pasadena had put out. The county had put out a. What is it? Pasadena county? An area. They put out an Instagram post. Yeah. City had put out a post saying, yeah, no leaf blowers, because it flicks up horrible into the air. Just not the time to use it. Every day since the fire started, I have heard aggressive leaf blowers all over the neighborhood.

[Rob]

I have seen so many. All right.

[David Farrier]

They're banned now as well.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Like the city has banned them.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Do not use them.

[Rob]

Well, because I think there's two things. There was. They were telling people not to use them in the fire areas because it's blowing embers.

[David Farrier]

Blowing embers. Yeah. That was the first warning.

[Rob]

But then the second thing was, even in, like, our neighborhood, them blowing around, it's blowing up all of the topics you talked about.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

We don't want to breathe in.

[David Farrier]

And so basically, yeah, for me, I don't mean to make this all about me, but I'm a podcaster. That's what we do. I'm in my little apartment. I've got my window shut. I'm, like, super aware of what the air is doing outside both of my windows. Leaf blowers start.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I've been, as you know, I've been irritated by them for a long time, but this felt just like I didn't know what to do. And then also the other element in LA of leaf blowers is two of the people, both leaf blowers obviously hired help. So.

[Rob]

So I went through that journey today.

[David Farrier]

Okay. Pray tell.

[Rob]

Because I have. I've keep seeing them around our neighborhood.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And I'm like, what the. You're. We're. I know you're not supposed to be doing them.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Now you're not supposed to be using them. Like, especially now. And I was driving and I saw a guy using it, and my first thought was, like, anger.

[David Farrier]

Well, yeah, he's endangering people in the neighborhood.

[Rob]

But then I was Thinking, well, this guy's hired to do it. I don't know if he even knows about the band or not. He's like a landscaper that's trying to survive right now in this city.

[David Farrier]

Does he need someone screaming at him?

[Rob]

And, like, he's on Instagram, like, and saw all these warnings about leaf blowers. I don't know.

[David Farrier]

No. Well, he's probably busy working.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I'm in my house scrolling, like, through Instagram.

[Rob]

And he's also, like, the guy wasn't wearing a mask either, so he's. He's taking in all of this, too.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Also very hard to communicate with a leaf blower.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Because it's so loud.

[Rob]

Yeah. So I went through, like, a whole journey.

[David Farrier]

Yes. So, full disclosure, when it first happened, I screamed out my window. I couldn't see who the leaf blower was, but it was, like, down and behind a hedge and had been going on for about 10 minutes. I just, like, a crazy person went to the window, and I just, like, scream, like, stop blowing. Like, I sounded in my mind, I sounded very angry. I probably sounded, like, quite silly.

[Rob]

Like, an erratic.

[David Farrier]

And of course he couldn't hear me. He's got, like, an erratic bird.

[Rob]

Erratic bird coming out of the window pretty much.

[David Farrier]

But I just felt so pissed off.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I was just like, come on. Like, we're all kind of stuck inside. Don't do this.

[Rob]

Yeah. I was talking with someone. I know about this, too. And she was like, yeah, I. I wanted to yell at them and felt like I was gonna be the, like, crazy lady yelling at someone. And I was like, yeah, I'm. Yeah, if I do, I'm the, like, guy on the lawn yelling at people to slow down on the street completely.

[David Farrier]

I'm so. I'm really glad that you had the same thought process and the same experience. Yeah. And I don't know. I. Second guy, I just left, and I had my window shut, and it's like, I don't know. What can you do?

[Rob]

Yeah. But it's also terrible that all of that shit's being blown up and into someone's window nearby and.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, not great.

[Mike Rothschild]

Right.

[Rob]

I think it's more on the people hiring them that they need to say, hey, stop using the leaf blowers.

[David Farrier]

Yep. Completely agree. I went on a walk today. Had a mask on. Guy leaf blowing outside. He was, I would say, the owner of the house. Just looked like an owner of a house. You know what they look like? Just looked like a bit of a. You know, he had a big house. Looked like A bit of a prick. I shot him an evil fucking look in your mask. That's what I did. So you eyes. It was through the eyes. I. He knew because he stopped blowing and he stared back at me and he looked guilty. He knew Anyway. Okay, now we got a number of voice memos sent into our email. Flightless bird chat gmail.com thanks to everyone who sent in. We sort of asked for your experience related to fires either now or in the past. We got a lot of them. I've just selected a few that speak to different things and I just wanted to play them now. First up, Zoe, who grew up in Malibu in the late 70s. I just found her look back at the history of these fires quite interesting. And she also just has a really great voice. Thanks, Zoe.

[Zoe]

Hi, David and Rob, My name is Zoe. I am calling to tell you that I grew up in Malibu and In the late 70s, early 80s and wildfires were very common. Our house burned down when I was 10 in a wildfire in Malibu in 1984. And it was one of the most horrifying, traumatic, scary things I have ever experienced, which is just a club you do not want to be part of and everyone is going through right now. I was pulled out of school and there was black ash falling out of the sky. And the fire was coming over the ridge and it jumped the ridge so quickly. It scared me so badly. We didn't get to take our cats, we just had to walk our horses on the beach, which was horrifying as a fifth grader to me. And then my dad was always during the year doing these burns on our land to keep the brush back. And every year we would have to evacuate and the Santa Ana winds were so vicious. I remember my lips would be so dry and cracked and bleeding. And I found it so frightening because, you know, PCH is the road in and out of Malibu. I mean, you've got Canaan Doom and Malibu Canyon. If those get closed, there's just that one road, pch. So I vowed I couldn't live there as an adult because I was too traumatized and scared from the fires, genuinely. And the fires that I'm seeing now, my. My dad is still out there. And the fires that I'm seeing Now are about 10,000 times more forceful and quick and devastating. And my mom lives in Maui, so they just went through this a year and a half ago. I live in Boulder. The Marshall fire, right near Boulder in 2021. Just these fires inside of hurricanes that the ferocity of which it's Grown the speed of which the fire moves compared to like the 80s and the 70s wildfire in Malibu. Unbelievable. They're just fucking unprecedented. My mind is just broken and my heart is breaking for all the people out there that are going to be so traumatized as well. I'm sorry if this is a little discombobulated, but I love your guys show and you said to send it in if you had some personal experience and I had a lot. Anyway, thank you for the work you do sending love and be safe and help each other.

[David Farrier]

Other. Yeah, I liked that. There was just some context and a reminder of it's always existed here.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And it's been a part of people's lives, which is something I haven't got to clock because I haven't been here long enough. But also the fact that this was just so much bigger. Yeah. If it's blowing her away and she's experienced all of that since she was a kid, I think it. Yeah, it says a lot.

[Rob]

There were those videos from the Malibu fires the last couple years that were terrifying of like being on the road and having to drive through that. That.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

And just like engulfed in flames everywhere.

[David Farrier]

It's that thing when it's not in front of you, it's like it's might as well be like a million miles away. It's that thing this time. It just felt very close. This is Alyssa, who lives in North Carolina and runs a research magazine at the university.

[Lydia]

Hi, David. My name's Alyssa. I'm from Durham, North Carolina and I actually run the research magazine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. So I've spent a lot of time with climate scientists. And one thing that I find really interesting about wildfires is actually more wildfires happen in the southern United States than the western United States. And so people are always thinking of places like California and Colorado because of how massive the fires are. Like what you guys are experiencing right now near la. But there are multiple small wildfires that occur throughout the southern U.S. i think over 80% of the year.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. So maybe like an obvious thing to state, but something I'd kind of forgotten is that again, like because it's here, it's all I'm thinking about. But fires in America are just. They are a part of life here. They happen.

[Rob]

Yeah. I do remember seeing one of the map one of the times when I was looking it. This was before this fire, but one of the other fires of how close it was coming and they are just there's fires everywhere.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Well, there's a thing. Now we've got watch duty. Right. It's like you can kind of keep an eye on that and see that they are just all over the states all the time.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Just happens to be in a incredibly densely populated city right now. Caron also sent in a voice memo. He is a firefighter and I thought he had some really interesting observations.

[Carsten]

Hey, David and Rob. My name is Carsten and while I don't live in California and haven't personally been affected by the fires going on there, I was a wildland firefighter out in Colorado for quite some time working on hand crews and so on. And so, yeah, I've just been watching those fires kind of from that perspective and thought you might appreciate hearing that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, obviously pretty wild. For me, the thing that really has stood out watching all this go down is most of those folks fighting those fires are equipped and prepared to fight wildfires.

[David Farrier]

Right.

[Carsten]

You know, that's dealing with brush and trees, grass and so on. So their personal protective equipment is to keep them from having burn injuries as much as possible while having little to no respiratory protection. The crazy thing about these fires in California is obviously the structures being affected. I mean, thousands of structures burning down and watching videos and seeing pictures of, I mean, not just the first responders, but just the folks living in those areas being exposed to just such a high concentration of these carcinogenic chemicals and, and products of construction that are being burned and just knowing how much they're inhaling, that to me is just, I think maybe kind of an overlooked thing that's happening right now. I mean, obviously in the forefront of our minds is these people's homes and lives being lost. But in the years to come, I'm just a concern I have is these folks are going to be dealing with repercussions of being exposed to these extremely toxic things, you know, and then not just. Not to mention the insane work that those folks are putting in. Like a typical, you know, this I'm sure, but a typical hand crew. So like a 10 to 20 person group of individuals assigned to fight these fires are working on like a relatively chill wildfire. Two weeks straight, minimum of 16 hour shifts per day. And away from the families, of course, worse, usually no reception, you know, can't contact their families.

[David Farrier]

It's.

[Carsten]

But then when you show up to a fire like this that's just sweeping through these communities, you know, people are going to be putting in some pretty crazy amounts of work. Just some thoughts. Hope you all are doing okay and your families are doing okay and your friends are doing okay as well. Much love from Colorado.

[David Farrier]

So, yeah, that was Carson and I hadn't thought of, I just hadn't thought of like the, the amount of work that firefighters do. They're not going in for like a four hour shift. It's like. No, it's the day and the night.

[Rob]

Yeah, I think I saw that they were doing 12 hour on 12, 12, 12 hour on, 12 hour off.

[David Farrier]

Holy shit.

[Rob]

That is something we failed to mention so far in. This is just first responders.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, thank you Jesus.

[Rob]

And I think they're coming in from Arizona and from Las Vegas and all over the place to help. And planes are being sent and while.

[David Farrier]

All of us are actively getting the hell away from fires as much as we can, like they're coming in there to save people and save homes. And so they're the ones, you know, I'm just moaning about like breathing in some air, like brushed up from a leaf blower. They're in the middle of all that shit getting God knows what up their nostrils. And I think it could be a case of, you know, what you saw after 9, 11, where, where further down the line. There's going to be some health effects from this. And I feel sort of shitty even talking about it because if there's one of those firefighters listening, I don't want to like panic them. But it's like, you know, it seems they're the ones that should be the most protected in all of this. But these fires are not what they are used to fighting necessarily. Yeah. There's one final voice memo I wanted to play. He didn't want to give his name. He just had an interesting little factoid that now makes me think I want this to be a separate episode at some point.

[Zoe]

One thing to look into if you do do an episode on fires in.

[Rob]

The US is smoke jumpers.

[Zoe]

I don't know if you've heard of that, but essentially it's people who jump out of planes and parachute into wildfires and put them out.

[David Farrier]

I know at least at one point.

[Rob]

In time they put out something like.

[Zoe]

90 odd percent of wildfires before the public even knows about them. Because the key with wildland firefighting is.

[David Farrier]

To put it out.

[Zoe]

It's way more cost effective to put.

[Rob]

It out when it's small, obviously, than after it grows. So smokejumpers do a great job at.

[David Farrier]

That because they can meet fires in.

[Zoe]

Remote areas where you can't easily access them by other means.

[Rob]

The idea was actually, I think started in Russia, but America is really where it took off.

[David Farrier]

And I actually grew up just right.

[Rob]

Next to the first smokejumper base in the United States up in Winthrop, Washington.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, I just had never heard of smokejumpers in my life. And I thought, what a kick ass, amazing job that is.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, back to watch duty. Like seeing the little ones pop up too, which I'm sure what he's talking about. Those aren't even on the radar. But there was the one in the Hollywood Hills, I think Thursday night last week that was getting closer to us. And yeah, they got on it quickly so quick. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And again, your first responders. Holy. It's just infinite respect. One of the most terrifying jobs I can ever imagine. And I don't imagine the pace particularly good. You know, it's just a really brave thing to do. Do sort of the opposite job to podcasting, I feel like, in a way. So, look, thanks to everyone who sent in those voice memos. There were so many of them. Also, just so many stories coming in. Couldn't get to them all. But we do read all your emails. Flightless Bird, chatmail.com if you want to get in touch. I've got a little bit of feedback to the sharks episode. Do you want to hear some of that?

[Rob]

Let's do it.

[David Farrier]

Brett wrote in, and Brett was one of our shark attack survivors from the episode. And this email, like, it really blew me away. And he'd listened to something you'd said. He just said, I thought it was interesting that Rob brought up the odds of being attacked twice. I know he talked about it, but I'm just traveling back from South Australia where I was visiting family and avoiding sharks in the surf. Two days ago, I was at a very remote spot that had a little memorial for a man named Philip Hawley, who had the unfortunate nickname of Sharky. He was attacked twice by sharks, but ended up dying in a car crash, of all things. I can't remember if I told you this when you had a chat, but very apt timing considering the podcast and Rob's question. Keep doing what you're doing. I've become a big listener since we met. So, yeah, this guy Sharky, was attacked twice by sharks, survived. And the thing that ended up killing him was a car crash. It's like, not a shark attack, which is wild to think about.

[Rob]

And escaped death. Yeah, twice.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And yeah. Ended up dying in a completely different way. It's super tragic. He sent me a photo of the memorial that they had. Yeah, I found that just. I don't know at times life you just go like holy shit. Like how is this thing even happening? So much respect to Sharky. Rest in peace. Cassie also wrote in I really enjoyed the Shark Attack episode. I'm a therapist who lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I just wanted to point out that you unknowingly highlighted how to process and mow through a traumatic experience and address ptsd. The Bite Club illustrated wonderfully that in order to process a traumatic experience, you have to learn how to take ownership of your story, share it, or at least write it down yourself and find connection to community. These are key comments of trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy and one of the main evidence based treatments for ptsd.

[Rob]

So that makes us qualified psychologists.

[David Farrier]

We are now qualified psychologists. And note, podcasters are not qualified psychologists. We just like talking.

[Rob]

We just somehow stumbled upon one useful we did.

[David Farrier]

I mean that was all from the bike club advice.

[Rob]

And yeah, it was accidental.

[David Farrier]

Was absolutely accidental. A few other things that came in related to some old episodes. We mentioned how movie posters now are just terrifying and everywhere. Mike said that instantly brought me back to a scary experience from my own childhood. In the 90s, grocery stores used to have little movie rental hubs and they'd often have one or two big posters for a current release. For whatever reason, whoever was in charge of picking those posters decided that Hellraiser would be a good one to have visible to the entire store. I spent many times standing in line with my parents at the grocery checkout lane trying desperately to look anywhere but that God forsaken life size poster with the large LED lights going all the way around it. Many times I close my eyes in bed and see that image of Pinhead and it was absolutely terrifying. I just found that very funny. I Hellraiser is probably my favorite horror film, like iconic Clive Barker. And yeah, Pinhead is as. As the name implies. If you don't know him, Google him. He's scary.

[Rob]

Yeah. Do you know about Redbox?

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

The in grocery stores now in grocery stores they'd have. What do you know about. You know about Blockbuster though?

[David Farrier]

Blockbuster Video.

[Rob]

Yeah. So there was like Blockbuster then transitioned to Netflix and Red Box.

[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

A little bit. Where it was DVDs in this box at the grocery store and you could just go rent them from this box.

[David Farrier]

It was automated.

[Rob]

It was a vending machine essentially for DVDs. Did you use that system occasionally? I think they maybe exist a little bit still.

[David Farrier]

It's wild to me. I remember one of the first time, the first time I visited America, I went to stay with my friend who was off this message board that I met. Like a goth message board that I used to frequent. And yeah, at her house, she had all these DVDs lying around. I was like, what is this? And she's like, this is Netflix. I can just get as many as I want. I keep them for as long as I want, and then I send them back.

[Rob]

Well, so you don't know. Did you not know about Netflix? No, it was a mail service.

[David Farrier]

No, I. My first time. Because in New Zealand. No, didn't have it. Hadn't heard of it. I was like, this is amazing. Like, what is this?

[Rob]

Yeah, you'd go on the website and you'd. You could sign up for, like, you could have three DVDs at a time.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, right.

[Rob]

And you'd pick the ones you want. They just arrive, and then when you return them, you could pick out different ones.

[David Farrier]

It's genius.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I was. Sorry, I might be misremembering this, but I read this feature about sort of the origin of Netflix and that was also like a, A, A great thing for Netflix to do because essentially they didn't need as many warehouses to source it in because essentially customers, houses ended up being their storage.

[Rob]

Yeah. That was like, I think the start of the demise of Blockbuster, which. We need to do a Blockbuster episode.

[David Farrier]

Oh, no, we do. Because in New Zealand, it was video. Easy was our blockbuster. I would love to do that. I think there's still a Blockbuster that.

[Rob]

Exists the Pacific Northwest.

[David Farrier]

So we need to go there.

[Rob]

Right? Yeah, I think you can also. Two local residents, they. It was on like, Airbnb, I think, at one point, where you could, you could stay at a Blockbuster. I might be wrong, but I think.

[David Farrier]

We need to look.

[Rob]

I think that was it.

[Carsten]

And.

[Rob]

But it wasn't just to anyone. I think you needed to be a local, but I love this concept. Let's look into. Yeah, let's look into the last Blockbusters.

[David Farrier]

I mean, that is. And we. I know you and I both grew up loving videos and stuff. Really. Like this bit of feedback from Ali, who had something to say about my friend Hayden, who often starts episodes off. I'm a longtime listener and the best part of my Tuesday morning is listening to Flightless Bird. I like reading out compliments about our show.

[Rob]

That's it.

[David Farrier]

That's it. That's, you know. Thank you, Ellie. I'm a zoologist, so I always love the animal centered episodes and topics and how David is always quick to defend the stigmatized animals. That's what I'm Here for. I listened to the shark attack episode and very much enjoyed it. But I do have a comment about something said early in the episode by Hayden that has nothing to do with sharks or shark attacks. In the intro, David's friend, Her word, not mine, Hayden said there's no similar PR campaign going on for lions. I must vehemently disagree. There is a deeply rooted PR campaign for lions so deep in our cultural fabric that we no longer are even aware of it anymore. The campaign was made strong in 94. The Lion King.

[Nick Russell]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And it's two sequels. It's 2019 remake and it's sequel.

[Rob]

Mustafa. That's.

[David Farrier]

Is that the new one?

[Rob]

There's the new one.

[David Farrier]

Oh, my God. Yeah. The reason there's no PR campaign for. I just love how specific this is. The reason there's no PR campaign for lions is because no one ever shits on lions. It's all king of the jungle, this. And wow. So majestic that. Do people even know about lions? The males will murder babies and aren't that aren't theirs so they can make their own babies with the mothers that much sooner. Tuna, Simba and Mufasa certainly never had a sing along about that. What really irks me though is the juxtaposition of lions with hyenas. She's off on a rant now. I love it. Lions being good, hyenas bad. You want to talk about an animal that needs a PR campaign, it's the hyena. They're the coarse animals no one knows about. And they get such a bad rap because they're scavengers. Back to the Lion King. Spotted hyenas kill 65 to 90% of their own prey. Prey. They're literally the opposites of scavengers. And did you know that lions are way more likely to steal kills from hyenas than the other way around? That's a smear campaign if I ever heard one. Some final things, Big lion. The weirdest things. All hyenas have phalluses. Males and females. Look it up. I will be looking it up. The females have an elongated clitoris that is phallic and shape. Shape. Through which they pee and give birth. They give birth through what is fundamentally a penis. How badass is that? That is fucking badass.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Thank you, Ali, for the facts and also ragging on Hayden. He needs to be kept in line. And I wanted to end on just something that resonated with me. It was about our Black Box of Doom episode. David wrote it. You touched on the theme of losing the Record and memory of what has occurred due to the shifting platforms as recorded on. Also the sheer volume of content we acure in our photo storage much we can't even remember despite having hard evidence of the day. This terrifies me. It tweaks a deep anxiety that that what in a moment or period of life is so important can be forgotten either from our own memory or the collective records so easily. It feels natural that what we feel is special, fun of beauty or in some other way important in one moment should be preserved. We should remember it. Those that review our lives at our funerals or in the aliens archive. It should be able to piece together those important moments to summarize the paths we've been on. But instead it's all just noise. We remember none of it. None of it is worth anything to anyone and is simply of no significance. And I hate that it's of no significance.

[Rob]

Did you write that in David?

[David Farrier]

It is pretty much in my brain, this particular David.

[Rob]

It's a bleak.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. He went on to share some pretty personal stuff which I won't read out but he concluded with the conclusion to this train of thought is existential dread that all things. The croplifting thing to end on that all things are meaningless and lost to the abyss of time. But I prefer to think it means that our archives simply don't matter. Records are meaningless as they bind nature, are an insufficient representation of the past and enjoying now is what matters. And I hope I agree when I'm 90 and don't feel like I'm missing out by not having terabytes of pics and videos to spend my last years lost in. I hope you didn't bother to read this whole thing. I really liked that message from David. But look, don't worry. I'm going to bring us up to end on.

[Rob]

Well, my only thing about that is that fit at a episode about wildfires where people just lost all of their homes.

[David Farrier]

That's an incredibly good point. No, I didn't even think of Zane.

[Rob]

Like your stuff's not important.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Holy shit. It's. Yeah. It's one thing amusing about this stuff when all our things are there and available. It's another thing musing about this if it's suddenly all been lost in a fire.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And again it's that perspective thing. Right. I also feel like I always spiral out into these existential things when I'm like shut in and a bit bored and going crazy and that's what this last week has kind of felt like. People that actually have terrible shit going on. It's like the opposite. They're just out living and surviving and not just lost in their own brains like I have been all week. Finally there's another David, David Chamberlain.

[Rob]

He's just only picking feedback from David's.

[David Farrier]

Of D BW Productions. This is what he wrote subject and we're going to end on this Creed inspired version of your theme song. Hi David and Rob, I love the new show. Keep up the great work. I'm a full time music producer in LA and whipped up this cover of your great theme song. I just did it for fun but if you ever play it just credit me and my studio website. I'm playing everything and singing so his name is David Chambers his website is recordla.com he is from DBW Productions and this is the Flightless bird theme song which you have heard hundreds of times now but done as if by Creed. Goodbye.

[Zoe]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

Flightless bird touchdown in America.