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Laguna Talks with Fire Chief Niko King · Laguna Talks

0:00
Speaker 1: And hey, now, Laguna Beach, it's two o'clock on Tuesday,
0:03
Speaker 1: and that means it's time for Laguna Talks with your host,
0:06
Speaker 1: Billy Freed. How is everybody great to be here on
0:09
Speaker 1: this kind of blusterry fall day, but sunny and beautiful
0:12
Speaker 1: the way we like it here. But wind always is
0:16
Speaker 1: an indicator of possible danger if something ignites. And that
0:21
Speaker 1: brings me to our illustrious guest today, Laguna Beach fire
0:26
Speaker 1: Chief Nico King.
0:28
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Nico.
0:29
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Billy, Hey, thanks for having me, Thanks for coming.
0:31
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. You've been our fire chief for two
0:33
Speaker 1: and a half years.
0:34
Speaker 2: Now, Yes, two and a half good years.
0:36
Speaker 1: Good years. Well, that good year means no major fires, right.
0:40
Speaker 3: No major fires, plenty of challenges and it's been great
0:44
Speaker 3: being here in a very supportive community.
0:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you came from the area of Sacramento before that.
0:50
Speaker 3: I was in Sacramento for twenty eight years, in the
0:54
Speaker 3: business for thirty four years. I started off, like a
0:57
Speaker 3: lot of youngsters that have ambitions to be firef do.
1:00
Speaker 3: I started with the Force Service and I was on
1:02
Speaker 3: a hand crew for a couple of years and then
1:04
Speaker 3: kind of graduated from that and went to CalFire for
1:07
Speaker 3: a season, and I was lucky enough to get picked
1:10
Speaker 3: up by the Sacramento Fire Department when I was twenty
1:12
Speaker 3: one years old.
1:13
Speaker 2: So tell us what CalFire is exactly.
1:17
Speaker 3: CalFire is the state's essentially fire department. So they take
1:21
Speaker 3: care of the state lands, primarily the open space, and
1:25
Speaker 3: they respond. As we all know, the number of people
1:29
Speaker 3: that live in the forested lands and state properties have
1:33
Speaker 3: significantly increased over the years. So their job truly was
1:37
Speaker 3: managing state lands and still is, but their suppression efforts
1:42
Speaker 3: have increased over the decades.
1:44
Speaker 1: So when the big fires happen, is it and you
1:48
Speaker 1: know they dispatch hundreds, if not thousands, of firefighters, are
1:52
Speaker 1: they generally CalFire?
1:54
Speaker 3: I love that you asked that question because everyone believes
1:57
Speaker 3: that it's the state and federal resources that are responding
2:00
Speaker 3: to those big fires. Eighty percent of those large fires
2:04
Speaker 3: that we hear about and see in the news are
2:07
Speaker 3: our local resources. It's the mutual Aid the California Master
2:10
Speaker 3: Mutual Aid Plan. Where those incidents occur. It's usually the
2:14
Speaker 3: initial responders, be it cal Fire or you know, a
2:17
Speaker 3: small community that's responding to try to get that fire contained,
2:21
Speaker 3: and then you get a management team in there and
2:24
Speaker 3: they start requesting those resources as quickly as possible and
2:28
Speaker 3: managing those resources. And what turns out is that you
2:32
Speaker 3: need all of the major metropolitan areas, the smaller cities,
2:37
Speaker 3: the fire districts to participate in this mutual aid plan
2:42
Speaker 3: so that we have enough responders.
2:44
Speaker 2: Sometimes they come from out of state too.
2:46
Speaker 3: Sometimes yeah, they're coming from out of state as a
2:47
Speaker 3: matter of fact. Sometimes they come from out of country,
2:49
Speaker 3: out of the country.
2:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:51
Speaker 1: Wow, So it feels like, you know, fire season has
2:55
Speaker 1: become so regular and you know anticipated unfortunately that it
3:04
Speaker 1: feels almost to me like, wow, it's fire season. It's
3:07
Speaker 1: almost like fruit picking season. Since they bring in all
3:11
Speaker 1: of these workers. Right, there's crews that are basically dispatched
3:16
Speaker 1: from let's say now until January February. Would that be
3:20
Speaker 1: accurate that to say that this is this is a
3:22
Speaker 1: this is a career now for.
3:23
Speaker 2: People, right, It definitely is. Now.
3:27
Speaker 3: What they're saying in the fire Service is there is
3:28
Speaker 3: no fire season anymore because we started seeing some of
3:32
Speaker 3: these major conflagrations that occurring that you would never heard
3:35
Speaker 3: about or seen in the nineties, eighties and before but
3:39
Speaker 3: you're getting those major fires in January, February December. It
3:44
Speaker 3: was unheard of to have people miss Christmas because they're
3:47
Speaker 3: assigned to a wildland fire. But anymore, I mean, we're
3:50
Speaker 3: starting to see the changes in the climate. And even
3:52
Speaker 3: though it's just a couple of degrees over a decade,
3:56
Speaker 3: significant changes.
3:57
Speaker 2: So you're a believer this is caused by climate change.
4:00
Speaker 3: I believe that there is some change that is going
4:04
Speaker 3: on out there.
4:05
Speaker 2: Just in my career in thirty four years, I.
4:07
Speaker 1: Mean, certainly, the magnitude of the fires has changed absolutely.
4:11
Speaker 3: And in two thousand and seven, I remember saying, and
4:16
Speaker 3: I was actually down here in southern California on the
4:18
Speaker 3: Witch Fire, San Diego County, and I remember saying that
4:23
Speaker 3: year that I witnessed fire behavior that I've never seen before.
4:27
Speaker 3: The fire make runs and takeover communities that I've never
4:31
Speaker 3: seen before.
4:32
Speaker 2: And it seems that.
4:36
Speaker 3: Every year since then, firefighters have been saying the same thing. Yeah,
4:39
Speaker 3: and so these phenomenas of hundreds of thousands of acres
4:44
Speaker 3: taken over entire communities. We've grown kind of accustomed to
4:49
Speaker 3: the possibilities of that happening now.
4:50
Speaker 1: And it feels like no matter what happens environmentally. If
4:55
Speaker 1: we have a season a drought or prolonged drought, then
4:58
Speaker 1: everything's drier. But then along comes to big rains and
5:01
Speaker 1: suddenly we have growth, which then turns into fuel. It
5:06
Speaker 1: feels like we can't win either way.
5:08
Speaker 3: There's there's work to be done either way. I don't
5:11
Speaker 3: like to look at it as is not winning. It's
5:13
Speaker 3: just shifting your resources, shifting your effort, shifting your attention appropriately.
5:18
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:18
Speaker 3: So take us back then, so you where did you
5:20
Speaker 3: grow up, Fresno, California.
5:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, good old Fresno, all right, And then when did
5:26
Speaker 1: you get interested in fire?
5:28
Speaker 3: My father was in law enforcement, and so as a kid,
5:32
Speaker 3: I was influenced. I knew that I wanted to be
5:34
Speaker 3: in public service, but watching my father, I knew that
5:38
Speaker 3: I didn't want to be a police officer. And the
5:40
Speaker 3: odd story is he used to drag me to the
5:42
Speaker 3: gym with him at five o'clock in the morning, starting
5:44
Speaker 3: in seventh grade, and I would see other police officers
5:48
Speaker 3: and then the firefighters that were in the gym also working.
5:52
Speaker 3: A couple of them would come up and tap me
5:54
Speaker 3: on the shoulder. They called me little King, and they said, hey,
5:57
Speaker 3: you don't want to be a cop like your dad.
5:59
Speaker 3: You want to you want to go in the fire service.
6:02
Speaker 3: They said, we're going to work. We're going to work
6:03
Speaker 3: hard for twenty four hours, but then we're going to
6:05
Speaker 3: have twenty four hours off.
6:06
Speaker 2: And the shifts. It was essentially just the shift schedule and.
6:11
Speaker 1: Which is different from a cop, which is more like
6:13
Speaker 1: what eight hours a day every day, eight to ten.
6:16
Speaker 2: Hours or twelve hour shifts. Yeah, that's what they're doing.
6:19
Speaker 2: The work itself appealed to you more.
6:21
Speaker 3: It absolutely, did you know, like most young men, I
6:25
Speaker 3: had ambitions of being outside, using your whole body, your mind,
6:30
Speaker 3: and being completely involved in your in your job and
6:34
Speaker 3: doing something, you know, for the for the betterment of society,
6:37
Speaker 3: for some good making a difference.
6:39
Speaker 1: Did you see that your father as a cop was Yeah,
6:42
Speaker 1: he's outside, but he's also a desk jockey a lot
6:44
Speaker 1: of the time.
6:45
Speaker 2: Is that that?
6:46
Speaker 3: And and just the administrative process of being an officer
6:50
Speaker 3: and all the complexities of the law and then dealing
6:52
Speaker 3: with the human element. So and I don't mean any
6:57
Speaker 3: disrespect because it's it's just it's more challenging of a job.
7:00
Speaker 3: Quite frankly, it's it's so different having to deal with
7:04
Speaker 3: the human element if he had predictability of it, right,
7:08
Speaker 3: and and you still see it. It's amplified, you know,
7:10
Speaker 3: to this day with the amount of mental health issues
7:13
Speaker 3: and the homelessness and the things that they have to
7:15
Speaker 3: deal with that fall within law enforcement. But fire is
7:19
Speaker 3: more of the science. It's dealing with nature, it's dealing
7:23
Speaker 3: with things that are more predictable. So that's that's kind
7:26
Speaker 3: of what drew me to it, the fascination, the predictability,
7:29
Speaker 3: and I found myself completely satisfied working with the for Service.
7:35
Speaker 3: Supportive was absolutely he was not disappointed at all. He was,
7:38
Speaker 3: I think, just happy like most dads that I had
7:40
Speaker 3: a job and I wasn't depending on him anymore.
7:44
Speaker 2: There was no expectation that you follow.
7:47
Speaker 3: No, he's incredibly supportive and helped me all along the way.
7:52
Speaker 3: He's not we lost him just a couple of years ago. Yeah,
7:55
Speaker 3: he'd be proud of you. Oh, he has been incredibly
7:58
Speaker 3: proud of me along the way. All right, say you.
8:00
Speaker 1: So you saw this as your path and then after
8:03
Speaker 1: high school is out when you joined cal Fire.
8:05
Speaker 3: The first summer after high school, I joined the US
8:09
Speaker 3: for Service and it was just it was as a
8:11
Speaker 3: summer summer job seasonal. They trained it for two weeks
8:15
Speaker 3: and they said, okay, be ready carry this pager. We're
8:18
Speaker 3: going to call you out when we get a big fire.
8:21
Speaker 1: And don't you guys do a lot of mitigation, like
8:23
Speaker 1: go up and build berms, And there's a lot of
8:27
Speaker 1: work that goes into fire suppression that we don't know about.
8:30
Speaker 3: There's a ton of work that goes to maintaining the
8:33
Speaker 3: forests and the open space areas. And yeah, a lot
8:37
Speaker 3: of that was maintaining the trails so that people could
8:40
Speaker 3: enjoy the outdoors and then yeah, collecting a lot of
8:44
Speaker 3: the dead forest beds and doing those off season burns,
8:51
Speaker 3: and it's just a lot of the same work that
8:53
Speaker 3: you would be doing, you know, cutting down lemon trees,
8:57
Speaker 3: moving what we would call fuel in the fire season
9:00
Speaker 3: in the off season, and making sure that it's getting
9:02
Speaker 3: disposed of and it stays out there and decomposes and
9:05
Speaker 3: keeps the force healthy.
9:07
Speaker 1: A lot of times you're up there camping out too. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
9:11
Speaker 1: So it's a real job in nature. You know, it's
9:14
Speaker 1: not just fighting the fires. You're really in there communing
9:16
Speaker 1: with the beauty of your surroundings and building a respect
9:20
Speaker 1: for the awesomeness of the trees and the mountains and everything.
9:24
Speaker 2: Right, I couldn't be more happy, you know.
9:26
Speaker 3: I it was dirty. I was carrying a chainsaw. The
9:29
Speaker 3: way you get called into action, you're going towards the fire.
9:33
Speaker 3: You're looking at things that you've only seen pictures of
9:35
Speaker 3: in the past, and you get to smell the smoke
9:37
Speaker 3: and feel the heat.
9:37
Speaker 1: And it's an amazing camaraderie too, right, Oh gosh, just incredible,
9:42
Speaker 1: incredible teamwork.
9:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it was in high school sports and
9:46
Speaker 3: been through all that, but the camaraderie and the fire services,
9:49
Speaker 3: I mean they call it your second family.
9:50
Speaker 2: And it's not by mistake.
9:53
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to use the analogy, but you're
9:55
Speaker 1: going to war. I mean you're going to fight.
9:56
Speaker 3: You are a fire Yeah. Yeah, you're training. It's what
9:59
Speaker 3: you think about, it's what you're studying. Your physical training
10:03
Speaker 3: is for it. And then yeah, when you're called and
10:06
Speaker 3: the bells go off, you're working with your partners that
10:09
Speaker 3: you hope you know their strengths, their weaknesses, their personalities,
10:13
Speaker 3: their breaking points, just so that you can function as
10:16
Speaker 3: a team.
10:17
Speaker 2: And are you fighting house fires too? That kind of stuff.
10:20
Speaker 2: It wasn't until.
10:22
Speaker 3: I started working for cal Fire, and that was just
10:25
Speaker 3: a different field of study, the structure fires, And they
10:29
Speaker 3: have state certifications that you go through and fire academies,
10:32
Speaker 3: and that's when I was kind of introduced into the
10:35
Speaker 3: structure fires.
10:37
Speaker 1: Which is a whole different science, right, And it absolutely is.
10:40
Speaker 1: And I don't know what you said, that's more perilous
10:43
Speaker 1: because you're forced to go inside the burning structures.
10:47
Speaker 3: There's definitely a lot more to it. You're learning building construction.
10:50
Speaker 3: You're trying to predict how a building's going to perform
10:53
Speaker 3: under the stress of a fire, and what's going to
10:55
Speaker 3: give first, and what the roof types are and the
10:57
Speaker 3: unknown it's like where's the chemicals out of fire? And
11:00
Speaker 3: you're trying to predict again the human nature element of Uh,
11:03
Speaker 3: there's cars in the driveway and there's kids toys on
11:05
Speaker 3: the lawn. Where do people usually reside in their house
11:09
Speaker 3: at two o'clock in the morning and are they all out?
11:11
Speaker 1: So yeah, and of course smoke is what gets people first, right, Yeah, Yeah,
11:16
Speaker 1: it's usually the toxic smoke.
11:20
Speaker 3: Of course, goes up to the ceiling, starts to bank
11:22
Speaker 3: down and if people aren't aware, of course, don't have
11:24
Speaker 3: their smoke alarms working.
11:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, people don't, you know, they get annoyed because there's
11:28
Speaker 1: smoke alarms going off and they take a hammer to
11:31
Speaker 1: it because they can't.
11:31
Speaker 3: And then oh, it's as simple and I'm guilty of
11:34
Speaker 3: it too. It's as simple as my dank TV remote
11:36
Speaker 3: doesn't work anymore where work, and I find a battery. Yeah,
11:39
Speaker 3: I know where there's a couple of batter's right above
11:42
Speaker 3: my head.
11:42
Speaker 1: But they just they get complacent about, you know, when
11:45
Speaker 1: they actually do need it, when it will save their life,
11:47
Speaker 1: and they just think, oh, I'm required to do this,
11:50
Speaker 1: but it's annoying.
11:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, it's a NICO.
11:53
Speaker 1: So you you cow fire, then you got an opportunity
11:56
Speaker 1: to go to work for real. Yeah for uh, I
11:59
Speaker 1: mean for an actual call for fire department.
12:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
12:04
Speaker 3: It was with the Sacramento Fire Department, and it was
12:08
Speaker 3: just kind of by accident. Back then, in the early nineties,
12:12
Speaker 3: the movie Backdraft came out. I think that has a
12:14
Speaker 3: big influence on kind of like the top Gun came
12:18
Speaker 3: out and everybody wanted to, you know, become fighter pilots.
12:23
Speaker 3: Backdraft came out and there were thousands of people that
12:26
Speaker 3: would show up. I remember the first test that I
12:28
Speaker 3: took was the city of Monterey, and you had to
12:32
Speaker 3: be in line by seven o'clock in the morning at
12:35
Speaker 3: the convention center. And so I drive to town with
12:38
Speaker 3: for my bodies and we see just like thousands of
12:41
Speaker 3: people hanging out. You get in line to take the
12:45
Speaker 3: test that you signed up for. There was over three
12:48
Speaker 3: thousand people that showed up. We were sitting at the
12:49
Speaker 3: convention center. The fire chief came out and he said,
12:52
Speaker 3: I'm looking for one good firefighter.
12:55
Speaker 2: He was hiring one. Oh my god.
12:57
Speaker 3: And that's how competitive it was back then. So yeah,
13:01
Speaker 3: it was the one, absolutely not. It took me I
13:05
Speaker 3: think twenty three tests.
13:07
Speaker 2: These are written tests.
13:08
Speaker 3: These are written tests, and then if you pass the
13:10
Speaker 3: written tests, you have to get invited back to the
13:12
Speaker 3: physical agility.
13:13
Speaker 2: You have to pass physical agility.
13:14
Speaker 3: If you do good on that and you're still in
13:16
Speaker 3: the top tiers, you get screened in interviews, and then
13:20
Speaker 3: if you're good enough in the interviews, there's still the
13:24
Speaker 3: vetting process of clearing a medical, clearing a background. It's
13:27
Speaker 3: like the chiefs interviews. It takes about six to eight
13:30
Speaker 3: months to hire the firefighter.
13:31
Speaker 1: And the physical test, imagine is pretty pretty tough.
13:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of them were. Some of them weren't back then.
13:37
Speaker 3: It's more standardized today, thank goodness. A lot of the
13:41
Speaker 3: cities in the past they try to break you see,
13:44
Speaker 3: say what you're made of. So I was a lot
13:47
Speaker 3: more fit then and ready ready for anything.
13:50
Speaker 2: All right.
13:50
Speaker 1: So yeah, picked up by the Sacramento Yeah, not the
13:54
Speaker 1: not the Mono ray.
13:55
Speaker 3: Right, Sacramento Fire Department that was in ninety four started
14:00
Speaker 3: the academy, and it's just it was, you know, thank goodness,
14:04
Speaker 3: it was. It was a big enough department where there
14:06
Speaker 3: was enough to keep my attention. They were just starting
14:10
Speaker 3: the transporting ambulance system back then. So I was assigned
14:13
Speaker 3: to an ambulance fifty percent of the time, which I
14:17
Speaker 3: think most of the public knows. Eighty percent of really
14:20
Speaker 3: what fire departments do is responding to medical aids.
14:23
Speaker 2: So it was it was in the system.
14:26
Speaker 3: It was a really busy system, and there was enough
14:30
Speaker 3: in the Sacramento Fire Department that I was able to
14:33
Speaker 3: bounce around and I went from.
14:36
Speaker 2: Does that make you an EMP as well?
14:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, amt ye yep EMT and then worked for seven
14:44
Speaker 3: years fifty percent on an ambulance and then you know,
14:47
Speaker 3: it's just you're able to say what's next in my career,
14:50
Speaker 3: and the fire service is diverse enough where I was fortunate.
14:54
Speaker 3: I decided to go back and work in the training
14:56
Speaker 3: academy and I was a trainer, and then I got
14:59
Speaker 3: to go and work is the public Information officer for
15:02
Speaker 3: a couple of years, and then I worked in the
15:05
Speaker 3: Special Operations Division, and that's kind of where my career,
15:10
Speaker 3: at least my eyes really opened up. I was able
15:13
Speaker 3: to be affiliated with Task Force Sacramento was the host
15:19
Speaker 3: agency for California.
15:20
Speaker 2: Task Force seven.
15:22
Speaker 3: There's eight teams in the state of California, and there's
15:24
Speaker 3: twenty seven in the country right now that are urban
15:27
Speaker 3: search and rescue teams. And so when those major events,
15:33
Speaker 3: either natural disasters or terrorist attacks occur, the national government
15:38
Speaker 3: and through a federal Declaration Stafford Act, they would call
15:41
Speaker 3: upon some of the nation's urban search and rescue teams,
15:44
Speaker 3: which again just kind of like the mutual aid that
15:47
Speaker 3: we were talking about. These are local firefighters and you
15:51
Speaker 3: put a different uniform on and you respond is FEMA.
15:55
Speaker 3: So I was able to go across the country for
15:59
Speaker 3: a lot of the natural disasters her New Orleans I
16:02
Speaker 3: was in New Orleans in two thousand and five for
16:04
Speaker 3: Hurricane Katrina. We spent fourteen days there, and that's the
16:09
Speaker 3: stuff that you know, you look back and like this
16:11
Speaker 3: is just opportunities of a lifetime and experiences and like
16:15
Speaker 3: connecting to communities and getting to witness things firsthand that
16:19
Speaker 3: most people don't get to.
16:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and hopefully doing your share of amazing rescues.
16:26
Speaker 3: And that's that's the beauty of it. You're part of
16:29
Speaker 3: the solution in the midst of chaos. You get to
16:32
Speaker 3: come in and kind of coordinate the resources and put
16:35
Speaker 3: the emphasis on rescues and how the rescues are going
16:37
Speaker 3: to be done, and use all the resources that you
16:40
Speaker 3: have to the best of your ability to do some
16:44
Speaker 3: good in a community.
16:45
Speaker 2: Amazing.
16:45
Speaker 1: We're talking the chief fire Chief, Nico King here on KXFM.
16:49
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to your host Billy Freed, give
16:52
Speaker 1: us a taste of what Katrina was like in the
16:54
Speaker 1: early days. I mean, because I can only I have
16:57
Speaker 1: a good childhood friend who was part of the newspaper
17:00
Speaker 1: there and they want to Pulitzerprise because a bunch of
17:02
Speaker 1: them stayed stuck around and they found a house that
17:05
Speaker 1: was high enough ground and they would go out every
17:07
Speaker 1: day and in search of stories essentially and hopefully good stories.
17:12
Speaker 1: But some of these guys really psychically got wounded by
17:16
Speaker 1: by what they witnessed, and you know, they were traumatized.
17:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the complete spectrum of human emotion. It
17:23
Speaker 3: was really good days where you know, you just made
17:27
Speaker 3: a difference, you saved somebody's life just to witnessing just
17:31
Speaker 3: absolute you know, horrific disasters or I kept scratching my
17:35
Speaker 3: head like how can this happen? In the United States
17:37
Speaker 3: of America as rich as we are. Went a number
17:40
Speaker 3: of resources, but it was truly the failure of communication
17:43
Speaker 3: and coordination and resources back then before they reprogrammed.
17:49
Speaker 1: And from the top down right, I mean the evacuation
17:52
Speaker 1: was botched.
17:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know there was.
17:54
Speaker 1: Something the governor and the mayor disappeared, and may out
17:59
Speaker 1: in the and a hotel room was afraid to come
18:01
Speaker 1: down ground level.
18:03
Speaker 3: And then even their local government structure. You would work
18:08
Speaker 3: for specific judges in certain areas of town and they
18:13
Speaker 3: would have different search rules. So some days you would
18:16
Speaker 3: go into the ninth ward and you would only be
18:20
Speaker 3: able allowed to use a whistle take your boats up
18:24
Speaker 3: to a house, don't break the windows, don't tag the
18:27
Speaker 3: house saying that you searched it, don't cut the roof.
18:29
Speaker 2: Why Why were those rules different, different wards, different laws.
18:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just like like you would be council districts
18:38
Speaker 3: in a city, right, but the judges managed the wards
18:43
Speaker 3: and so they could come up with their own layers
18:46
Speaker 3: of legality of how these searches were going to be done.
18:49
Speaker 3: So gosh, just talk about you know, the complications of
18:52
Speaker 3: you have multiple search crews and you're trying to organize
18:54
Speaker 3: and figure out where you're going the next day, what's
18:56
Speaker 3: been searched, what hasn't been searched, and back to just
19:02
Speaker 3: you know, the most the most frustrating part, I.
19:04
Speaker 2: Think is.
19:06
Speaker 3: Seeing people and life lost that were just left behind
19:10
Speaker 3: because of this communication. Could we went to, you know,
19:15
Speaker 3: a neighborhood and it's quiet, and it's under eight feet
19:18
Speaker 3: of water, and then you get on your little rubber
19:20
Speaker 3: raft and you start cruising around. Let's start on this block,
19:23
Speaker 3: and you go in and you find a nursing home.
19:27
Speaker 3: There's no more staff there, but you find thirteen people
19:30
Speaker 3: that are left in their beds and they're still moaning
19:33
Speaker 3: and what is going on? You know, and then it's
19:36
Speaker 3: like you could only put two people in a boat
19:38
Speaker 3: at a time. How do I get the military in
19:40
Speaker 3: here with their craft to get them out to transport people?
19:45
Speaker 3: And then you're looking at how freil I mean, these
19:47
Speaker 3: are you know, your immobile aging populations that were left behind.
19:51
Speaker 2: So just you know, some of the saddest stories and
19:54
Speaker 2: saddest stories.
19:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you know, now again with climate change,
19:59
Speaker 1: and I'm talking talking specifically about the Gulf Coast because
20:02
Speaker 1: we're talking floods here. It's happening with such regularity. These
20:06
Speaker 1: one hundred year storms are hitting Houston and the Gulf
20:09
Speaker 1: Coast of Florida, as we well know. And yet we
20:13
Speaker 1: go back and rebuild in the exact same places and
20:15
Speaker 1: even even New Orleans. My friends who went back and built,
20:18
Speaker 1: Yes they built higher up. But I said, you really
20:21
Speaker 1: have faith. I hate to say it in the Army
20:23
Speaker 1: Corps of Engineers that those levees are impenetrable.
20:26
Speaker 2: Now, you know, but people have short memory, don't they?
20:29
Speaker 3: They absolutely do. I mean, we have to move on
20:33
Speaker 3: as a human race. But history tells the best story
20:37
Speaker 3: for us. Yes, history absolutely will repeat itself, especially when
20:41
Speaker 3: it comes to nature and these forces.
20:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Katrina's got to be one of the
20:46
Speaker 1: most devastating impactful experiences for you in your career.
20:51
Speaker 2: But I'm sure there's been others.
20:53
Speaker 3: There have, probably none as impactful as Katrina, and probably
20:59
Speaker 3: just because it was earlier on in the scale, early
21:03
Speaker 3: on in my career too, and I'm just you know,
21:05
Speaker 3: young and seeing some things that I hadn't seen for
21:07
Speaker 3: the first time of my life.
21:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, you see all the looting too. Was that happening?
21:11
Speaker 3: That was absolutely crazy? Yeah, We're there with our rescue boats,
21:17
Speaker 3: and then they assigned the military to us. But then
21:22
Speaker 3: you have to understand that, you know, the one hundred
21:23
Speaker 3: and first Airborne and the eighty second Airborne, the folks
21:25
Speaker 3: that come in to do force protection for the rescuers,
21:28
Speaker 3: they can't take lethal force against other citizens of the
21:32
Speaker 3: United States. So we had essentrally soldiers in our rubber
21:36
Speaker 3: raft with us with weapons, but they don't have bullets
21:38
Speaker 3: in their weapons. It's that possecommatatis lawl where they can't
21:43
Speaker 3: use lethal force against other US citizens. But as we're
21:48
Speaker 3: doing these rescues and in and out of houses and neighborhoods,
21:50
Speaker 3: you're seeing the looting going on. You're hearing gunshots just
21:54
Speaker 3: a couple of blocks away, and you know, in the moment,
21:58
Speaker 3: you stay calm, you stay focused. Do you think I'm
22:01
Speaker 3: out here doing good? I'm not a target. But I'll
22:05
Speaker 3: tell you what I got home from that deployment. I
22:07
Speaker 3: was exhausted for about six months. Just you think you've
22:13
Speaker 3: recovered and you're getting better, but every time you lay down,
22:15
Speaker 3: I have a few minutes of quiet, it's on your mind.
22:18
Speaker 2: So a little bit of PTSD.
22:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the stress of I would imagine being out there.
22:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:23
Speaker 1: And does do you get time off after something like that?
22:27
Speaker 1: Are you paid for that leave? Do you have some
22:30
Speaker 1: you know.
22:30
Speaker 3: What, there's so many more resources available today and I'm
22:35
Speaker 3: glad to see it for the fire service. And mental
22:38
Speaker 3: health is just as probably more important than physical health anymore.
22:43
Speaker 3: So we do such a good job now at taking
22:47
Speaker 3: care of the mental health of our firefighters.
22:49
Speaker 2: I'd to hear that.
22:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it wasn't always there. And you know, my
22:54
Speaker 3: short career thirty years ago, it was you know you
22:58
Speaker 3: all right, kid? You know, yeah, shake it off and
23:00
Speaker 3: shake that's your spaghetti. Yeah, bells are going to go
23:02
Speaker 3: off again a few minutes we need your back on
23:05
Speaker 3: the front line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but there's there's so
23:09
Speaker 3: many more programs and a lot of resources available. And
23:14
Speaker 3: as a matter of fact, right right here in town,
23:17
Speaker 3: you think of you know, beach and what could be
23:20
Speaker 3: the impact to our firefighters here. But there's there's definitely
23:23
Speaker 3: some things that our firefighters are exposed to. The bad
23:26
Speaker 3: car accidents, the tough drownings, standing next to a parent
23:29
Speaker 3: when they when they hear the news that were returning
23:32
Speaker 3: over our efforts from a search to a recovery now
23:36
Speaker 3: and just having to to be present with that kind
23:40
Speaker 3: of grief and loss. It has an impact on you.
23:43
Speaker 1: Sure, So people think, oh, you've come to a small
23:45
Speaker 1: seaside village. You know, it's got to be easier than
23:48
Speaker 1: a major metropolitan area like Sacramento.
23:50
Speaker 2: But these things are you know, people are.
23:52
Speaker 1: Human, Yeah, and like a drowning, seeing you know somebody
23:55
Speaker 1: who just lost their life is devastating.
23:58
Speaker 2: It absolutely is, and it's going to have an impact.
24:01
Speaker 3: So we we actually have the resources that will come.
24:06
Speaker 3: Just last month, we had some counselors come and they
24:09
Speaker 3: pulled every single firefighter in the department aside and they
24:13
Speaker 3: just make sure that they're taking care of themselves and
24:15
Speaker 3: that they're available. Is there anything else you want to
24:17
Speaker 3: talk about? Any calls it to remember that you want
24:20
Speaker 3: to get off your chest and if if there's a need,
24:24
Speaker 3: there's continuous counseling that's available.
24:26
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah, glad to know that.
24:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Nico, tell us about then your journey here, Like,
24:31
Speaker 1: how did it all come about?
24:33
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good story. We got a time good.
24:40
Speaker 3: I promoted up the ranks pretty quickly in Sacramento, and
24:44
Speaker 3: I used to get those those older guys like, hey kid,
24:47
Speaker 3: you're promoting too fast, and I'm like, you're just jealous.
24:50
Speaker 2: What does that mean? You know? I think I found
24:53
Speaker 2: out what that means.
24:54
Speaker 3: I was in the number two position in the Sacramento
24:58
Speaker 3: Fire Department as a deputy chief, and I ran operations,
25:01
Speaker 3: which what an incredible honor to have, you know, for
25:05
Speaker 3: the entire city, For the entire city, that's what a
25:07
Speaker 3: population of This is about half a million, two million
25:12
Speaker 3: in the metropolitan area, but the city proper just over
25:16
Speaker 3: five hundred thousand.
25:17
Speaker 1: Is there any extra lens on you because it's the
25:20
Speaker 1: state capital?
25:21
Speaker 2: Is there an extrasolutely yeah?
25:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, above and beyond right.
25:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's another story. We'll get to that, okay,
25:30
Speaker 3: with the state capitol. But yeah, I promoted up the ranks.
25:38
Speaker 3: I found myself in that number two position, and I
25:40
Speaker 3: was responsible for the administration and just a lot of responsibility.
25:45
Speaker 3: And it just got to a point where I'm like,
25:48
Speaker 3: this isn't I'm still protecting and working for the individuals
25:53
Speaker 3: that are out in the fire stations serving how many stations,
25:55
Speaker 3: by the way, there's there's twenty four stations. There's thirty
26:00
Speaker 3: four companies, about twenty ambulances, about six hundred and fifty
26:04
Speaker 3: to seven hundred.
26:05
Speaker 2: So you're running a big organization. I'm running a big organization.
26:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's just a big machine that never stops.
26:13
Speaker 3: You know, if it's if it's not something accidents on
26:17
Speaker 3: duty or lawsuits that are coming, it's you know, firefighters
26:20
Speaker 3: getting in trouble off duty. It's people with cancer, people
26:23
Speaker 3: with the mental health issues, and dealing with you know,
26:28
Speaker 3: suicides with firefighters, and it's just a lot of heavy stuff,
26:31
Speaker 3: you know, that just a big machine that wouldn't turn off.
26:35
Speaker 3: And when I was actually on a FEMA deployment and
26:40
Speaker 3: I was on a smaller team, and I would talk
26:43
Speaker 3: to some of the Orange County Fire Authority folks, and
26:48
Speaker 3: I often just dreamed of, like, there's got to be
26:51
Speaker 3: a city that is just paradise, that's a beach community.
26:56
Speaker 3: You know, give me four to six stations with a
26:59
Speaker 3: workforce that's credible. And one of those Orange County firefighters said, hey,
27:03
Speaker 3: you're talking about Laguna Beach.
27:05
Speaker 2: I said, is that right?
27:06
Speaker 3: So for the last well before I got here, when
27:10
Speaker 3: I was still at Sacramento, the last six years of
27:12
Speaker 3: my career there, Laguna Beach was actually like the happy
27:15
Speaker 3: place in my mind. I really targeting this. Yeah, this,
27:21
Speaker 3: this was wow. My career goal. It was not to
27:25
Speaker 3: be the fire chief of Sacramento was it was to
27:27
Speaker 3: come to Laguna Beach, and I learned more about the community.
27:31
Speaker 3: I was looking into the position. But it's it's all
27:34
Speaker 3: just a matter of timing too. I promised my kids, like,
27:38
Speaker 3: you're going to make it through high school and I'm
27:40
Speaker 3: not going to leave. I'm not going to force you
27:41
Speaker 3: to move high schools. I have to be ready and
27:47
Speaker 3: there has to be an opening. Everything just happened to
27:52
Speaker 3: fall into place where my son was getting ready to
27:56
Speaker 3: graduate high school. He's the youngest and my daughter was
28:00
Speaker 3: already in college and things were coming to a head
28:04
Speaker 3: and Sacramento I was going through as the number two position,
28:08
Speaker 3: the deputy chief there, the third fire chief that was
28:13
Speaker 3: coming in, having some problems with counsel and just the
28:17
Speaker 3: challenges with the city manager. And I'm thinking, oh, they're
28:19
Speaker 3: going to get rid of this guy too.
28:21
Speaker 2: It's going to be tough. Are they going to ask
28:23
Speaker 2: me to step up? That's what I was going to ask.
28:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were next in line, and theoretically yeah, and
28:29
Speaker 1: they didn't really want it.
28:29
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't.
28:31
Speaker 3: I had my heart and mind on the guna beach
28:34
Speaker 3: and I remember I got about three phone calls within
28:38
Speaker 3: ten minutes. Uh, just friends saying, hey, did you see
28:42
Speaker 3: the announcement? I like, no, they going to beach fire
28:44
Speaker 3: chiefs just announced his retirement. It's like, oh, this is.
28:48
Speaker 2: It, this is better pounce. Yes.
28:52
Speaker 3: So it just so happened. Now, now this is really weird.
28:57
Speaker 3: I had my final interview here. It was between myself
29:00
Speaker 3: in another candidate.
29:02
Speaker 2: I had to leave here fly back.
29:05
Speaker 3: To Sacramento for my son's graduation that night, and the
29:10
Speaker 3: stuff with my current boss back in Sacramento was.
29:12
Speaker 2: Definitely coming to a head.
29:14
Speaker 3: I just got notified that I was offered the position
29:19
Speaker 3: here in Laguna Beach, just like numb, ecstatic, exhausted, just amazing.
29:26
Speaker 3: I remember my girlfriend and I just went and we
29:30
Speaker 3: had a cocktail and sat and stared at the water
29:33
Speaker 3: and just an incredible moment. But I had to go
29:35
Speaker 3: jump back onto a plane to get Sacramento for my
29:38
Speaker 3: son's graduation. I jump on the plane and I'm getting
29:42
Speaker 3: this phone call from the city manager in Sacramento, So
29:44
Speaker 3: you've got to be at city hall tonight at six o'clock.
29:46
Speaker 3: Like I can't going to my son's graduation. Like nope,
29:50
Speaker 3: you have to be at city hall. Like I'm sorry,
29:52
Speaker 3: I can't make it. You know what's going on. I
29:55
Speaker 3: just he's all filium when you get here, you need
29:57
Speaker 3: to be here. So I let him know, like I'm
30:00
Speaker 3: not missing my son's graduation.
30:02
Speaker 2: So I land.
30:04
Speaker 3: I rushed to my son's graduation ten minutes late, but
30:08
Speaker 3: I got to watch them walk.
30:09
Speaker 2: Did miss the thing. So I step out of the graduation.
30:13
Speaker 2: I look at my phone.
30:13
Speaker 3: There's just tons of text messages and it's everyone letting
30:17
Speaker 3: me know that they just terminated the boss and they
30:21
Speaker 3: wanted me there didn't know if I was going to
30:24
Speaker 3: get off with the position or not, or what the
30:25
Speaker 3: conversation was going to be. But they wanted me in
30:27
Speaker 3: the next room. And shortly after that, of course I
30:32
Speaker 3: get to give them my two weeks notice and I
30:34
Speaker 3: start my career off.
30:36
Speaker 1: They didn't even entertain Now, yep, you knew which Yeah,
30:39
Speaker 1: this was your dream?
30:40
Speaker 2: Yeah?
30:40
Speaker 1: Was it a city manager? Was it Charay or was
30:42
Speaker 1: it John Peatick at that time?
30:45
Speaker 2: Was here?
30:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's ironic because you know I had her on
30:47
Speaker 1: the show and she told a somewhat similar story. I
30:51
Speaker 1: mean it was a little different how she got here,
30:52
Speaker 1: but this was a dream of hers as well. Yeah,
30:55
Speaker 1: and you know, she had a brother who was terminally
30:59
Speaker 1: ill and they had him in hospice and they decided
31:03
Speaker 1: to let him live out his time and they chose
31:05
Speaker 1: Laguna and because it was such a special place for them,
31:09
Speaker 1: for her family. And then flash forward, you know, she
31:12
Speaker 1: worked for the City of Irvine and a couple a
31:15
Speaker 1: fuller tin I think, but she always had this dream
31:18
Speaker 1: of coming here. So wow, Laguna attracts, you know, the quality,
31:24
Speaker 1: it's the dream job, it's dream place. So has it
31:26
Speaker 1: fulfilled your expectations?
31:28
Speaker 2: Every single day. Look at that.
31:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing, Yeah, I but the rumor was that this
31:34
Speaker 3: is just an incredible group of people, incredibly talented. They
31:39
Speaker 3: love their job, they love the community. They're loved by
31:42
Speaker 3: the community.
31:43
Speaker 2: That's great to hear.
31:46
Speaker 3: You don't know, but I'm telling you I feel it's true.
31:51
Speaker 3: And it's not always you know, handshakes and hugs. But
31:57
Speaker 3: what I love most about this community is that they're
32:00
Speaker 3: actively involved. They know what's going on in the beach.
32:04
Speaker 3: Their level of engagement and understanding, you know, the fire risk,
32:09
Speaker 3: whether or not they live in you know what evacuation zone,
32:12
Speaker 3: the traffic problems. It's a very engaged community. It's an
32:16
Speaker 3: engaged community. So you're having these very very logical debates
32:20
Speaker 3: with some folks about, you know, how we're going to
32:23
Speaker 3: spawn and what kind of risk and what kind of
32:25
Speaker 3: threats that we live in here. But I love the
32:28
Speaker 3: fact that people are just engaged.
32:29
Speaker 1: I often say, we don't need to spend money on consultants.
32:32
Speaker 1: We have enough talent here, you know that would work
32:35
Speaker 1: for free because they love the community.
32:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's incredibly talented group individuals here.
32:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so give us a rundown because we have a
32:45
Speaker 1: limited amount of time, and sure, you know where are
32:49
Speaker 1: we on the scale of fire risk, and you know
32:51
Speaker 1: how bad is it we see these fires happening to
32:54
Speaker 1: the east of us.
32:54
Speaker 2: That just happened.
32:56
Speaker 1: I've been saying, my gosh, you know, the last decade
32:58
Speaker 1: or so, most of the deva stating fires have been
33:01
Speaker 1: north of southern California. Certainly there was Santa Barbara, but
33:04
Speaker 1: most of it has been Santa Rosa, the Paradise Fire
33:07
Speaker 1: and all that, And I just feel like, yeah, you
33:10
Speaker 1: could say maybe there's greater incursion into the wilderness that
33:14
Speaker 1: sets it up to be more more vulnerable, but I
33:18
Speaker 1: feel like we've just been lucky that our time is
33:21
Speaker 1: going to come.
33:22
Speaker 2: You know, the potential is there, the risk is there.
33:28
Speaker 3: The state has a way of putting a rating on
33:32
Speaker 3: communities and so ninety percent of Laguna Beach is in.
33:36
Speaker 2: The very high fire hazard severity zone.
33:38
Speaker 3: A lot of people know that that's actually intended to
33:42
Speaker 3: be to our advantage, so that we can hold people
33:45
Speaker 3: to stricter.
33:45
Speaker 2: Codes and perhaps get more grant money.
33:49
Speaker 3: Possibly get more grant money, and there's more opportunities, but
33:52
Speaker 3: there's more restrictions so that we can, you know, let
33:55
Speaker 3: people know to do certain actions and activities that's going
33:59
Speaker 3: to reduce fire risks. In ninety three, obviously the big
34:04
Speaker 3: fire happened, and like I just stretched down here for that,
34:08
Speaker 3: I know, I wasn't. I was with cal fire that
34:11
Speaker 3: year and now didn't make it down here. Definitely heard
34:16
Speaker 3: about it, But the fuel definitely exists surrounding. That's what
34:21
Speaker 3: makes Laguna Beach incredibly beautiful is the green space that
34:25
Speaker 3: surrounds us, right, And it's a lot of effort that
34:30
Speaker 3: the city has done to preserve the natural beauty of
34:33
Speaker 3: Laguna Beach. But through the efforts of creating these fuel
34:38
Speaker 3: modification zones, there's twenty seven of them right now. Four
34:41
Speaker 3: are still in a phase of getting cleared, but twenty
34:45
Speaker 3: three active fuel modification zones where we are through contract
34:49
Speaker 3: go and modify open space up to one hundred feet
34:54
Speaker 3: behind residents or trying to protect the neighborhoods than the
34:57
Speaker 3: ones that are most vulnerable from an coaching fire. But
35:01
Speaker 3: does that risk still exist? Just like you said, yeah,
35:05
Speaker 3: these fires going on all around us, and we're at
35:07
Speaker 3: the mercy of the wind, right we are. But there's
35:12
Speaker 3: certain things mitigation efforts that you can take. So even
35:15
Speaker 3: with a high wind event. We hope to reduce approaching
35:20
Speaker 3: flame front. We hope to reduce the ember showers that's
35:24
Speaker 3: going to hit us. We hope that there's the right
35:26
Speaker 3: construction in our homes and people have the right vents
35:29
Speaker 3: on their houses and the green space that protects them
35:32
Speaker 3: around their homes, that there's not going to be a
35:35
Speaker 3: lot of combustible material up against home. So that we
35:38
Speaker 3: have the opportunity to use our master mutual aid process
35:41
Speaker 3: and we have a tremendous, tremendous first response for any
35:46
Speaker 3: report of a fire from our mutual aid partners that
35:50
Speaker 3: surround the city of Laguna Beach, from aircraft in the air,
35:54
Speaker 3: to bulldozers to hand crews and a lot of fire
35:58
Speaker 3: engines that can make it in to this community off
36:02
Speaker 3: of the first dispatch of a report of a fire
36:04
Speaker 3: to uh protect this community.
36:06
Speaker 1: So and what about all these I'm looking at to
36:09
Speaker 1: eucalyptus trees behind you and this old growth that we
36:12
Speaker 1: planted years ago to make it a green city. But
36:14
Speaker 1: then I hear that eucalyptus is combustible fuel. But yet
36:19
Speaker 1: we don't want to take them down because they're beautiful.
36:21
Speaker 1: I mean, there's this there's this tension between keeping keeping
36:25
Speaker 1: the town green but also mitigating against fire.
36:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, Eucalyptus are highly combustible trees. They are, but you
36:33
Speaker 3: know people love them. They planted them. They grow fast,
36:36
Speaker 3: they're really tall. They provide shade. But I've I've been
36:41
Speaker 3: in the eucalyptus groves in open space and saw how
36:45
Speaker 3: they can go up there. They're full of oil, and
36:48
Speaker 3: so those embers can come in and with right conditions,
36:51
Speaker 3: lowly enough humidity, high enough heat, situated on the on
36:54
Speaker 3: the hillside correctly, and they'll combust pretty fast.
36:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me ask you.
36:59
Speaker 1: But when you came into the studio, I handed you
37:02
Speaker 1: this book that was sent here to the radio station
37:05
Speaker 1: by a woman who wrote extensively about the Maui fire.
37:10
Speaker 1: And as you said, there are some conspiracy theorists, as
37:15
Speaker 1: there are with just about everything today, and you can
37:18
Speaker 1: support your argument on the internet.
37:20
Speaker 2: You can find whatever you want. But she did say,
37:24
Speaker 2: you know.
37:25
Speaker 1: The fires of old were thirty to fifty thousand acres.
37:29
Speaker 1: They're twenty times bigger today. The Tubs fire, she mentioned,
37:33
Speaker 1: and this anomaly sometimes and I wonder if you've seen
37:37
Speaker 1: this in the fires at Paradise where some things that
37:41
Speaker 1: you would traditionally expect to burn, like trees and plastic,
37:46
Speaker 1: are perfectly intact, and things that you would sometimes expect
37:51
Speaker 1: not to burn, like houses that would leave traces, certain
37:55
Speaker 1: appliances made of steel, are completely melted away because the
38:00
Speaker 1: fire is so much more intense. Now this theory is
38:03
Speaker 1: somehow that there is geo engineering, and Mike, these fires
38:08
Speaker 1: resemble more of a microwave where it burns from the
38:12
Speaker 1: inside out, even with trees. Have you been have you
38:15
Speaker 1: heard any of this?
38:17
Speaker 3: I'm laughing because I've heard of it all the way
38:22
Speaker 3: from you know, twenty and one and the nine to
38:24
Speaker 3: eleven events and yeah, to the wildland fires. And I'm
38:29
Speaker 3: not falling for any of it. It's being you know,
38:34
Speaker 3: boots on the ground and you're out there in the
38:36
Speaker 3: incidents that I've been able to be there and participate,
38:40
Speaker 3: and see I was. I was there within twenty four
38:45
Speaker 3: hours after the campfire in Paradise and got to drive
38:49
Speaker 3: around with the former fire chiefs, so he knew that
38:51
Speaker 3: that community, you know, backwards and forwards. And then what
38:54
Speaker 3: you're seeing is some incredibly dynamic fire behavior. And I
39:00
Speaker 3: go back to just these little nuances of the changes
39:04
Speaker 3: in our environment, and even just a couple of degrees.
39:09
Speaker 3: You see the amount of I remember going through the
39:12
Speaker 3: Sierras and the trees are turning brown and you're like,
39:15
Speaker 3: what the heck is going on? Well, just a couple
39:18
Speaker 3: of degrees difference helped the proliferation of a beetle. And
39:24
Speaker 3: this beetle is going around eating the bark on the
39:26
Speaker 3: trees and forests and killing the trees. And so what
39:31
Speaker 3: you have is a lot of dead for space just
39:35
Speaker 3: because of the change of the temperature, just by a
39:37
Speaker 3: degree or two. And so it's just those little tiny nuances,
39:42
Speaker 3: you know, the butterfly fact, right, It's just little tiny
39:45
Speaker 3: changes that are happening that throw off the balance of
39:48
Speaker 3: what we normally see.
39:49
Speaker 2: What Buckminster Folo used to call trim tab.
39:52
Speaker 1: If you take a giant ship and you just turn
39:54
Speaker 1: a tiny bit of that rudder, the whole ship is.
39:57
Speaker 2: Going to turn. Yeah, yeah, where you're gonna end up.
40:00
Speaker 1: So you were there on the scene in Paradise, and
40:02
Speaker 1: I think there's some great lessons to be learned for
40:04
Speaker 1: our community.
40:05
Speaker 2: We've talked about that.
40:06
Speaker 1: I know our mayor at the time went up to
40:08
Speaker 1: see the devastation and The most similar thing, of course,
40:12
Speaker 1: is the evacuation routes, and we only have three ways
40:15
Speaker 1: out of town.
40:16
Speaker 2: And what can we.
40:17
Speaker 1: Do as a community to respond better in the event
40:22
Speaker 1: of an evacuation and an emergency.
40:24
Speaker 2: What would your advice.
40:25
Speaker 3: Be that that is definitely become a denominator. That's the
40:29
Speaker 3: part that is a theory, it's a paper plan. The
40:34
Speaker 3: City of Laguna Beach has done an incredible job at
40:37
Speaker 3: putting a plan in place. What people need to do
40:41
Speaker 3: is know what evacuations one they're in, tune in to
40:46
Speaker 3: get the information of whatever source. We have an outdoor
40:50
Speaker 3: warning system here that it's incredibly unique. Is so if
40:54
Speaker 3: nothing else, if you're not listening to a radio station
40:56
Speaker 3: that's given you a minute minute information I want to do,
40:59
Speaker 3: if you're not signed up for the NIXEL alert, you
41:01
Speaker 3: could step outside and possibly hear the instructions. We test
41:06
Speaker 3: that system, you know, a couple times a year. Incredibly
41:10
Speaker 3: effective and incredibly unique. But people have to be signed
41:14
Speaker 3: up for these services. People have to pay attention. They
41:16
Speaker 3: have to know that there is a possibility that you
41:20
Speaker 3: will be evacuated from this community. So you have to
41:24
Speaker 3: have all your documents in place, your go kit is
41:27
Speaker 3: what they call it. Right, You have to know where
41:28
Speaker 3: your insurance documents are, I have your medications, have that
41:31
Speaker 3: bag ready to go at least have an idea and
41:35
Speaker 3: have it in a spot in the house so you
41:36
Speaker 3: can go to that drawer, throw it in your backpack
41:38
Speaker 3: and get.
41:39
Speaker 2: The heck out.
41:41
Speaker 3: But leaning forward, just just paying attention and listening because
41:46
Speaker 3: if it's a fire threat, if it's a red flag day,
41:50
Speaker 3: the fire department, through city resources, we're going to push
41:53
Speaker 3: out that messaging. We're gonna let people know there's going
41:55
Speaker 3: to be high winds, that the humidity is low, the
41:57
Speaker 3: temperature are still high, there's the possibility of you know,
42:01
Speaker 3: fires for the next three days, so there should be
42:05
Speaker 3: some forewarning.
42:06
Speaker 1: And you told me we spoke earlier in Paradise. By
42:09
Speaker 1: the time you got there, of course, we've all heard
42:11
Speaker 1: these horror stories of people getting incinerated in their cars,
42:15
Speaker 1: and you had mentioned getting on the scene that people
42:17
Speaker 1: had just abandoned their cars and you had to bulldoze
42:20
Speaker 1: them off the road just to get egress to where
42:23
Speaker 1: you were going. And I think people in a panic
42:26
Speaker 1: state they do irrational things, and you know, jumping out
42:29
Speaker 1: of their car because they see a fire in front
42:31
Speaker 1: of them, and downstream, they don't recognize the problem that's
42:35
Speaker 1: going to cause. I mean, there are occasions when you
42:37
Speaker 1: would tell people don't go anywhere or don't go this way, right.
42:40
Speaker 3: And that's that's just it. And finishing that thought, it's
42:44
Speaker 3: know your evacuation zone and you'll be told when to evacuate.
42:49
Speaker 3: What happened in Paradise was they hit every single evacuation
42:53
Speaker 3: well and there's this this fire that was absolutely incredible,
42:57
Speaker 3: this this flame front and ember shower that was approaching
42:59
Speaker 3: the head never been seen before.
43:01
Speaker 2: How did that one get started? Do we know? Was
43:02
Speaker 2: that power lines? Power lines? Yeah?
43:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a transformer that exploded in a canyon
43:08
Speaker 3: two canyons away. That fire traveled it was seven and
43:14
Speaker 3: a half miles in an hour and a half, so
43:17
Speaker 3: that's that's like eight football fields a minute. So it's
43:21
Speaker 3: I think if you could picture yourself in a snowstorm
43:24
Speaker 3: and then you think about the snow that's coming down
43:26
Speaker 3: and all the different directions that it goes and it's
43:28
Speaker 3: just floating in the air. Think about that. But those
43:30
Speaker 3: being embers, and that's what you expire. Tornadoes, yeah, fire, hurricanes, Yeah,
43:35
Speaker 3: it's it's igniting everything around you. And so human nature is, yeah,
43:41
Speaker 3: you know you have to get in your car and
43:42
Speaker 3: you know you have to drive, but of course people
43:45
Speaker 3: not experience anything like that. But knowing that you're in
43:47
Speaker 3: danger and both sides of the road are on fire,
43:49
Speaker 3: you're going to be fearful to progress. And so it
43:53
Speaker 3: just takes a couple of people like hitting their brakes
43:55
Speaker 3: and you know, the message would be to go slow,
44:00
Speaker 3: be consistent, and keep going, and that's not what occurred.
44:04
Speaker 1: So talking about the power lines, there is this notion
44:09
Speaker 1: and you're probably seeing it played out right now because
44:12
Speaker 1: it's a political season and there is a group in
44:14
Speaker 1: this community that thinks spending all that money to underground
44:18
Speaker 1: the power lines is a waste, that there are other
44:21
Speaker 1: alternatives to prevent them from going down, such as hardening them.
44:26
Speaker 3: Where do you stand on that? On the side of safety,
44:30
Speaker 3: I try to stay apolitical. And it's funny. I was
44:34
Speaker 3: replying to email this morning and community members asking me, well,
44:39
Speaker 3: how many times have we had fires in the canyon
44:43
Speaker 3: And it comes down to this, it's the risk versus
44:47
Speaker 3: the frequency, and there are two different things. The town
44:51
Speaker 3: of Paradise that fire only happened once. It only has
44:53
Speaker 3: to happen once. And so if I look around this
44:56
Speaker 3: community in the green space at this time of year,
44:59
Speaker 3: when you have the winds and we have the temperatures
45:01
Speaker 3: and the humidity drops, it has the potential. The hazard exists,
45:07
Speaker 3: The risk is there. Yeah, it hasn't happened in a
45:11
Speaker 3: couple of decades, but could it happen.
45:14
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
45:14
Speaker 1: I mean we've had small fires. I remember a few
45:16
Speaker 1: of them in the canyon that luckily did not spread.
45:20
Speaker 1: But you know, my sense of it, Nico, is that
45:24
Speaker 1: even if it's less than one percent, is that a
45:27
Speaker 1: risk worth taking. I mean, it's not just the propensity
45:30
Speaker 1: of a power line to catch fire, it's also for
45:32
Speaker 1: the fire line, for the utility line to go down
45:36
Speaker 1: and block everybody.
45:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's going to happen more often. It happens
45:40
Speaker 3: with car accidents all the time.
45:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean you only have to subscribe to Nixel
45:43
Speaker 1: to see how many times we get that lagoon and
45:45
Speaker 1: canyon road gets shut down.
45:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's just it's a narrow road to begin with.
45:50
Speaker 3: On you know, any given Tuesday afternoon, it doesn't matter.
45:54
Speaker 3: You go take a look and it's backlogged. There's cars
45:58
Speaker 3: that are parked on the Good Cannon Road, So you
46:01
Speaker 3: think about that and trying to get people out with
46:04
Speaker 3: an emergency going on, it's going to be slow going.
46:07
Speaker 3: So in my mind, we have to have the ability
46:10
Speaker 3: to evacuate a community of this size and not just
46:15
Speaker 3: two ways up and down Coast Highway. But we need
46:18
Speaker 3: that evacuation corridor fixed.
46:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
46:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well I have a kayak at the ready, so
46:23
Speaker 1: I'm ready to paddle out to sea.
46:25
Speaker 2: That's right.
46:25
Speaker 1: That's the fourth way. That's the fourth way. Do we
46:29
Speaker 1: have enough water stored? Could we do better job for
46:32
Speaker 1: fire suppression? I mean, I know there's been talk about
46:34
Speaker 1: up in the up in the top of the hills
46:37
Speaker 1: storing water. Does that get trucked in? Are flown in
46:41
Speaker 1: by helicopter when you need it?
46:42
Speaker 2: We're doing pretty good.
46:45
Speaker 3: We have two of the HeLa tanks helipods that were
46:49
Speaker 3: installed just within the last couple of years.
46:53
Speaker 2: There's one up by.
46:54
Speaker 3: The fire road and there's one up on the northern
46:56
Speaker 3: end of town and those are connected to the water
47:00
Speaker 3: system fire hydrants next to them, so they're oddly enough,
47:03
Speaker 3: it's kind of like a toilet which turn it on
47:05
Speaker 3: you know, it has the float valves. When it gets low,
47:08
Speaker 3: it knows to refill itself. Once they're activated, it'll get
47:12
Speaker 3: to a certain level.
47:13
Speaker 2: It won't overflow.
47:14
Speaker 3: Those helicopters that would respond to an incident don't have
47:18
Speaker 3: the long turnaround time that they otherwise would to the
47:22
Speaker 3: nearest lake. They're able to fill up right here in
47:25
Speaker 3: our community and quick return times to stop a flame front.
47:29
Speaker 1: And how are you on overall resources. I know that
47:32
Speaker 1: you've taken over some of Saint Catharine's. We have some
47:34
Speaker 1: emergency personnel there. There's talk about where to put the
47:39
Speaker 1: fire station in South Laguna. Are we properly? Do we
47:41
Speaker 1: have enough infrastructure in your in your mind?
47:44
Speaker 3: We do, But looking towards the future, we need to
47:48
Speaker 3: start making some plans. And the city is we've just
47:51
Speaker 3: had a study completed and they came out with some
47:55
Speaker 3: priorities and we have to build better fire station, better
48:00
Speaker 3: fire stations that are going to be suitable for the
48:02
Speaker 3: equipment and housing enough firefighters.
48:04
Speaker 2: Culture ours are really old.
48:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're decades old. We have one in the
48:09
Speaker 3: works right now, fire Station four in the South Laguna area.
48:13
Speaker 3: The old station sitting on second Avenue of the new
48:15
Speaker 3: station's the lot at fifth and Coast Highway. We meet
48:21
Speaker 3: with the architect about once a week and the plans
48:24
Speaker 3: there hopefully in twenty five, probably in the fall, will
48:28
Speaker 3: break ground and we're looking at maybe eighteen months to
48:31
Speaker 3: your build time.
48:33
Speaker 1: But you mentioned to me that and I might be
48:37
Speaker 1: wrong on this, but that you know, because we're on
48:39
Speaker 1: the coast and there's Coastal Commission all, there's more bureaucracy
48:44
Speaker 1: to get things done than what you were accustomed to
48:46
Speaker 1: in Sacramento.
48:47
Speaker 2: Is there truth to that? There is.
48:49
Speaker 3: There's more approval processes and you have to pay attention
48:52
Speaker 3: to the environmental impacts when you do anything. But still
48:56
Speaker 3: it's the process and you push through. We're getting done.
49:00
Speaker 2: What's the best part of the job for you? What
49:02
Speaker 2: do you enjoy the most?
49:05
Speaker 3: Show you know what I love and I just didn't
49:11
Speaker 3: have in Sacramento. Is I love just walking up and
49:15
Speaker 3: down for us and being a fire chief and just
49:19
Speaker 3: stopping and talking to people. And it's funny because you'll
49:23
Speaker 3: get email complaint of concern an issue, and then I
49:28
Speaker 3: could take a break and go, you know, walk up
49:30
Speaker 3: and down the street and you're either going to run
49:32
Speaker 3: into someone that knows about the problem, or that emails you.
49:35
Speaker 3: You're probably also going to run into a council member
49:36
Speaker 3: that already knows about the problem. I love the fact
49:40
Speaker 3: that people are so engaged here. It is absolutely the
49:43
Speaker 3: best part of this job.
49:44
Speaker 1: And small town you're going to run into people you
49:46
Speaker 1: know all the time, all the time. Yeah, yeah, what's
49:48
Speaker 1: the worst part.
49:50
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm not put biggest challenge.
49:56
Speaker 3: What's the biggest you know, always always in public service,
49:59
Speaker 3: you see what needs to be done and you can't
50:01
Speaker 3: do it fast enough.
50:02
Speaker 2: Ye yeah, yeah, I'm trying to looking at people. Are
50:05
Speaker 2: you getting quality people as the best.
50:07
Speaker 3: To recruit the best our fire department? We have absolutely
50:13
Speaker 3: incredible human beings that the morale is incredible. These folks
50:17
Speaker 3: love working here. They're proud to wear the uniform.
50:19
Speaker 2: They're engaged, they love working in this community.
50:24
Speaker 1: You do anything for team building. You take them out
50:26
Speaker 1: for drinks, you go out for an angel game.
50:29
Speaker 2: What do you do?
50:30
Speaker 3: They have what a culture. It's not necessarily what I'm bringing,
50:34
Speaker 3: it's what they've already done. And that's why it's such
50:36
Speaker 3: a great workforce.
50:37
Speaker 2: They truly are a family. They have you know, the
50:40
Speaker 2: holiday parties, coming up. They go keeping together, feed the breakfasts. Yeah,
50:45
Speaker 2: we do the pancake breakfast.
50:47
Speaker 3: Everything that a fire department should be doing to be
50:49
Speaker 3: engaged in the community, this fire department is doing.
50:52
Speaker 2: You know.
50:52
Speaker 1: The toughest part in my view of a town like
50:54
Speaker 1: Laguna that's so expensive to live in, is that so
50:58
Speaker 1: many of the service persons now and safety personnel can't
51:02
Speaker 1: afford to live here. And that's a real shame because
51:05
Speaker 1: they're not entwined in the community in the way that
51:07
Speaker 1: they should be where everybody's you know, they're not just
51:11
Speaker 1: you know, on the force. They're they're they're a neighbor. Yeah,
51:15
Speaker 1: And I think that's a shame, but not much we
51:17
Speaker 1: can do it.
51:18
Speaker 3: It's tough, and you're right, probably ninety eight percent of
51:20
Speaker 3: this workforce commutes in. But when they're here and they
51:24
Speaker 3: get to wear the uniform and they get to serve
51:27
Speaker 3: and the love and respect that they receive from this community,
51:31
Speaker 3: they're they're part of it. They're part of the fabric
51:33
Speaker 3: of this community. And I think they're proud to be
51:35
Speaker 3: I know they are. That's proud to be here.
51:37
Speaker 1: And if you ever want to take the group out
51:39
Speaker 1: on kayaks, I know somebody who's got about.
51:41
Speaker 2: Twenty of them. Right, that's team building.
51:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what that's what we do. And yeah, that's
51:47
Speaker 1: all plug there. But Nico King, Fire Chief of Laguna Beach,
51:50
Speaker 1: thank you for your time. I know you you're a
51:52
Speaker 1: busy guy, and I thank you for setting side an
51:54
Speaker 1: hour for us and hope to see you around town.
51:58
Speaker 1: Be one of those people that comes up to you
52:00
Speaker 1: and complains about everything.
52:02
Speaker 2: Just kidding. Thanks for having me. I'll yeah back anytime.
52:06
Speaker 1: All right, that's our show today, Laguna Talks and everybody.
52:09
Speaker 1: On November eleventh, we are having our Laguna Beach Takeover
52:13
Speaker 1: where the community comes in. Maybe maybe Nico, maybe you'll
52:16
Speaker 1: come on. And I know you're a music guy, and
52:18
Speaker 1: maybe you'll maybe you'll spin some records and help us
52:21
Speaker 1: raise some money.
52:22
Speaker 2: Because you know, we're like to learn.
52:24
Speaker 1: We're a nonprofit and we want to be able to
52:27
Speaker 1: we need to support as well so we can be
52:30
Speaker 1: on the front lines of emergency services. You know you
52:33
Speaker 1: mentioned communication and I've been working we gotta I will
52:36
Speaker 1: show you the generator we have here, but we constantly
52:38
Speaker 1: want to upgrade our equipment so that when that situation
52:43
Speaker 1: occurs and the grid goes down, people in the community
52:46
Speaker 1: know it's not enough to hopefully put on our station
52:49
Speaker 1: from your phone, because that may not work. You got
52:51
Speaker 1: to have a little hand crank or battery operated radio.
52:54
Speaker 1: I know you guys sell go kits down and you
52:57
Speaker 1: know you have something.
52:58
Speaker 2: Usually we usually hand them out. Our events are.
53:01
Speaker 1: True events, but everybody really needs to be informed and
53:04
Speaker 1: that's our role to play and we take it really
53:06
Speaker 1: seriously and we want to have a protocol so that
53:08
Speaker 1: people know like that they tune into the radio and
53:11
Speaker 1: we're in touch with you and Brendan and the whole force,
53:14
Speaker 1: and we've given you up to the minute information.
53:17
Speaker 2: That's what's most important when it goes down.
53:19
Speaker 1: All right, thank you for coming in and KXFM Laguna's
53:23
Speaker 1: community Radio. Tune in, turn on. We'll be back with
53:26
Speaker 1: more shows and we have Pat Parnell coming up at
53:29
Speaker 1: three o'clock