How to Survive California Wildfires

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[00:00:26] Visit friendsofnra.org to find an event near you. Stand up for freedom with the Friends of NRA. Hello, Rye. Welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast, Kevin and Chuck.

[00:00:50] Today, we're going to talk about prepping your home for wildfires or fires in general. I don't know a lot in the news in California, a lot of stuff going on and big fires. It seems like those Santa Ana winds just kind of, you know, every couple of years just get so out of control. And it just takes a little bit to, you know, help spread that and stir the pot.

[00:01:17] Wind is so crazy with how it can, you know, change with fire. I mean, you add the conditions of dryness and whatever, which one is always the case in California. Then you, you know, you kick that up with a little wind and you're just asking for trouble. Um, so we're going to dig into how to prepare your house, what type of cool stuff you should be buying,

[00:01:43] what type of stuff, you know, what you need to be looking for, worrying about how you can actually prep your home in the moment. And, you know, beforehand, I got some cool stories. We got a lot of good things to get into. So I, I don't know, Kevin, like, do you even like, how do these fires start? It just, it always seems like it, you know, you have the guy smoking.

[00:02:08] And, uh, we, we remember in history, there were some really big ones, the Chicago fire, San Francisco. What do you, the Chicago fire, you were, you were telling me about that. What, what happened there? Yeah. That was, um, the great, the great Chicago fire was, uh, 1871. Okay. It burned days in October. Um, it killed 300 people. Uh, it left a hundred thousand people homeless. Um, there was a long drought leading up to it.

[00:02:38] So, I mean, that's one of the things about these, uh, about the fires that start, it usually starts with, you know, a long drought, you know? Right. So that's one of the, that's one of the things to, to be wary of. And, uh, you know, wildfires can happen anywhere. Um, city fires don't happen as often anymore. Because, uh, you know, most cities aren't, aren't made out of wood anymore. Right. But, um, they still, they still happen.

[00:03:05] Now, the, the great Chicago fire, they never figured out exactly what happened. And we blamed a cow. Yeah, it was, it was the, the old story is it was, uh, Miss O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern. Um, but it started in her shed, not in her barn. Okay. So we don't, we don't really know what happened, but, you know, it, it burned, uh, you know, three, 3.3 square miles of the city burned down and it crossed over the river from one side to the other.

[00:03:33] Um, you know, and that's generally just wind, you know, wind carrying embers from here to there. And that's the thing, like embers, that's where you get into such danger. Right. Um, San Francisco. So that's the thing. Like everyone's like LA, like, oh, it's, it's because of the city or it's because of some government conspiracy of, you know, laser beams from heaven shoot, you know, starting fires in LA. But California has had some fires in the past.

[00:04:02] It's not a new thing. It's not the first time this has happened, right? On fire. I mean, I actually am always amazed when we look into it that I, I'm always like, how are there not houses, more houses being destroyed every year in California? When you hear about all those wildfires, like damage is usually pretty minimal. Obviously this year is a big exception. And that's one of the reasons where, you know, everybody's talking about it.

[00:04:30] But, um, so way back the, the biggest, actually they say the most deadly earthquake in history was the San Francisco fire, which as you know, is caused by an earthquake. Hence the most deadly earthquake. Right. So it was caused by an earthquake in 1906, but they said within, they said a few hours. So I don't know what that means.

[00:04:57] Two to three hours, 52 separate fires had started after the earthquake. All in different places. All in different places. And then it's just like, ah, plus an earthquake, you know, it's tougher to move through the streets. It's, you know, things change and are unsafe and you don't know. And gas lines are, you know, rupturing and, and things are happening. And, uh, that ended up taking a toll of 3000 people. Yeah. So yeah, that, that's significant.

[00:05:24] Um, so let's kind of get to the, the meat within the nut here and, uh, you know, what can you do now? There's obviously, we're going to talk about some construction. We're going to talk about things that you can, you know, equipment you can buy to help prevent fires, you know, or help fight fires, deter fire, any of that. But let's talk about like, when you get the call, you know, you turn on your radio and you're like, Hey, a big wildfire just broke out next to you.

[00:05:53] What are you going to do? So let's kind of jump into it. So one of the big things they say, you want to close every door and every window within your house. What that is, you know, like when you open and allow fresh air into some, you now, one of the things that I was watching some reports from firemen and a fire chief.

[00:06:19] And he was saying, you want to close every door and window, but you also want to leave every door and window unlocked because you want to allow access for firemen and things like that. Right. So you want to stop air from moving, but you don't want to stop people from moving. Right. That's the big thing. Um, you want to shut off the gas at the gas meter. That would be a smart play. If you want to be the one that's standing, um, you want to clear the debris around your house.

[00:06:47] And they always talk about a fire break should be about 30 feet. Obviously the further away you can clear out the better, the better. Yeah. You know, if I was living in an, in a drought, uh, in an area where droughts were common, like California, a lot of parts of California. I think I would do a basic standard, you know, weekly or biweekly cleanup, just rake everything out. You've got to be on top of it when you live in a danger area, especially in the, in the right seasons. Right.

[00:07:17] Um, they're actually talking about after this fire, they're about how requiring laws of, of more fire, you know, prevention as far as, um, no flammable, anything within five feet of a house and things like that. They were talking about different things they were going to implement. Um, you know, the more I dug into it, uh, another thing.

[00:07:40] So like I said, shut off the gas meter, um, any kind of outside cushions, anything flammable out there in the yard. So you're going to want to take those and put them in the garage, put them in somewhere where they're not going to be exposed to flying ambers. Right. That's kind of thing. Same thing with propane tanks. They were saying, ideally you move it 30 feet away from the house, but if that's not an option, you're going to want to put them in the basement and the garage.

[00:08:05] And, you know, I guess California doesn't have a lot of basements, but you want to put it in the most secure area that you can. Um, they said, uh, connect hoses. Now this is something I didn't really consider, um, in my mind, they were saying that you should actually connect as many hoses with like spray nozzles and have them turned on, but obviously not spraying out water. Right.

[00:08:31] That would be just a waste and getting rid of water when you're about to need it, but connect hoses and have the nozzles and stuff ready to go actually laying about your yard. And that's going to just, you know, the guy I was listening to was like any opportunity that a firefighter has to, you know, do something easy and quick when they're fighting an overwhelming thing is going to make it so much better.

[00:08:59] They were saying even staging ladders on the side of your house and putting them like even up on your roof where it's just ready to go. Somebody's a lot more likely to take advantage of that than something where, you know, it's not easy to stop and help. Another thing you're going to want to, uh, maybe fill buckets of water and actually just leave them around your property.

[00:09:23] Believe it or not, every little bit kind of helps and having some storage like that can really, you know, make a difference. You want to maybe stage your vehicle, like have it backed in your driveway, like ready to go. One of the big things with fires that as they start to spread in and get crazy, you don't realize how impossible it is to see.

[00:09:46] And how hard, you know, visibility becomes, they said, uh, turn on every light inside and outside, you know, beforehand. Um, cause you don't, you can't imagine how dark it gets when you get that kind of overwhelming smoke and, and coming in. And it can really make a big difference in the visibility, but that's why you want to have your car kind of loaded up with anything. You think you're going to want to rush out of there, have it kind of staged and ready.

[00:10:16] Um, one of the things I probably should have mentioned right out of the gate was, you know, the first thing you want to do. And even before any of the advice here is you want to be listening to what the local, you know, authorities are telling you. If they're like, Hey, you need to get out of there. Cause you know, you stand in there with a hose is a bad idea. You're going to get overwhelmed and overtaken. Right. That's what you need to do. Right.

[00:10:43] And if you've seen how fast some of these fires can move, it really can be. And turn on. It's terrifying. On top of you. Um, yeah. So having a plan and actually listening to what's going on, paying attention, looking at the smoke and the stuff around you too, is, is important when you're not, you know, when other people aren't watching, you know, you might be the first person to see that it's overtaken to the hill next to you or whatever.

[00:11:11] So you being observant is a big part of things, but you may want to, you know, keep an eye on things. So now we, we say, you know, have the stuff in your car that you, you know, that you want to save, um, you know, get your bug out bag together and have it in the vehicle, you know, your documents, your social security card, your birth certificates, all that. Picture your cat. Make sure you're prepared to move your animals. If you're, you know, planning on it.

[00:11:40] I mean, I've got some, I mean, who doesn't want to really come home when their house is destroyed, but at least you've got a roast chicken to eat. So, I mean, there is some things that you might want to leave behind just, just in case. But, um, one of the things that I surprised me is the N95 masks. They recommend keeping those because they're really good at stopping the, uh, the particles in the air. Yep. I didn't think that they were for that, but they actually work pretty well.

[00:12:07] The N95, especially the thicker, it really makes a big difference. Um, another thing is any kind of vent. Remember I had mentioned, uh, windows and things like that. Any kind of vent on the outside of your house, you want to cover those up with like foil tape. Ideally, um, they, they recommended maybe even making covers beforehand that you could screw on, like out of wood or metal. Uh, that would be awesome.

[00:12:32] They said at a minimum duct tape or even aluminum foil, just slapping it over the vents. Cause anywhere air sucking in, that's where, you know, you're getting into trouble. Um, you want to shut off your HVAC, any kind of air conditioning, or heat, you know, fires actually happen in the winter time. It turns out, um, any kind of heat or air conditioning, you want to shut it off so that it's not, you know, going to, uh, be sucking in air, right?

[00:13:01] Cause that's where you get into trouble. So just keep that in mind. Um, another thing, believe it or not, when you have a fence around your property, they say, open your gates. And what happens is actually fire can travel through, like it follows the fence, you know, it burns all along and it actually works like a fire break. If you open that gate, obviously if you have a chain link fence, opening that gate, isn't really going to help you.

[00:13:30] That's not, but allowing access to the firefighters. That's kind of cool. Um, same thing. You don't want to have any kind of locked gates or anything for the firefighters. You want to make sure you open access to anybody coming in. Um, keeping in touch with, uh, like I said, a NOAA radio or something where you're hearing the emergency warnings coming out. You want like the most local news station, you know, that you have available.

[00:13:58] Now, when they say evacuate, I know Chuck and I normally will, will recommend you don't don't take off. You know what I mean? Bugging out isn't always the best situation, but there are certain cases and this is one of them. When your neighborhood's burning down. Get the fuck out of there. Yeah. Yeah. Don't hang out. Don't try and fight the fire and save your house. You know, you should know ahead of time whether or not your house is covered. You know, for fire insurance and, and most of them are most insurance policies.

[00:14:26] That's one of the things they cover, but not all of them. Not all of them. And, and that's one of the things is guess what? It's a five minute phone call to call your insurance agent. Hey, where do I stand on floods? Where do I stand on earthquakes? Where do I stand on fires? Have those questions and be like, Hey, what's going on? You know, how am I protected? And Hey, what's the difference? You know, what would it cost me to be covered for fire? Do you recommend another company that does fire?

[00:14:55] If you don't, you know, like then I can add fire on to whatever I'm doing or whatever, you know, it's better to ask these questions before than to hope for the best and find out later. Right. Um, and find out that maybe you didn't have the coverage that you thought you did. Um, that's, you know, that's the big thing that you want to think about now. What are, I was looking into stuff.

[00:15:22] I see a lot of like YouTube shorts and things like that things on Tik TOK or wherever that are like, Oh, this celebrity's house didn't burn down. Find out why, you know, like, and obviously cause you know, Satan was protecting him is my guess, right. You know, look it out for his people. Right. Um, no, but it was, it was things like, Hey, look, Jennifer Aniston had a fire suppression system on her house.

[00:15:48] And maybe that's something you might want to do, you know, and to be honest, if you live in a really volatile area like that, where firefighters are very common and maybe you're just a good prepared guy, there are a lot of different options and a lot of different budgets that, you know, things that you could do. Uh, so I looked into it. I looked on Amazon and different things. I looked at a lot of different fire suppression.

[00:16:17] They started out really big. Like when I went to YouTube, I saw one called actually, let me find the perfect one here. There was one called the hydro cannon. And if you search, I think hydro halo, uh, this guy had a cart that you could drop a hose into your, uh, into your swimming pool or a pond. And they basically had two setups, but this stuff was not cheap.

[00:16:45] You were talking like 5,500 or 6,500, but it basically is like a trash pump kind of thing. That's sucking the water out and setting you up with real hoses that you're fighting fires. Now, again, this is when you end up in the wrong spot and things are going bad. Cause in theory, you want to get the hell out of there.

[00:17:06] You know, and the truth is if you're going to spend the money on that thing, boy, I, I'd have a hard time fucking evacuating my house. If I spent six grand, uh, getting, uh, getting a fire system into the car that's, I'm driving out. Right. Uh, but I mean, you get out there and you're all surrounded in your house, but your house is safe. And then your pool runs out of water and, and you're up shit's Creek. So there was another one.

[00:17:35] I mean, the, the prices range to all kinds of different things. So there was one called the iron owl and this thing was like 159 bucks. And it basically is one of those little spigot sprinklers. And it just connects in on your roof. Eve, you know, uh, on the, the bend in your roof there and you can just connect them.

[00:18:01] And to be honest, if you had three of those and keeping your roof wet, big difference in, you know, things, uh, I did see there was another one called the fire boss B O Z Z. And that thing is a little more substantial, but honestly, it didn't look like anything more impressive. Uh, I think that the, the spigot was designed that it actually could handle some like chemicals,

[00:18:29] like fire suppression chemicals and like thicker foam and crap like that fire retardant. And that sprinkler shot like a hundred to 300 feet radius. So that's huge, but that was also like 4,700 bucks. So, but that $159, you know, little iron owl, I got to say, kind of cool. You could just put two or three of those up there.

[00:18:54] Cause I got to say, if I'm turning it on and leaving my roof covered with a hose, that sounds like my house has got way better odds. Cause it's those ambers that come in and drop on your roof that are what take you out. And, um, there were other things I looked at, uh, about 550 bucks. I saw something that said firefighter one, uh, fire hose for pool pumps, but it didn't really

[00:19:24] add up to me because it was just using the pressure from your fuel or from your pool pump to shoot the water. And I just can't imagine you're getting enough pressure out of that. Right. It doesn't seem like you're really spraying, getting that much of a distance. It's not up to me, but, and a lot of these also are based on the idea that you have a, a swimming pool, you know? So if you're one of those pours out there, you know,

[00:19:52] yeah, get your life together. Jesus, get a pool. Come on. But I mean, the thing is a lot of these, um, uh, during a lot of these fires, your water pressure in your house is going to go down. You know, they always tell people not to, not to open up the fire hydrants because it decreases the water pressure. If there's a real fire and some places that's, you know, that's a legitimate thing to worry about. Um, but if you're, there's a wildfire going on, uh, you're probably not the

[00:20:19] only asshole out there where the hose trying to hose everything down before you leave. Yeah. Um, the, uh, we also had a, uh, they had a, uh, backpack fire pump that held like five gallons. And I gotta say it was pretty impressive for like fighting spot fires. It was like 250 bucks or something. Uh, the supply cash is the place that sold that, um, might be worth looking into. Again,

[00:20:45] we actually did a, uh, off grid living firefighter kind of episode about, you know, having your own fire truck basically and building things, different things you can do. I'll put a link to it in the show notes and you guys can check that out. Cause I mean, there are other things that you can do, but these are, you're kind of the guy in town and what you can do. Um, now FEMA actually put out a book

[00:21:14] called home builders guide to construction in wildfire zones. And to be honest, they had some pretty good ideas. Uh, one of the things is the type of material you build your house out of, um, you know, having a stone house or, you know, maybe that the stone, they do that. Uh, what do you call it? The, uh, the white stucco that's the one on the outside that, you know, things like that are

[00:21:43] going to obviously help your odds a little bit. Um, you know, obviously we want things to be aesthetically beautiful, but you also don't want to burn down. It's not as beautiful when it's charred and fallen in on itself. I got to say that, um, a big thing that kind of anybody can do and you can do with your house existing. Now it comes at a price, but having a metal roof. Um, I know in

[00:22:07] Alaska and stuff like that, we're in very wildfire prone areas. It's very common to have a metal siding as a, you know, a way to go on your house. And that's something, you know, again, I know California is always trying to be beautiful, but I'm sure they're going to start rethinking a lot of things now and how they do it. And I know everybody kind of seems to be very reactionary in how we do things.

[00:22:33] Um, like something bad happens and then it's like, Oh, everything changes to match that. Right. And then, but then the next thing happens and we're always kind of chasing our tail, but fire prevention, always worth, you know, being afraid of fires are terrifying. Um, the, uh, the FEMA book talked about how there should be kind of zones of, of boundary outside your area.

[00:23:02] And like the initial, everybody kind of seemed to agree that the initial 30 feet is really where you want to be. And it's weird because if you're on a hillside, they really expand that number too. They want like a hundred feet. Right. But, um, the initial 30 feet is kind of crucial to keep any kind of flammable bushes, leaves raked up. Uh, one of the big things, keeping your gutters clean,

[00:23:28] uh, is, is a big one. Um, wood piles turns out wood actually burns. And if you have a bunch of logs sitting next to your house, that's a no-go. So you either want to put that inside your garage or you want to put it, you know, out of way 30 feet from your property. And in a perfect fantasy world, you have like it on a gravel kind of pit kind of thing where it's not going to be, I mean,

[00:23:55] you can do what you can do. Right. We all do things, but you know, that that's what you can do. You may want to rethink living in California. I mean, there's a lot of issues that, you know, you can do. It's a horrible thing to say, Kevin, you're a mean, hurtful person. Um, reduce, uh, prune and like take care of dead trees and dead shrubs. And you end up with a lot of like debris

[00:24:24] that is like, I know I have woods on my property and there's a lot of dead brush underneath and that's where things start and escalate and can really, you know, get out of hand. So you may want to, you know, look into that now, like I've actually been exposed to some fires in my life. I mean, it started out when I was a little kid, I was like four or five years old, our neighbor's house

[00:24:53] caught on fire. And it was to the point, you know, it was like two in the morning and fire departments banging on the door. Hey, there's a big fire right next to your house and you need to get out and evacuate. And, you know, you're standing in the street in the middle of the winter time and whatever, but it, when something is like full on in flames like that and just engulfing, it's amazing and

[00:25:19] terrifying. And it is horrible. We had, and then later on in life, my family had a cottage is like my grandparents or whatever up in Canada. And again, out in the middle of nowhere. And the, uh, I think what they decided was that it was actually, somebody had probably broke in

[00:25:45] and robbed the place and then to kind of cover their tracks, they set it on fire. So that way you wouldn't know that it was robbed kind of, or it just like, none of it added up. Nobody's like, oh, criminals are really smart people. Right. Um, you know, it's a little iffy on, on the details, but, uh, I know that one of the, the only things left after it all kind of burned to the ground was,

[00:26:10] uh, was a still, they had an old still that was like in the melt melted pile of metal in the, the middle of the room or something along that line, obviously to make clean water. Cause that's right. Yeah. That's, I'm sure that's what they're doing there. Yeah. You know, you have to have your priorities, but yeah, there's always, and the fire department though, same thing was like two hours to get there. Cause the nearest thing was just forever away.

[00:26:37] And they're like, oh, we don't plan to save your house. We're just trying to keep the rest of the neighborhood to burn down. Exactly. You know, you don't realize it, but people, but you lose everything, you know, uh, a friend of mine's house burnt down a long time ago and, and, uh, like just close. They didn't have any, any clothes to wear, you know, they were out at work and the house caught on fire and that's it. Everything's gone. You know, anything that you

[00:27:03] owned, anything that you, you know, ever had, I had a, another friend of mine whose house caught on fire and he was an older guy. And it was a, I mean, I, I thought it was a fire trap to begin with when I, you know, just knowing the house. And, um, he barely got out of there. He grabbed, uh, his guitars on his way out. He left, he left a, uh, uh, coffee can with $5,000 in cash inside

[00:27:29] and grabbed his guitars instead. And then he, uh, set the guitars against his, his car and went back about stuff. And by the time he got back, the guitars had all melted and burnt up anyway. Hmm. So he just didn't get them far, far enough away from the house. I know. I used to have this, uh, pretty awesome, uh, dime bag, uh, you know, I think it's like a

[00:27:53] Dean razor or whatever, some kind of bag there. And yeah. And, and I was the man and I, I sold it on eBay and the girl was in Texas and she was like, gee, was all the lacquer on it all bubbled up and like this when you shipped it. And I'm like, no. And so it turns out the heat can really, uh, do some damage on those kinds of things. Yeah. They don't really hold up to like you would think. Um,

[00:28:21] yeah, no, it's crazy. But the big thing is you want to choose when you're building your house. You want to think about these things, um, both from location as well as, I mean, obviously hindsight, right. We all have the house we have, right. The one I have is surrounded by pine trees and to clear 30 feet out from my house would get rid of a lot of the, the reason I appreciate my house.

[00:28:48] Right. I also don't live in a really wildfire prone area, but you know, things happen and you know, everything is a choice. And I guess that's what it comes down to. It's not, you know, I'm not saying, Oh, you're dumb. Why do you live there? I mean, California is awesome. California has some great temperature, some great, you know, exciting life and, and things happening, some horrible taxes, some horrible prices, but right. But it's summer all year long,

[00:29:17] you know, I had a, uh, uh, relative that lived up. It was a little bit West of, uh, a little bit West of, of Sacramento. And it was, um, it was up in the Sierra mountains, I think. And, uh, they, uh, they had a, their kid had a fire and they kid did everything that you're supposed to do in a normal place, but this isn't, you know, it's not a normal place.

[00:29:40] They're really fire prone. And, uh, you know, he put it all out, buried, buried the coals and things. Then a couple hours later, it started up and he said, he called the fire department, the fire truck showed up and the guy came up to his house and asked for a cup of coffee. He's like, don't you see this like fire going all around? And, uh, he said, once they turned on the engines, those like the amount of water they're putting out, like it's, you know, wasn't a real issue.

[00:30:08] I hadn't gotten out of control yet. And, um, but you know, he was saying that he goes, he wonders why people worry about like terrorists, like, uh, you know, people doing like the nine 11 attacks. It was not that long after it. He said, you could just drive around California during a drought and throwing burning pieces of paper out the window and, you know, cause as much, if not more damage than, than that, you know? Yeah. No, there, there's horrible things that, you know, I mean, if people are evil, there's always opportunity, I think.

[00:30:38] Right. And I, you know, I know that there's a lot of people that, that a lot of these fires are actually started by, you know, arsonists by crazy people. Like I kept looking up for the, the LA fires, you know, they're like, yeah, it could have been people. We don't know where they don't know what it is. I know there's speculation. It was, uh, electrical equipment. Right. But I mean, it, they don't know. It could be anything.

[00:31:02] The conditions were ripe for any bad opportunity. I mean, a lightning strike, uh, anything cars backfiring. I mean, just crazy things that actually, when it's super dry, things can happen. You had a cigarette, but somebody flicks out the windows. It really is crazy. You know, it's enough. And believe it or not, I've seen a lot where I live

[00:31:23] now. Um, over this year, I think I was driving home. It was probably two months ago and somebody's whole front lawn was on fire and it clearly started from the road and was like going up their lawn of dried grass. You know, it was like, how does this happen? You know, it's, and you know, these things

[00:31:48] just happen. I mean, you know, they don't just happen, but they happen from the, the thrown out cigarette lasers from space. Right. You know, these are the, whatever. I know, I know, uh, uh, Marjorie Taylor green. She's the, uh, that genius Congresswoman from Florida. Um, she was saying that the deep state needs to get their, you know, get their weather machine going and get some rain over there. Um, I don't know why they're not doing that, but they're not getting their,

[00:32:17] their, the rain moving. So exactly. If you could just weather it, you know, put it in the computer, rain in California check, turn that drought off. They're so worried about the water. They probably don't even want the rain though. The government, I mean, not the people, people are, it turns out people aren't always a hundred percent lockstep in line with the government. You would think that,

[00:32:42] you know, yeah, I don't know. Turns out not every time people, not, not necessarily. Right. Not necessarily, but that's it. I mean, the big thing is, you know, be aware of what's going on, you know, pay attention to the weather. Hey, it's the fire season. Hey, you know, turns out my, uh, my fire department has a burn ban in effect. Maybe you shouldn't be burning.

[00:33:07] You know, that's obviously I'm not saying these fires started from something like that. I'm just saying, but I mean, we had a significant attention, right? The more we pay attention and follow the better, the outcome is going to be for everybody. And that's a big thing, but it turns out like I, I had this experience at work not that long ago where, you know, I have some medical training and

[00:33:32] things like that. And we have medical people on staff at work that if something bad happens, they come out and handle it. They really weren't able to handle it. And turns out don't know CPR or things that you would assume would be the very basics of a medical train. But my whole point of why

[00:33:56] I'm saying this is you can actually do things to help the firemen. You don't have to be like they're professionals, let them handle it. Now, as far as your safety, they're professionals, let them handle it. I'm not saying put yourself in a bad situation, but I'm saying don't sit there blindly when you could be doing something. That's what I'm saying. Turns out you were responsible for

[00:34:22] you and you kind of care about your stuff more than anybody else does. Right. And that's something you need to think about. Now, does that mean if, you know, your house is surrounded by, you know, everything horrible, you shouldn't be getting out of there. You should have got out of there before that window closed. But, you know, having things in place and set up, that's kind of cool.

[00:34:46] Um, and like Kevin said, you know, water can run out as things are, you know, going on. Obviously there were some stories about, you know, firefighters saying, well, it's your own problem. If you know, your house is on fire and I'm not coming in, you should have left when we put the thing. And it is frustrating to, when you ignore all the safety, you can't expect other people to risk their

[00:35:13] lives. Right. To come save you. Like if the government comes out and they put on every single channel, every single radio station, Hey, you need to evacuate. They're sending emergency texts to your phone, get out of your house, leave now. And you stay and don't do anything. You're kind of on your own. That's always, they do that with hurricanes, right? Right. You know, you have to evacuate. Yeah. They're not coming to your house in the middle of a hurricane to help you out.

[00:35:41] After they told you to leave. Yeah. After the hurricane, that's a different story. If they can get there, they will, but they're not going out in 120 mile an hour winds and, and downpours of rain so that they can come help you out when you should have been gone anyway. And I understand they made a choice. They're a firefighter. You're not whatever, but you don't want to put somebody else in danger based on your bad decisions. That's all I'm saying. I'm just

[00:36:08] saying, be aware and, you know, respectful of other people. Turns out they have value too. But anyway, that's it. So make sure you guys comments, fire stories, advice. Maybe I missed something. Like I said, cutting a fire break. One of the prepper novels, speaking of fire breaks, I read, they actually guy had like a bulldozer and stuff. And he kind of made berms around his house

[00:36:35] and like built up dirt, but that's going to be, if you have time, right. You only have so much time and a bulldozer, right. But these are things, you know, I mean, it's good tractor or whatever. It just takes time. But if you can push back and there's nothing wrong with, Hey, there's a bunch of trees that are closer than 30 feet. Maybe I can cut those down and push them back as fires approaching,

[00:36:59] you know, cause sometimes, you know, days in advance, Hey, there's wildfires getting closer and closer. Sometimes you don't. So it's all about, you know, using your judgment and doing the best you can, but know that things can get out of hand quickly. I think that's the best advice for fire stuff. And then, you know, so what do you, what do you, what do you think about this?

[00:37:26] LA 2.0, uh, conspiracy theory. Oh, the conspiracies. So that's the thing. They, LA had proposed that they were going to make like a future city and you know, it's going to be a green LA, the smart city. And they even said the same thing with Bahaina in Maui.

[00:37:49] And they just, you know, having a fresh, clean start and, you know, gee, I can start from nothing and new building codes and new, and I can push people that, that is kind of something that you're like, gee, it kind of seems, but I got to say as much as the conspiracy goes, I would say those Santa

[00:38:14] nanowinds have been, you know, this kind of thing seemed like it was inevitable from way back. I don't think you need lasers and future weapons to start fires in California. Um, it, it's tough and nobody wants to see, I mean, that devastation and destruction, it's kind of like, gee, my house is the only one surrounded by five miles of burnout, everything that survived. Yeah. Your stuff is

[00:38:44] there, but you can't even get to your stuff. Maybe, you know, after, after the whole thing. So, you know, again, it's, it's all, it's hard to accept. I don't know. I don't think that the conspiracy stuff, I don't think it's really accurate, but I think it does make your raise an eyebrow because it is very convenient. Right. That's all I can say. It is very convenient for the government

[00:39:13] in these situations would be my take on that. Yeah. I don't, I don't usually buy in, uh, any of these, you know, I feel like a lot of these conspiracy theories, they, they come up with theory first and then try and look for stuff to support, you know, what they already assume is happening. Um, but they fill in the blanks. Yeah. I'm not going to put it past anybody to do some shady shit like that either. Yeah. If you guys left comments, questions, concerns, thoughts,

[00:39:41] things you want to know about, you can email us at prepping bad-ass at gmail.com. Otherwise I would say stay safe and we will talk to you guys next week.