L.A. Fires Memo: Save the Weeds!

Bill Whittle Network

News

4.9 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the small brushfire that would go on to consume Pacific Palisades (and kill 12 people) was just one hour old, an urgent request for bulldozers to create a firebreak to contain it was met with this response from the Los Angeles Fire Department: “Heck no! That area is filled with endangered plants!” The fire went on to consume 6,837 structures and burned for 24 days.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Insert completely gobsmacked reaction to the latest Pacific Palisades fire news here.
0:06.9	Hey, everybody, I'm Steve Green with Bill Whittle and Scott Ott.
0:09.4	This is Right Angle, brought you by the members at Bill Whittle.com.
0:12.2	And gentlemen, I just, I didn't have any words when I read this story.
0:16.7	A batch of just-released text messages and other communications between California officials and the Los Angeles Fire Department from the run-up to the Pacific Palisades Fire revealed a system more concerned with a few endangered plants than with massive destruction and death.
0:34.2	And I mean, this, okay, this is the part that left me just speechless.
0:38.5	And it's from the LA Times report that came out on Sunday.
0:42.5	And it said, an hour after midnight on January 1st as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park.
0:49.5	That's the fire that would smolder and become the Palisades fire that killed a dozen people,
0:55.1	destroyed more than 6,000 homes and other buildings.
0:57.2	You know the drill.
0:57.8	Anyway, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department's heavy
1:03.1	equipment supervisor to find out if they were going to send in the bulldozers.
1:07.7	And Captain Richard Dede replied, I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, he replied,
1:13.6	heck no, that area is full of endangered plants. I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in
1:20.0	that area. I am so trained. And this is where you just want to lean in and whisper,
1:28.7	Endangered plants burn, too.
1:31.1	But to be fair to the captain, that is the training, and that is apparently what California requires.
1:40.2	Bill, you're in Los Angeles.
1:42.3	The L.A. Times published that story on Sunday.
1:44.7	What is the mood like there?
1:46.4	One of the best parts of your city is, you know, it's gone.
	...

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