Wildfire Wars: The Story of the California Fires

Here's Nathan, from Berkeley, California. You mentioned getting close to the fires. This gets -- this gets to that. He says, "I'm wondering how you protected your equipment in the heat. Did you have any problems? How close to the fires do you actually come?" And, finally, "Why was the media allowed to go into these areas, but not people who live there?"

JEFFREY KAYE: Ah, good question. Thank you, Nathan.

Well, the -- you know, we -- we try to be as cautious as we possibly can. We don't want to get too close, but yet, we want to get close -- as close as possible.

We have been doing this for a while. We, kind of, know what the parameters are. We drive in and carefully park, so we're facing out, in case we need to leave quickly. We don't get too close to the fire. We figure, if we're close by firefighters, who know a little bit more than we do about what's likely to happen, we'll be okay. And if we go to areas where we don't see too many firefighters, believe me, we -- you know, we leave. We -- if we sense a danger. And we had to do that a couple of times.

Why do reporters get into areas that residents can't? You know, I think there is a sense, in this country, that people deserve to know. We're all accredited, so we did have the luxury of going through roadblocks, flashing our credentials, and they let us in, expecting that we're going to behave ourselves.

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: One of the reasons that they're very careful at roadblocks, and there are so many around, and -- you know, that we -- constantly pulling out our credentials -- is that there was concern about looters, particularly in these upscale communities. And many of the affected areas were pretty upscale.

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: And so, they want to be cautious about who they let in.

JEFFREY BROWN: There's a question -- actually, this is interesting, it's from a woman in Malibu. I guess it's someone you didn't talk to, because -- her name is Maggie -- because she says, "How did people react when you were talking to them? The media always covers tragedy, and I can't believe people who lost everything have the energy to talk to you."

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah, that's always a question that's interested me, Maggie. It's -- you know, I -- and, frankly, I've never completely understood it.

I should say that we are very discrete, we try to be compassionate and careful. We don't run up to people and thrust microphones and cameras in people's faces, because we recognize they're encountering disasters and tragedy. We try to get their -- we do get their permission before we -- before we talk to them.

Why they talk, I don't know. Maybe there's a need to share, maybe they feel, as they're going through something, it's easier for them to talk it out as they're -- as they're trying to figure out what to do next. Your guess is as good as mine on that.

I'm not sure, frankly, I would be so understanding and react the way that people do to us when we ask them to talk. They're going through, obviously, a very difficult, emotional time in their lives.

Some people are prepared for it. If you've lived in Malibu for any period of time, you know you're living in a vulnerable area, and maybe you've been through it before. We encountered a number of people, not only in Malibu, but in the San Diego area, who had been through numerous fires. So, we're kind of -- this was not old hat or routine, but they certainly were prepared. They had been evacuated before. Some had lost places before. And --

JEFFREY BROWN: And you actually, certainly, talked to some of those people who --

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: -- have been through this --

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: -- several times.

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, perhaps it -- it's -- there's a cathartic feeling in being able to express themselves as they're going through it.

But -- no, I think it's a good question. I've never understood, frankly, why so many people going through such emotional -- in such emotional crisis, actually --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- do talk to reporters.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, there's a question about how much warning people had. This is from William, in Tucson, "Why were people not given more warning about the fires? Some of these people just left their houses, in their pajamas. How is it possible that they did not have more warning?" What was your sense of how people responded or got the information about the danger and how much time they had to get out?

JEFFREY KAYE: It varied from community to community and fire to fire. Don't forget that, when these fires broke out early in the week, the Santa Ana winds, these very strong winds from the desert, had whipped up and were fanning the flames like crazy. And there was only so much warning, in some places, that people could get, and they got it in different ways.

Some areas, many areas, have what they call a reverse 911 system. That's an automated system where the authorities can basically plug in coordinates and get people on the phone, in automated messages, and tell them to get out of their homes. And often they follow those up with actual phone calls, if they can. So, that's one way people got the message.

The other way people got the message was the old-fashioned way, of cops driving around or firefighters driving around the streets with bullhorns, telling people to leave their homes. And the reason they had to do that was, just very simply, the -- you know, the fires were close by, the winds were kicking up, and they were coming down in unpredict -- the fire was coming down in unpredictable ways. So, it was very difficult to give people --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- satisfactory warning in some areas.

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah, I think that's a perceptive question, and I think it's -- it's a -- there's a real balancing act that we have to do, and sometimes we don't do a very good job of that. And that is -- and I've heard that, and felt that, at times, in covering disasters. It's not true just of this case, but true of many others. You know, to what extent do we give the impression that the entire area is an inferno? That certainly wasn't the case here.

But I think it's kind of characteristic of how we operate, for good or bad, and it's what we do. We do need to be more careful in putting these kinds of disasters in context.

I remember an earthquake, many years ago in Los Angeles, that -- where there was a fairly dramatic shot, after the earthquake, of -- a brick wall had fallen down, and the bricks had smashed onto three or four cars that were basically ruined, that had bricks all over them. But, beyond that, there really wasn't much damage in L.A. However, that was the image that went all over the world. And I know people in Los Angeles who received phone calls from friends and relatives everywhere, asking if they were okay, even though there wasn't much damage. We often fail to -- as I say, to put these things in context.

During the riots in Los Angeles in the '90s, I remember being up in a helicopter when there were fires sporadically all around L.A., and I made a conscious effort to make sure that we -- instead of just getting the tight shot of the fire, we pulled back to show, yeah, there were flames here and there, but Los Angeles wasn't on fire --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- completely. But it's -- it -- you know, it's a difficult thing to do, since we're right there, and what people want to know about is the -- is the fire that you're covering. You know, it's the same question about, Why doesn't -- why doesn't the media show the good news? You know, as we drive down the street and there's fire -- if houses are destroyed on one side of the street and intact on the other, chances are you're going to see the ruins, you're not going to see intact houses that look like any other suburb --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- on any other day.

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

There is -- there were a number of questions that I -- I guess I'll put in the category of resources and how they were used.

Ben Andrews, Phoenix, Arizona, "Why do we fight today's forest fires and wildfires in the same labor-intensive way we fought them 100 years ago?"

Lawrence Ganns, in West Palm Beach, Florida, "I never hear any discussion about fire hydrants, something we can't imagine being without in eastern cities. Are there no hydrants in these areas?"

What was your sense of the resources brought to bear and the questions, I guess, that arise out of this now?

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah. Well, first of all, don't forget, there are more than a dozen fires happening simultaneously around southern California. So, I know there's a lot of debate and discussion, and I'm sure that'll continue, and justifiably, about whether or not there were enough resources. It's difficult to fight so many fires that are so widespread. Even with the mutual-assistance agreements they have, which means that firefighting crews come in from neighboring counties and neighboring States, it's just -- you can't put as many resources as you want on every fire, particularly when the fires are widespread, as I say, and when they're popping up here and there.

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: In Orange County, just south of Los Angeles, there was criticism because the authorities -- the firefighting resources were spread thin. And one of the reasons was that firefighters from Orange County were out fighting fires in an adjacent county --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- so, had to get back to Orange County to do the firefighting.

Terms of whether or not the technology has improved -- sure, it's improved a lot. I mean, there were fleets of aircraft and helicopters in the -- in the air, dropping fire-retardant and water that they picked up from lakes -- not the retardant, but the water -- from lakes and from the ocean. So, that certainly is a new way of -- relatively new way of fighting fires.

There were tankers that -- water tankers that went out with fire engines. And certainly the firefighters did plug into the hydrants, where they could, but also relied, in the -- in the more remote areas, on water tankers that accompanied the fire engines into the areas.

And, as far as the water goes, from what I could tell, at least where I was, they didn't seem to run out of water. They -- the engines -- I do know that firefighters expressed a great deal of frustration in the beginning, because they wanted to see more choppers, more aircraft in the air, spraying down water, but they -- there are debates about why those aircraft weren't up in the air in the --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- beginning. But one of the big explanations, that I think is valid, is that the winds just didn't allow the firefighters to put those helicopters and planes in the air, and --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right, that's certainly what they were saying for several days, yeah.

JEFFREY KAYE: Absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yeah.

Well, did you -- did you hear other things from people on the ground, firefighters, about, I don't know, concerns about lack of resources or help that they were getting from the State?

JEFFREY KAYE: No, not really.

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: And, again --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- that may just simply be a function of the number of people we --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- we spoke to.

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JEFFREY KAYE: We couldn't --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- be everywhere, and I'm -- and I don't know what was going on in the private briefings and meetings that --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- that people were having.

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: You know, obvious -- the fire -- the individual firefighters have enough to do with just running from one fire to the --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- next without --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- thinking about the bigger picture.

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah. Well, one of the stories that didn't get on the air, that I thought was really interesting, was a -- was a story that we didn't put on the air, because we didn't have the pictures. And that is, one evening there -- we heard that the big story and the big fire -- and I alluded to this earlier -- was taking place in a small community called Julian. And it's about an hour and a half to the east of San Diego, known -- an old mining community known for its apples. And so, we raced out, after we had finished that story for the day, hoping to shoot what was going on in the community of Julian, where we had been told, or had heard, that the community was either getting ready to evacuate or was evacuating. It was unclear from the reports that we were getting.

When we got out to Julian, after going through the numerous roadblocks, the place was empty. It was kind of surreal. It was a ghost town. There was one deputy sheriff in the middle of the street, the main street. There's only one, I think, in Julian. And we asked what was going on and where the fires were, and he said that everyone had evacuated. To him, it seemed kind of premature. He didn't quite understand why no one was around. He couldn't see any fires, and we couldn't see any fires from where we were.

So, it was all a little mind-boggling, til we went to the local fire station, that the local fire department and others were using as a base, to ask them what was going on, and they told us that, in fact, there were fires that -- sort of, ringing the community, but that were several miles out. They didn't feel safe -- or didn't have the manpower to take us out there, but the -- it was suggested that we could go find the fire, if we wanted to, and they gave us direction -- but that the reason that Julian had been evacuated was, again, the unpredictability of --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- the winds. Julian seemed safe at the time we were there, and they hoped it would be, but there was some concern that the worst -- the winds would reverse, the fires would come in, and would engulf the community. At the time, Julian wasn't in any imminent danger, but this was a precautionary method. They felt they just needed to get everyone out of town.

We went out to where we had been told the fires were, and -- but, frankly, they were so far away and so remote and so hard for us to get to that we ended up turning around, coming home, didn't get a story that we could put on the air --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But a story to tell.

JEFFREY KAYE: But a story to tell.

JEFFREY BROWN: Here's a question about -- well, you were alluding to this earlier -- about what we see on television about the homes that are damaged, and then the ones that aren't.

JEFFREY KAYE: Yeah.

JEFFREY BROWN: This is from Mike Healy, in Hailey, Idaho, "In the news, we keep hearing about how the fire damage to homes appears random, with one house standing among the ruins of its neighbors. In the past, I've seen pictures of such neighborhoods, but the standing houses have tile or composite roofs. I'm wondering if the same is true this time."

I mean, do you -- were you able to tell if there was something that determined which ones lasted? Was there -- I guess, there were also questions about, in some of these more expensive homes, did they have fire-retardant materials? Did that make a difference?

JEFFREY KAYE: Sure. Yes, it did. And -- but, again, it goes -- it sort of goes to, in some cases, the unpredictability.

Obviously, some of the homes that survived, people had fire-retardant materials, concrete roofs, other things that had been done to the house in the building process. In the same community, you'd see particular older suburban areas, some homes that were just better built, or newer homes than the older homes, that weren't made as fire retardant as possible. Other homes had better clearing around them than others. I think they tell everyone to make sure there's nothing combustible with -- I believe, it's about 100 feet of the home. I could be wrong about that. But, you know, some people follow that diligently, and others don't.

And then, the -- you know, the sparks that would land on one house, cause one house to go up, and --

JEFFREY BROWN: Right.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- obviously, not another, if there was no fire threat nearby, would determine whether one place went up and another didn't.

Often, the firefighters were standing by and able to save lots of places just by doing what they call "structure protection," standing by, waiting, and trying to anticipate the direction of a fire, and fending it off, hosing things down if they saw the fire coming one direction or not. But, again, hard to determine where the fire --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- where the --

JEFFREY BROWN: Uh-huh.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- flames are going to go, and where the embers are going to fall. Again, I've got to keep coming back to the story of the winds --

JEFFREY BROWN: Yeah.

JEFFREY KAYE: -- that just carried the embers in unpredictable directions.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. And I'll make this the last one. It's a -- sort of, looking ahead here -- it's actually about the insurance companies. From Dan Morgan, in Huntington Beach, California, "How are the insurance companies handling all of the claims from the California wildfires? And how did they do it in the past?"

I'm sure this is all just getting underway now, but you've watched these things -- these disasters in California in the past. What do you see now? Or what kind of issues do you expect to see?

JEFFREY KAYE: Well, there are always issues of -- the first thing that comes to mind that goes -- and it's a cautionary tale -- from phony claims adjustors. There's -- insurance officials always are very wary of these shysters who go out and tell people that they can get them money quickly, and the caution is to stay away from them.

But, you know, frankly, the California insurance companies are used to these disasters. They set up very quickly. They have claims adjusters out there immediately, and -- within days. That was the case in California. As days go on, you know, I'm sure that they'll be wrangling over just how much the properties are worth and those kinds of things. The property values have skyrocketed over the last few years, and I'm sure there'll be issues of whether people were insured for the full value of their properties and other things.

But, in terms of preparation, from the insurance companies' point of view, they -- they had the tents up in the emergency centers, people lining up to process claims. And, you know, I -- that part of it will be handled pretty expeditiously, I would think. I imagine there's going to be a lot of wrangling, though, over what was lost and how much it was worth.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Well, I want to thank all the viewers who wrote letters in. And, Jeffrey Kaye, in Los Angeles, thank you so much for the coverage and for talking to us now.

JEFFREY KAYE: You're very welcome.