RUSH: This is George in Blue Jay, California. Hi, George. Nice to have you on the program.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m a retired firefighter that spent 27 years fighting brushfires in Southern California. I have to tell you you’re right on the money. Brushfires are a natural phenomena that are good for the environment. Where we get into problems is the environmentalists that won’t let us thin the trees like what happened in Lake Tahoe or people that build a house and put shake shingle roofs on and we cannot protect their houses, that’s where we get into trouble. But they’re a natural phenomena, and they’re good for the environment.
RUSH: You know, we’re looking something up. I had a story in one of my books about a guy who essentially built a moat all around his house. He lived in a fire-prone area and he built this moat around his house, this big trench and filled it with water to stop the fire. And it did. The guy got cited and fined for violating environmental regulations. It was the same thing that was happening up at Lake Tahoe. If you recall there were people that said, ‘To hell with the regulations, I’m going to go out and clear the brush. I’m going to get rid of this deadwood before the fire gets to my house,’ and they were also in trouble. The environmentalists got mad at them. The idea you can’t touch this stuff, that it’s pristine and all we do is screw it up, it should be here and not have to interact with us, is obscene. What do you think the big problem putting these fires out right now is?
CALLER: Well, right now a lot of it is just the training. We have a lot of firefighters who aren’t sufficiently trained to do it, like up here where I am up in Blue Jay, California, —
RUSH: Where’s that? For people that don’t know.
CALLER: Lake Arrowhead, California, that’s where Running Springs is, that’s where the big fire is. Now, I don’t leave, I stay here and protect my house, and, if I didn’t stay here and protect my house, I could come back and it would be burned down like what happened to about 200 homes around here just because the water system, they didn’t put enough money into the water system, they spent it on something else instead of fire protection. So there is a problem; it has to be a priority.
RUSH: George, what could you do to protect your house if the fire is headed for you?
CALLER: What do I do? First of all, I make sure that all the combustibles are away from the house, make sure I don’t have a shake shingle roof and I have a fire hydrant right on the corner and I hook up fire hoses and I get out and actually can protect it after it goes by. But what happens is, if there’s nobody there to protect it, and the little fires keep going around it, then, of course, the house is going to burn down because there’s nobody there to protect it.
RUSH: What about this gel substance that they’re using to coat houses with fire retardant, does that really work?
CALLER: Yeah, that really works and Class A Foam really works and you can foam your own house. You can actually buy foam that you can spray your house, and firefighters in LA County and Ventura County are using Class A Foam, and houses that they don’t want to stay there, they don’t have the manpower, they can spray the house with the foam and leave, and the foam protects the house very well. So there are a lot of things that homeowners can do to protect their own house that right now is just — I would do if I was a homeowner in Southern California living in a brush area, which I am right now.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate your call, George. It’s been very enlightening. Tell me something. Before you go, I’ve heard about this gel stuff. I don’t know how you put it on the house, but I guess you douse it with some kind of a hose or something, and the gel goes on, and it is very fire retardant, and then you rinse it off —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — once the fire is gone, it’s gone. Now, I’m looking at 30 and 40 foot flames. Are you telling me this gel will repel that kind of fire?
CALLER: Yeah, the fire won’t go through. It’s a fire repellent, and it is designed so the fire will not reach the combustible beneath the gel. It repels the fire. Now, if it’s on there for a long period of time, yes, it will wear off, it’s only effective for a short period of time, from what I understand.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah.
CALLER: But, you know, right before the fire, you cover your house with this gel, yes, it will protect it.
RUSH: Appreciate that, George, thanks much for the call and best of luck to you out there.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: You bet.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Mark in Lakeside, California, Mark. Nice to have you with us. Welcome.
CALLER: Rush, it’s an honor. I usually am a regular listener, but the last couple of days I haven’t been able to tune you in. I’m a survivor of the Cedar fire from 2003 in the Southern California area east of East County San Diego, and this current fire, where we live is about five miles south of the Witch fire and about five miles north of the Harris fire. So we didn’t really have any real problems. We didn’t get evacuated or anything, but there’s several things that were different from the two fires. One, as with the Cedar fire, the community outpouring, just the people there that were helping, backhoes, flatbeds with graders on them, water trucks, all that stuff, plus all the community outpouring to Qualcomm, I think on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday they actually put out a call to hold off on items until the weekend because they actually had too much.
That was before FEMA showed up, or I shouldn’t say before FEMA showed up, but, man, anything that FEMA can do to help us, I’m sure we’re going to appreciate, and they’re an after responder as opposed to first responders, as they should be. They’re there to provide backup, and I know as one San Diegan, we’ll welcome it. But, you know, talking about the environmental aspects of this, you know, the brush clearing, there’s been a little more of that going on in the last couple years because they learned that from the Cedar fire. Also there have been a couple of communities that were actually designed with this type of thing in mind, and they experienced zero loss. Forest Ranch up by Escondido is one that I read about in the paper. But, again, it was an extraordinary event. I never thought I’d see anything like the Cedar fire, but, you know, wow.
RUSH: You’re out there, but let me tell you what we’re seeing. Those of us who watch — and we’ve had a bunch of people that called from San Diego yesterday — what we’re seeing is 100% self-reliance, we are seeing people band together to help each other. You just mentioned they had more supplies at Qualcomm than they needed. We’re not hearing a bunch of whining and moaning, people are not asking, ‘Where’s the government?’ The only people complaining are the Democrats and the Drive-By Media. The people involved in this have accepted it for what it is, dealing with it for what it is, it is what it is. They can’t change it. They’re dealing with it and they’re doing it in an optimistic way and it’s very admirable to watch the way people are handling this disaster out there, that’s what we who are not there who watch it on TV see, and it’s inspiring, in the midst of all this destruction and what has to be, you know, again, I put myself in the shoes of people who have lost everything or have been on the verge of losing everything, and it’s nowhere any of us would want to be, and I watch ’em, and I listen to them on television dealing with this sort of thing, and they’re asked questions of people, Drive-Bys are begging them to complain, begging them to whine, begging them to blame somebody, and they’re not doing that, and it’s a great lesson for everybody who’s watching this to learn how to deal with these kinds of things that happen.