gotten so bad that it wasn t safe to breathe. so my wife and i took me, the asthmatic, my elderly parent, and our kids straight to vegas. not because we wanted to gamble, but because it was close and there were cheap flights. now back then, it seemed like a oneself-in-a-lifetime thing. rescue, what is your emergency? reporter: but ever since, the fires in california have gotten worse. dixie fire. woolsey fire. are more towns burned to the ground, more forests devastated and more refugees. this episode is about californians and fire, because we got to learn how to get along. now if you re thinking that you re safe because you live outside of california, nope. wildfires happen across america, from alaska to florida. and they happen all over the world. wildfires sweeping across australia. cape town. estonia and turkey. all the way to the north pole. and even if they aren t happening near you, the effects are definitely coming to your doorstep. there i
california history. agh. lucky for us the fires hadn t made it to where my family lives in oakland, but the air had gotten so bad that it wasn t safe to breathe. so my wife and i took me, the asthmatic, my elderly parent, and our kids straight to vegas. not because we wanted to gamble, but because it was close and there were cheap flights. now back then, it seemed like a oneself-in-a-lifetime thing. fire rescue, what is your emergency? but ever since, the fires in california have a gotten worse. dixie fire. woolsey fire. are more towns burned to the ground, more forests devastated and more refugees. this episode is about californians and fire, because we got to learn how to get along. now if you re thinking that you re safe because you live outside of california, nope. wildfires happen across america, from alaska to florida. and they happen all over the world. wildfires sweeping across australia. cape town. estonia and turkey. nigeria. all the wa
in order to protect the land from the bad fire, more and more permits are being issued to conduct prescribed burns, aka good fire. but you got to know what you re doing to get the permit. so we re going to take out this top little corner. we re going take our time. today i m going the hang out with some people who definitely know what they re doing at a prescribed burn on private property. always try to be downhill of the fire. leading the way are wildfire analyst zeke lunder and don hankins, a member of the plains mewoc tribe. a couple of miles ago the camp fire burned a quarter mile from here. they ve been living with this extreme fear of fire. so we got this effort started locally to make it easier for landowners to burn their own land. the object is to not kill the big trees, but we do want to kill little baby trees. we want to kill brush. the more communities live in these kinds of environments can use fire, the better off they re going to be. if you each grab a to
home. and i had to be like i m sorry, but everybody here is going to die if we don t get all four lanes going south. i saw people running on foot, carrying babies and dogs and their hair catching on fire from embers. at one point, we re herding them into a walgreens to shelter them. i think we ended up with over 100 people in there. and i remember the firefighters going is this going to work? and i go i don t know. but if they re outside when the fire front hits, it s going to kill them all. it was chaos. by the end of the day on november 8th, almost 19,000 structures had been destroyed and 85 people had died. how many times did we try to get to a person that we couldn t make it to, or get somebody, you know, too late. i just can t imagine what that feels like. i think the campfire is
going on down. and if you spend time with fire, then you get the lessons. yeah, it s perfect. wow. a very zen mind state. exactly. there is a lot of people who can benefit from doing this. you rant kidding. i pay $125 for therapy. i just come up here. the leaders are supposed to be in charge of california s environment still feel they re at war with wildfire, and no one is getting it right. as long as we keep fighting that war, we re spending billions of dollars a year and fire is still burning down the lands. we ve been fighting for 100 years. now it s teamed up with climate change. we need a truce, you know. come up with some terms, a settlement. like we ve occupied fire s territory. and if you build a settlement in fire s territory, you can keep living there, but you got to be all right with fire coming in whenever it wants, you know? it s so weird that a second