Some fires are safe to burn in isolated areas, so are they the enemy? A deep dive into LA's Japanese cuisine. The safest place to live in CA as the climate warms.
Big fires, big business: The cost of fighting wildfires has ballooned in recent decades
It doesn't matter where you live, nature's threats are everywhere.
Case-in-point: Houston, Texas. Residents there are assessing the damage from last week's hurricane, as another threatens the Florida coast.
But the perils don't end there.
In California, at least 20 active wildfires are burning as of Thursday morning. These fires and the flames to come are likely to be of interest to one Michael Kodas.
Kodas is the author of the new book: "Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame."
In it, he makes the case that over the past three decades, wildfire fighting has ballooned to become a multi-billion dollar industry in the country – that's reason enough to rethink our relationship with forest fires.
In an interview with Take Two's A Martinez, Kodas outlines how the U.S. came to view this natural phenomenon, and when the country's antiquated attitude toward fires crossed a line.
Highlights
When did we declare war on fire?
This goes back more than 100 years to the big burn of 1910, which was a fire about the size of Connecticut that burned in Idaho and Montana, about five years into the existence of the U.S. Forest Service.
This fire was so intense that it actually nearly overran a guy named Ed Pulaski and his crew of firefighters.
Years later, America latched onto this hero story of Ed Pulaski and everybody that fought this fire, even though the firefighters on the ground there said it was a total failure.
The next several leaders of the U.S. Forest Service were all veterans of this fire and eventually they would implement what they called an "out by 10 am" policy, which was basically that we would extinguish every wildfire that was sighted in the United States by 10 am the day after it was sighted, regardless of whether it threatened humanity or human structures.
That led to a vast firefighting operation that's proven to be very expensive for our government and changed the structure of many of our forests in the U.S. In some cases, it made those forests more prone to more severe fires today.
How much money are we spending on this?
In the 1990s, the U.S. spent about $300 million a year on wildfire – that's fighting fires and preparing, preventing and helping landscapes recover from them afterward.
That number in a bad fire year today can top $3 billion. The trajectory of expenditures on wildfire is on a very steep climb, and that's before you consider what states like California spend.
It sounds like a growing business. Where is that money coming from and how is it usually spent?
When you're looking at the figures I gave there, we're talking about U.S. taxpayer's dollars, generally.
About half or more goes to the private sector. One interesting way to get a sense of how much money there is in a wildfire is to just go by a fire camp when there's a big fire going on. The biggest profit line to private contractors is in aviation. The aircraft are incredibly expensive to operate. The retardants are often quite expensive.
A 747 SuperTanker has joined Cal Fire to battle fires
Look, up in the sky!
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdAX8WVXtVI
Oh, wait. It is a plane. A 747 to be exact. For the cool price of $16,500 per flight hour, one of these wide-bodies is now part of the state's fleet of aircraft used in tackling wildfires.
Cal Fire shares the use of the plane with other states and it's called on as needed, mostly when fires are high on a ridge and difficult to reach with a ground crew.
Cal Fire deployed the 747 for the second time this past weekend to battle a blaze in Riverside County. Mike Mohler is a battalion chief with Cal Fire and he told Take Two's A Martinez that the plane is a "tool in the tool box" and, as fires grow more fierce, it's needed.
"You have to look at firefighting, when you have wild land fire, it really is a paramilitary operation," Mohler said. "Planes and helicopters don't put fire out - they need the assistance of the ground troops -
To hear the full conversation with Chief Mohler about how the state plans to use the 747s and why planes are essential to fighting fires, despite the costs, click the blue play button above.
In a world with a changing climate, where in California should you live?
California has always dealt with Mother Nature, wildfires, earthquakes — you name it. Although climate change may not be responsible for these events, many experts believe it could amplify natural disasters in the future.
If climate change begins to impact life in the state, is there a place in California where the effects wouldn't be as intense?
Reporter
has been thinking about this issue for years. She wrote an article about it for the Sacramento Bee and joined Take Two to talk about what she discovered.
For poor drug users, Medi-Cal offers a fresh start
LACMA Review: Almaraz was not a great Chicano painter. He was a great painter, period.
KPCC cultural correspondent Marc Haefele reviews “Playing with Fire: Paintings by Carlos Almaraz,” at LACMA until December 3.
Carlos Almaraz was not a great Chicano painter. He was a great painter, period. You can see for yourself at LACMA’s new exhibit, “Playing with Fire.”
Almaraz was born in 1941 in Mexico City, but his parents quickly moved … first to Chicago, then to East LA in 1950. His experience of these widely differing environments probably inflected his vision of the world. He attended Garfield High, went on to CalState LA, Loyola, and Otis; tried to make it in the New York art scene for five years; then returned to LA in 1970. In between New York and East Los was a brief visit to Mexico to learn about its art, to explore what he increasingly saw as his Chicano heritage.
In the 1970s, Almaraz became close to the struggling UFW, Los Lobos, and the Teatro Campesino. He embraced the agitprop of the time: his archetypal symbol was the clenched fist of revolt. He joined the Chicano artist collaborative known as Los Four. The ideal was “Art for Mankind:” art, such as mural art, for the public, not the rich man’s living room. He then said, “An artist should carry his studio around in his pocket.”
Suddenly, however, there came another kind of revolt. Some said he was selling out, but he said: “I had to return to the studio — to develop ideas…that were unpolitical, that were really my ideas.” He became, in his own words, an "American artist who happened to be Chicano."
Hear curator Howard Fox go deep on Almaraz on KPCC's The Frame
His technique ranges from the literally figurative to almost abstract blurs and splatters, sometimes all in the same painting. There is a sense of layered meaning, and an immensely singular use of color, but his figures are usually representative and even sensual.
His new fascination appeared to be with ideas based on world myths, transplanted into his own personal LA, whose nocturnal Echo Park flaunted purple lagoons with peaked bridges and small craft like paper boats, whose bright lit skyscrapers sway in a giant, concrete cumbia …
Where prim little Eastside bungalows can offer the solace of home and hearth or can just as easily burst into fiery explosion … Where terrifying car crashes offer all the colors of a garden in springtime… Where stag-headed buck-dancers flit through twilight landscapes of drifting symbols…
Where sinister magicians hold forth on mystic stages… All in a gathering darkness that seems increasingly to enfold his work until his tragic death by AIDS in 1989.
This is probably the most comprehensive show of Almaraz’s work ever presented. Maybe it's the most impressive manifestation so far of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, an institutional attempt at an exploration of Latin American and Latino art and the way it affects and is affected by Los Angeles.
"Playing with Fire" will truly shake up your mind.
(Marc's audio review includes excerpts from a 1981 Almaraz documentary by Sheila Ruth, and an in-progress film
From Izakaya to Omakase: Sharing top picks for Japanese food in LA
Whether it's a spicy tuna roll for lunch, or salmon sashimi for dinner, Japanese food is a staple in our culinary routine. But now, we are seeing a revival of this century-old cuisine in Los Angeles.
Garrett Snyder, food editor for Los Angeles Magazine, says it is easy to underestimate how important Japanese cooking is to our food culture. From Sawtelle to South Pasadena, Snyder has been sampling an array of dishes.
"We've really taken it for granted ... you think of what are maybe the two most iconic dishes have a really defined our culture in L.A., and I think of the taco and sushi," he told Take Two's A Martinez. "Let's take a minute and realize how much this cuisine has laid the groundwork for what food culture is in L.A."
You can find some of Snyder's favorites in The Essential Guide to L.A.’s Best Japanese Food. Below are some dishes and restaurants he highlighted for Take Two.
Ramen
"When you talk about ramen in Japan, you really have to talk about the broth. There's places that spend two days or longer straight just boiling these bones ... and there's the toppings ... it really is kind of an art form building the bowl, and it's like a visual thing as much as it is taste. To me, the king [of ramen] is still a place called Tsujita, it's a Japanese chain that moved here ... I also like a place called Ramen Tatsunoya, they a kind of pork tonkatsu broth."
Bento Box
"The best way to think about it is a little sectioned-out lunch box. It's got a little square tray and it has little compartments for elements of the meal – maybe some rice, maybe a little piece of fish, some pickled vegetables. There are a lot of places who are doing higher-end versions, places like Aburiya Raku, which is really one of the best Japanese restaurants in Los Angeles ... if you go during lunch, you can have a bento box of all their greatest hits."
Izakaya
"There's a whole style of restaurant in Japanese cuisine called the izakaya. A pub is the best translation. It fits in with how our current dining culture is with small plates and gastropubs and things like that. You have a couple of grilled skewers, maybe you have some noodles, maybe you have some pickled dishes and then you just have some beer. There's a great place that just opened in Venice called Mountain that's really interesting ... really well-executed classic Japanese food. I also like this place called Yakitoriya, and 'yakitori' [refers to] specifically restaurants that do grilled chicken. Chicken and beer. Universal. Definitely something worth looking up if you haven't experienced it before."
Of course, after the meal, there has to be room for dessert. Click on the blue media player above to hear the full interview and to hear Snyder dish on his dessert picks.
The Ride: California vs. EPA over fuel economy standards; new Nissan Leaf
It was California versus the feds at a Washington D.C. hearing to negotiate a rollback of tightening fuel economy standards put in place during the Obama administration. The California Air Resources Board met Wednesday with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is considering relaxing the fuel economy for cars and light trucks being produced for the 2022 to 2025 model years.
In 2012, the Obama administration finalized stringent new standards it had negotiated with car makers to almost double the fuel economy of passenger vehicles to 54.5 mpg by 2025. The Trump administration announced it planned to review those standards earlier this year.
“My administration will work tirelessly to eliminate the industry-killing regulations,” Trump said during a speech he made in Detroit in March.
Wednesday's public hearing was a step in that process. Among the attendees were environmental groups, auto maker associations and state regulators, including the California Air Resources Board, which has been allowed to set its own fuel economy rules for the state based on a waiver it receives from the US EPA as a result of the federal Clean Air Act.
"Science doesn't change based on election results," said CARB emissions compliance chief, Annette Hebert, during Wednesday's hearing.
The night prior, Nissan threw the wraps off its 2018 Leaf. The all-electric hatchback starts at $29,990 and can travel 150 miles per charge, Nissan says. It also incorporates new self-driving features like hands-free highway driving and park assist. And the styling is normalized to make the Leaf more like a conventional car.
The 2018 Leaf won't be available until early next year, but it will make an appearance on Saturday, Sept. 16, during an event celebrating National Drive Electric Week at Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown.