00:00There's a new fire in Malibu. It's the Bryson Fire, and as of Friday morning, it had burned 146 acres
00:07and was only 17% contained.
00:09For residents of Malibu, it's deja vu all over again, as many of them are evacuating, as they have for
00:15previous fires.
00:16Some of the evacuees include people from Pacific Palisades, who had to leave their town because they lost their homes
00:21in that fire.
00:22Now they're evacuating again, and some have told me they have PTSD from all of these wildfire evacuations.
00:30The real question is, are the city and the county and the state any more prepared for this fire than
00:35they were for the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire back in 2025?
00:38And the answer is yes and no. First of all, the bad news. There is still a lot of fuel
00:44for the Bryson Fire to burn.
00:45There has not been enough brush clearance on state lands, and so there is the chance that unless firefighters can
00:52continue to gain the upper hand, the fire could still burn out of control.
00:55There also aren't enough water resources. Malibu has a dip tank for helicopters, but Pacific Palisades doesn't.
01:02And then, of course, the reservoir above Palisades has been sitting empty for months, and it is only just now
01:08being refilled.
01:09There aren't enough water resources to fight these fires.
01:12On the bright side, the California Office of Emergency Services has pre-positioned fire vehicles in the potential burn area.
01:18And when I was in my own neighborhood of Pacific Palisades yesterday, I saw one of those fire trucks moving
01:23through, and that was a hopeful sign.
01:25So there has been some improvement. Still, there's a long way to go.
01:28And the Firefighters Union has put a sales tax increase on the November ballot in the city of Los Angeles.
01:33They're asking the public to pay an extra 0.5 percent on purchases in the city of L.A.
01:39to pay for new equipment for the fire department.
01:42The police union opposes this and says we don't need another tax in L.A.
01:46L.A. is already heavily taxed.
01:48This is really a management problem, a leadership problem.
01:50The city council needs to do a better job of allocating the funds.
01:54But it does show that there is some momentum behind trying to find a political solution
02:00so that the residents of L.A. can sleep better at night when there are high winds moving through the
02:04area.
