L.A. Wildfires: ABC7’s Dallas Raines On How We Got Here, What’s Coming Next, & What We Can Do For Each Other To Help Stop It Next Time

EXCLUSIVE: Dallas Raines wasn’t born in the City of Angels, but few Angelenos exemplify Southern California like the Georgia-bred ABC 7 News chief meteorologist. A perspective that is especially true in times of extreme weather like the hurricane force winds and raging wildfires that have cut a seemingly unprecedented destructive swath through the region this past week.

“This is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but these winds and fires are things that we are going to have to deal with forever,” the 40-year resident of LA says bluntly Monday, as he prepares to go on-air for the West Coast flagship of Disney-owned ABC.

Since winds started gusting last week, LA County has seen fires scorch tens of thousands of acres, decimated thousands of homes and other buildings, and hundreds of thousands evacuated. Over two dozen people aredead, that we know so far. The fire that roared up Hollywood’s Runyon Canyon on January 8 was put out fairly quickly, and the Kenneth Fire is contained. However, flames are still blazing and residents still under mandatory evacuations with the Palisades Fire, the Eaton Fire, and the Hurst Fire.

And, with another red-flag warning in effect, more looks likely to come – soon.

The National Weather Service has issued a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” warning across most of the county with winds that could reach up to 70 mph anticipated from 4 a.m. on January 14 until and noon Wednesday. While the LAFD and other First Responders are dug in to fight whatever fires may flare up, turbulence could make it impossible for choppers and Super Soakers to take to the air to douse the flames

Amidst all that, Raines spoke to Deadline about what the past week has wrought. The AP Award winning weatherman with one of the most distinctive names in all of TV also looks at what could be coming, where to get your information from, and what could be done to help cut down SoCal’s never-ending cycle of such fires.

DEADLINE: The past week has been gut wrenching for our town, like all the worst parts of the Bible at once.  But in all that, local TV and you guys on ABC 7 have been essential in keeping people informed from the wind movement, the fires, the devastations and the efforts to combat the destruction. So, my question is, what has the past week been like for you?

DALLAS RAINES: Just doing my job, Dominic.

DEADLINE: More than ever sir …

RAINES: Well, thank you, but you know, anything that we can do on this end, from a meteorological perspective, we just want to try every day to give our viewers and all of Southern California an opportunity to kind of know what’s coming.

And that’s the real key – Is try. And, can we forecast well enough in advance without scaring people.

DEADLINE: How do you mean?

RAINES: I remember when we were working on this about eight days before the event itself, and I was talking to some friends of mine at National Weather Service. I was saying, you know what, this looks really bad as far as damage. Now, we all just hope and pray that a fire is not ignited during these types of winds and wind events, but at least, I think we did a really solid job of getting the information that what, more than likely was going to happen. That it was going to be an excessive Santa Ana wind event. These curve out once every 10 years, or so. Give it or take a few years, and in even though Southern Californians are used to Santa Ana wind events, one of this magnitude can still be shocking.

DEADLINE: With that, were you surprised about what happened starting on January 7th,  with the Palisades fire starting?

RAINES: To be honest, I really wasn’t surprised about what happened.

DEADLINE: Why?

RAINES: Because I knew that if a fire was ignited, that the winds would be blowing so hard that helicopters can’t fly. And when you look at the whole the whole event, and firefighters are working very hard to try to control things the best that they can. But the reality of it is in an excessive Santa Ana wind Dominic, if a fire is started out of one of these canyons where all of these homes are downwind, southwest of the wind event, it’s almost impossible to stop it. It really is.

DEADLINE: But the ferocity of it, Dallas, old timers, seasoned Angelenos say they’ve never seen anything like this …

RAINES: Well, I didn’t grow up here, but I was looking back, and you guys can look this up too, at the great firestorm of Malibu in 1978.

It kind of goes back aways, but it was so close to what we had this time. I was looking at some of the pictures of some of the old fire trucks that had burned, and I was looking at some of those hillsides, and also what I saw was that the population was half of what it is now, in terms of homes.

DEADLINE: Density certainly has proven an issue this year. Another issue we’ve seen this year, like we did late last year with the Franklin fires, is misinformation and disinformation, Now, I’m not going to go over that chapter and verse …

RAINES: I know what you mean …

DEADLINE: But I did want to get your take on the proliferation of bad intel, and how you think people can get the right information that they can act on?

RAINES: Well, I think that that you need to listen to a credible source. That’s number one. Now I do realize in my long career in broadcasting where we’ve come from. If you wanted weather information, you used to get it on ABC, CBS, NBC, that was pretty much it, and then CNN, where I did the first weather.  Nowadays, there are people out there on the internet that have all kinds of information. You have people forecasting. Now what their credentials are, we never know, nor their experiences. The fact is that that information is out there, and people need to be pretty careful about what they’re listening to. Make sure that the information that they’re getting is correct and coming from a credible source.

In today’s world, you see all kind of things flying around and, a lot of them, they’re just not a real, credible sources. So, I think that’s a concern.

DEADLINE: You know, a concern I see, and I would never want to understate the tragic losses this past week, how we all know someone, several people who have lost everything, some who have died, and the amazing work of the LAFD and other First Responders, but it is also true that these fires are not new to Southern California. With varying degrees, they happen several times a year and have for decades …

RAINES: Yes. This is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but these winds and fires are things that we are going to have to deal with forever.

When I first arrived in Southern California, I was really shocked at two things. That every year the Santa Ana winds come, a fire is ignited. It burns up people’s homes, and we start over again. And there are two things that I have always felt, and I’ve shared that with many, many people, close friends and people in the news business. There are two things that I think … now this is arduous, so it’s not something we just say, oh, we’ll just do this, and it ends it. It doesn’t. But I think if they could do two things, could mitigate this, or ameliorate it to the point where you could really drop it down.

DEADLINE: What would those two things be?

RAINES: One, during red-flag warnings, the major canyon passes are shut down and only to people who live there are allowed in.

Now I know, people say, that’s inconvenient. It is. It’ll be a slight inconvenience.

But if you think about our city right now, our beautiful city, this could help, if you close down just during red-flags, which are usually last a couple of days, 48 hours at the most. Close down the main canyons. You can’t close down everything, but you can close down the main roads.

I live near Angeles Crest, and to show you how bad it is, is by Sunday, there were motorcycles going up Angeles Crest. Dangerous. So, close down the major canyons and then get individuals working with their communities.

DEADLINE: How so?

RAINES: A lot of times, you could get people who are retired folks, who are just willing to give the time for the community, for their neighborhood. Have them do a community watch.

This is just my opinion, but if you see someone strange in your neighborhood at 10 o’clock in the morning, and you may not know all your neighbors, but notify the fire department or the Sheriff. They can just come up and say, hey, it’s red-flag warning you can’t be up here. Look, nobody loves hiking more than I do. I go to the canyons all the time, but I’m willing to sacrifice for our community to, you know, walk on the beach or do something else other than hiking the canyons during red-flags. It’s that simple.

DEADLINE: So, where do we go from here, once we get past these next few days?

RAINES: Well, the population will continue to increase, for one. I predict too that they will completely rebuild Pacific Palisades.

DEADLINE: Totally?

RAINES: Why not? It’s the most beautiful area in the world, and people want to live and enjoy that. But we have to know these winds are going to happen for as long as in our short lifetimes and beyond. So, these two things I think would happen would really help.

You’d be surprised. I think you’d see a major drop in these types of outbreaks. It wouldn’t completely eliminate them, but I think you’d see a tremendous drop in these fires. I really do.

DEADLINE: Well, that would be good.

RAINES: Yes.