Joe Rogan’s resurfaced warning about LA wildfires raises eyebrows as devastation strikes

A resurfaced interview clip from podcaster Joe Rogan last July has resurfaced seemingly predicting the devastating wildfires currently ravaging Southern California.

In the interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, the American podcaster spoke with comedian Sam Morril, recounting a warning from a firefighter about the potential for wildfires in Los Angeles.

“One day, it’s going to be the right wind and fire is going to start in the right place and it’s going to burn through LA all the way to the ocean and there’s not a f****** thing we can do about it,” Rogan said.

Wearing a Los Angeles Fire Department shirt in the video, Rogan said the unnamed firefighter pointed out how the fire could become uncontrollable.

“These fires are so big, you’re talking about thousands of acres burning simultaneously with 40mph (64km/h) winds ... Once it happens it’s so spread out that there’s nothing they can do.”

Rogan revealed in the podcast that one of the reasons he left Los Angeles in 2020 after living in the city for 25 years was because he was always “waiting for the next fire”.

“I was evacuated three times from my house from fires,” Rogan said. “Last one, two houses in front of my house burned to the ground.”

The New York Post reported that Rogan had repeatedly shared the firefighter’s warning on his show over the years.

As of Thursday night (local time), a pair of massive wildfires menacing Los Angeles from the east and west are still burning uncontained, two days after they ignited.

The Palisades fire between Santa Monica and Malibu on the city’s western flank and the Eaton fire in the east near Pasadena are already the most destructive in Los Angeles history, burning more than 11,300 ha so far — an area exceeding the size of Disney World — and turning entire neighbourhoods to ash.

At least six people have been killed, thousands of homes and businesses have been reduced to ash, and nearly 180,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, with another 200,000 under evacuation warnings, officials reported.

Firefighting teams are bracing for more wind and dry conditions, which are expected to complicate efforts well into next week, Don Fregulia, operations section chief with the California Interagency Management Team 5, said Thursday (local time).