LISTEN: Former Roughrider from Regina sheltering at centre of L.A. fires

As wildfires rage in California, CKOM/CJME’s Evan Bray caught up with Jon Ryan, a former CFL and NFL player from Regina who is sheltering in place in the Sherman Oaks neighbourhood of Los Angeles along with his wife Sarah, surrounded by flames.

Ryan, who served as the punter for the Saskatchewan Roughriders during the 2019 season, joined The Evan Bray Show on Friday to tell us more about the scary situation in California.

Listen to the full interview, or read the transcript below:

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Evan Bray: This is such a scary time, we’re seeing these images on our TV’s, but you look out the window (and) tell us what you see.

Jon Ryan: Basically whatever you see on your TV, probably times that by 10, 20, maybe 30 times to even get an idea of how bad it is. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. It feels apocalyptic, almost. It feels like you’re in an episode of Walking Dead or something. It’s really It’s really bad.

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I don’t completely understand the geography. Where are you?

Ryan: We’re north of the major fire, the Palisades Fire. We’re about five to six miles from the fire line right now. We’re in what they call the Valley, Sherman Oaks, and we’re about two miles from the evacuation zone right now. That’s kind of one of those things we’re kind of watching minute by minute. Last night, they did clear out (and) evacuate all the people that live in the Canyon Roads. The Canyon Roads are only seven or eight blocks from where we live. Hopefully they are being cautious, but it’s moving with the wind, so it’s pretty rough.

Is the smoke so present in the air that you can smell it strongly?

Ryan: You definitely smell it when you go out. When I go out my house and I look west, it’s nothing but blue skies, and when I look east it’s just an absolute grey cloud overtop of that part of the city. So yeah, it’s definitely something you can smell and you can smell it on your clothes the second you walk back inside.

What instructions are you getting? You’re in an area, as you said, that has not yet been evacuated. Have you been in touch with authorities? What are they telling you?

Ryan: Just stay in place for now, but be ready, have have a bag packed and kind of be ready to grab your animals and when they say go, you go. We’ve had a number of friends that had to evacuate. We had a good friend of ours lose their home in Malibu yesterday, and luckily they evacuated when they were told to. But a lot of these people, when they do get a chance to go back to their home, they don’t really know if there’s going to be a home there, so there’s just a lot going on right now.

When you talk with friends like that, what are those conversations like? It’s obviously fearful, upsetting. How are your friends, the people, the contacts that you have down there dealing with this?

Ryan: It’s very sad. You know, I think a lot of you are looking at some of these homes, and especially with this Palisades, and they’re, $10-, $20-, $30-million homes, and I think people from the outside are saying, “Well, these people are rich, they can rebuild.” But there’s also homes that are $50,000 or $100,000 homes. I think what you have to remember is every one of these homes had a family living in it three days ago, and to every one of those families that home – no matter what the value was – was priceless to them. So it just sad right now.

From the people that I’ve talked to, obviously, there’s a lot of sadness losing their home, but there’s just an overwhelming sense of community right now, which is something I didn’t quite expect, especially from a place like L.A., but people are really banding together. Hearing from all these people in the Palisades, there’s literally entire communities just wiped off the map right now. These people are kind of banding together, and they say they’re going to rebuild. They will be back. It could take 10, 20, 30 years, but they will be back.

Watching on TV, I see Canadian water bombers there helping with the fire. I know Canada is sending a lot of resources down. I’m sure that’s something that you’ve watched, seen unfold in terms of just this general sense of of assistance coming from all parts of the States and Canada as well.

Ryan: Yeah, there’s firefighters – and the bombers that are so important right now – coming from all over. I think from last count there were 700 firefighters, from what they told us. But there’s way more than that by now. It’s gonna take all that and more get these things under control, because as of right now, they have zero per cent of these fires contained. So until we have them contained and taken care of, they kind of told us it is going to get worse before it gets better. It is just kind of a wait and see, and we’re a little bit at the mercy of Mother Nature right now.

Do you have pets, Jon?

Ryan: We have three cats, so we have three cat carries ready to go if need be.

What else can you do? I can’t imagine what it’s like being in your house being told to shelter in place. What can you do to prepare for a possible evacuation?

Ryan: Honestly, just be ready to go. You always say you want to defend your house, but there’s no defending these fires. You know when these Santa Ana winds blow – the example of two nights ago, when it got really bad – the Santa Ana winds were gusting to 150 kilometers an hour. So they said at the time the fire was growing at the size of five football fields for every 10 seconds, so if you can imagine how many houses you can fit in five football fields, well, that’s every 10 seconds all night long. So there’s not much you can do to defend your home. You just have to kind of be ready to go when they say.

How are you keeping informed on things? Is there a certain way in which you’re keeping up to date? Or do they have something set up to communicate with people?

Ryan: We in the communities here have a special app where they communicate with us and they update us on all the fires and how they move, and if they’re getting closer to your community. Also, obviously, we have the news on 24 hours a day right now, so that’s kind of how they’re they’re reaching out to us.

Is it basically containing you to the house, preventing you from doing things? and I’m guessing, changed your focus and perspective on so much.

Ryan: We’re just sticking around the house, sticking around the neighborhood, calling friends, making sure everyone’s OK, and if anyone needs a place to stay, we’re here. It just been a stressful 48 hours and things are a little bit different here. It’s harder to get insurance here – a lot of these homes are burning down and they don’t have insurance.

It’s not like it is in Saskatchewan. I just want to tell everyone in Saskatchewan just how fortunate they are. We bitch and moan about maybe some of the insurance there, but we have it pretty good there, so be thankful that we have there, because not everyone has it here.