Months before the ongoing wildfires ravaged through Southern California, American podcaster Joe Rogan had made ominous predictions about the same. In a July 2024 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan discussed the wildfire threat with comedian Sam Morril. On the podcast, he recalled his conversation with a firefighter who predicted a catastrophic scenario for the region.
“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,” Rogan recounted the firefighter telling him.
In the clip, Rogan, wearing a Los Angeles Fire Department T-shirt, described how the firefighter highlighted the terrifying scale and speed at which a wildfire could spread. “These fires are so big, you’re talking about thousands of acres burning simultaneously with 40 mph (64 kmph) winds. Once it happens, it’s so spread out that there’s nothing they can do,” Rogan said.
the California fires were perfectly predicted with insane accuracy by a firefighter that spoke to Joe Rogan pic.twitter.com/zuM8gmvJRX
— ryan ???? (@scubaryan_) January 9, 2025
According to The New York Post, Joe Rogan has frequently echoed his concerns about Los Angeles’ vulnerability to wildfires during various episodes of his podcast.
In 2018, while Rogan was still residing in Bell Canyon, Ventura County, he hosted English mentalist Derren Brown on The Joe Rogan Experience. Wildfires were already raging in the area, and Brown mentioned at the start of the interview that he was lucky to have made it despite the ongoing fires. Rogan responded by recounting the same warning from the firefighter, describing how the “right wind” could drive a fire from the city all the way to the ocean.
A year later, in 2019, Rogan brought up the topic again while speaking with journalist David Wallace-Wells. During their discussion on climate change, they touched on predictions that California’s wildfires could become “64 times worse by the end of the century.”
Rogan’s warning resurfaced as wildfires, especially the Palisades Fire in the west and the Eaton Fire in the east, continued to rage, forcing mass evacuations and destroying homes across Los Angeles County.
As reported by CNN, the wildfires have claimed the lives of at least 10 people. But authorities caution that the true extent of casualties may not be known until investigators safely enter the affected neighbourhoods. The fires have forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, with evacuation orders continuing to impact large parts of the region.
