Off-Ramp listeners, introducing The Big Disaster: The Big Burn from LAist Studios. As the world enters a new age of wildfires, science reporter Jacob Margolis dives deep into personal stories that illuminate the history of how we got here, why we keep screwing things up, and what we can do to survive and maybe even thrive while the world around us burns. 

Listen to this episode and catch all the others here. 

Preppi is giving a free emergency kit with any purchase over $100. Go to preppi.com/thebigburn for more information.

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/bigburn and get on your way to being your best self.

This piece from the vast Off-Ramp archive is from the very first Off-Ramp - August 5, 2006 - and it's still one of my favorites because it answers a very simple question. What's it like to ride a motorcycle in LA?

The obvious person to answer that question was Susan Carpenter, then the motorcycle columnist for the LA Times (now at Spectrum News 1), who put a little microphone into her helmet and then took off down the streets, roads, and freeways of LA.

Support for this podcast comes from Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live; and bythe Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

Off-Ramp theme music by Fesliyan Studios.

He's Alive; The King of Kitsch Named Grand Marshal; Rethinking Pershing Square; Is MOCA Broke?; Pull Some Strings for Bob Baker; Song of Extinction; Long Beach Loves Video Art; Mad Santa; Sing Along

Surviving Thanksgiving

Hooray, Off-Ramp's Back!; Off-Ramp Exclusive: Dinner Party Download; Martin Eisenstadt Hoax; Food Banks in Need; The King of Hancock Park; The Immigrant's Dream; Food for All; "...Stuffing is evil ..." -- Alton Brown; My Two Left Feet; Letters: Correction

She just became a member!; Martin Eisenstadt hoax; Food Banks in Need; The Immigrant's Dream; Food for All; The King of Hancock Park; Dumpster Diving For the Working Poor

Making History; South LA Weighs In On An Obama Presidency; The Huntington: Underground; The Famous Red Head was a Red?; Kids These Days; A Mormon at the anti-Mormon March; The Obama Quest For A Puppy!; Prop 8 Results Roundtable; Murder He Wrote; Political Partying; Recession Hits LB Art Gallery; We Saw Long Lines, They Got Bathing Suits; Trombone Poetry; Hollywood Humanitarian; Victory Song

Witnesses to History; The Changeling; The Changeling on Dragnet; OCMA's Biennial; "Andy Rooney" on Ted Stevens; Hand over the Video!; Ask Me!; Law And Order TMU; Call for Obama; Prop Satire; Prop 8 Swings on Latinas; Rest In Peace Delmar Watson; Letters

Delmar Watson, L.A. Photojournalist, 82; Stick it to 'em; Dinner Party Download; Roky Erickson, Resurrected; R.I.P. Rosie the Riveter; Fiddling with Tradition; Meet Dracula, Jr.; Herbal Taste Test; High Stakes at Santa Anita; Emptying the Archives; Their Bubble Burst; Norwegian Black Metal; Don't Bite it, Lick it!; The Bible Props Up '8,' Really?

She Healed the Bay; Dinner Party Download; Silver Seduction; He Made Jazz Visual; Violin Virtuoso; Voter Registration: Now or Never; Door-to-Door Democrat; (Fire)Fighter Pilots; All the Pretty Worn-Out Horses; No TV Coverage: Take Cover!; Haute Cuisine in Hard Times?; On the Fire Lines; The Bradley Non-Effect; Letters