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.

A Forefather of Modern Art in Southern California; Modern Love; Cool Curator; Cool Living; Are Black People Cooler than Whites?; Stone Cold; Where's the Future?; More Jazz at the Getty; Ahmad Jamal; Not Ruby Tuesday, Ruby Restaurant; A Trumpet in Every Pot

Careful Where You Point That Thing!; Twelve Tones, Hanging Ten; Hail, Little Caesar; How Green Was My Valley?; Say It Is So; Clippers' Main Man; Mariachis on the Move; The Closer's Closet; The Wagonmaster

Off-Ramp Goes Live to Report on the Fires

Vartabedian Handicap; Galileo at the Skirball; Taco Shop Memories; Puppets of Japan; Gunning for 100 and Still Pushing Art; Commuters looking for Community; I Am a Man Now; Hallowed Ground; From New York to LA; Birth of the Cool; Listener Comment

Wine Country: Echo Park; Wine Country: Slow Pickings; Wine Country: A Tasting; With Mallets of Forethought; United in Hate; Sisyphus has his rock and Alys his bug; Spider Pavilion; Spider's Web Snares Genius; Homeboy is Here To Stay; Wes Parker Reflects on Baseball; Listener Call: LAX Pylons

Soundtrack of Your Life; Song Stories; Going Super Sonic; Jobbing at the County Fair; Sad Life, Great Writer; Film, Music, Art and Sport?; Not The End; Getty Receives the Go on Antiquities; Solar Convention in Long Beach; You're listening...

Commentator Garrison Keillor; Art Tatum Rises ; California Canon; Unsung Beat; Skid Row Seafood Joint; The Straight Bacon; Whiskey Runs with Queena; From OC to Iraq; On The Gritty Side

Sentimental Kendt; Jerry Stahl on "Love Without"; All You Can't Eat; Anime Bento; Airport Beautification; Yogathon Habitat; Mix Tapes; Firehouse Cooks; Culture Clash's Zorro in Hell; Bike On