Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, Rick Caruso, said he was 'so sad' to be right in his 'prediction' of the deadly wildfires that torched the California city.
The 66-year-old billionaire, who challenged embattled mayor Karen Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election, slammed her administration on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday.
The founder of Caruso, a real estate development company, called out Bass' officials for their 'poor handling' of the natural disaster.
'To know there's a fire coming, to know you're in fire season,' Caruso said. 'We had a fire three weeks ago in Malibu. Six years ago we had a fire in Brentwood, and for those that don't know the Brentwood area, it's 15 minutes from where the Palisades Fire was.
'There's 40-year-old vegetation between Brentwood and the Palisades, and at that time, I said, "If that fire travels, it's gonna come through and wipe out the Palisades,"' Caruso said of his prediction.
'I'm so sad that I was right,' he added. 'It was predictable, Bill. And what's predictable is preventable.'
The former real-estate lawyer continued adding that the city's 'out of service' Santa Ynez Reservoir was due to the 'negligence' of the current administration.
'And then on top of it, to have a main reservoir out of service during peak fire season. I mean, that's border negligence. And so we've got to get to the backstory of this, but you've gotta make good business decisions,' Caruso quipped during the season 23 premiere of the comedian's hit show.
Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate, Rick Caruso (left), made a heartbreaking admission about the devastating wildfires on HBO 's Real Time with Bill Maher (right) on Friday
The 66-year-old billionaire, who challenged Karen Bass in the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election, said the natural disaster was 'predictable,' and that he is 'so sad' that he 'was right' in 'predicting' the deadly inferno
Karen Bass, 71, mayor of Los Angeles
'Running this city is running a business for the benefit of the residents and what everybody should have been saying, "We had all the alerts about the firestorm coming in or the winds coming in… why wasn't more done?"' he added.
The ravaging Eaton and Palisades fires’ have so far killed at least 27 people, destroyed more than 12,000 structures and put more than 80,000 under evacuation orders, according to the Associated Press.
The fires are likely to be among the most destructive in California history, according to the state agency CalFire.
In their sit-down, Maher then asked Caruso his perspective on how Los Angeles should be navigating recovery and rebuilding efforts.
'What we should be doing in the city and what we should do now, we have an opportunity: underground the power lines,' Caruso replied.
'But when everybody starts talking about rebuilding, yes, we need to rebuild quickly, and yes, we need to get people back in their homes, but we also need to be smart about it because the Palisades, just like Altadena - and God bless the families there too - the Palisades is gonna remain in a fire zone. So don’t go build the same damn thing,' he added.
Caruso, who also owns a sprawling shopping center in the Pacific Palisades, later explained how the local shopping village withstood the intense firestorm. It was previously reported that businessman also hired private firefighters to protect it.
'We built it differently,' he said. 'That whole village that we built is built without any combustible materials. We knew we were building in a fire area, so we designed it to the highest levels to withstand it.'
Caruso, who also owns a sprawling shopping center in the Pacific Palisades, later explained how the local shopping village withstood the intense firestorm. It was previously reported that businessman also hired private firefighters to protect it
The ravaging Eaton and Palisades fires have so far killed at least 27 people, destroyed more than 12,000 structures and put more than 80,000 under evacuation orders, according to the Associated Press. Pictured: The Palisades Fire ignites behind a liquor store in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles
The fires are likely to be among the most destructive in California history, according to the state agency CalFire. Pictured: An aerial view of a neighborhood destroyed by the Palisades wildfire
The late-night show host also questioned the billionaire on whether or not it is 'good' to hire private firefighters because 'not everybody can afford the private fire department.'
'Of course it’s good because by us having our home team there, it freed up the LA Fire Department to go take care of other people,' Caruso replied, before taking a dig at the current administration.
'But here’s what I would tell you, if we have a fully funded fire department that has more resources, you wouldn’t need the privates.'
The once-opponent to sitting city mayor, Bass, 71, then defended his controversial decision to hire his own 'private fire department.'
'People talking about how Caruso shouldn’t have saved his downtown village. That downtown village included eight homes that we saved,' Caruso said.
'It includes all the retailers and the restaurateurs. Hundreds of jobs are saved. We’re gonna reopen it. People get their businesses back.
'What’s not being talked about now are the thousands of people that have lost their jobs, that have no support system: the gardeners, the pool men, the service people, the delivery people, the waiters, the chefs.
'Everybody’s gonna have their job back that has their businesses in our village. That is the right thing to do, and we’ve got to figure out how to get help to those that need help the most, and there’s a lot of people out there.'
The father-of-four also noted during his Friday evening conversation with Maher that while his Palisades home was alright, his daughter’s had burned down.
At least 27 people have died as multiple wildfires, fueled by severe drought conditions and strong winds, continue to rage across the Los Angeles area.
Thousands of firefighters are battling the wildfires across 45 square miles of densely populated Los Angeles County.
Six fires have erupted across the greater LA area since Januay 7. As of Friday evening, firefighters are still battling the Palisades Fire as well as the Eaton and Hurst fires. Pictured: A firefighter sprays water on a garage burning in the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California
Some 6.5 million people remain under a critical fire threat, after the fires consumed an area nearly the size of Washington, DC, authorities said. Pictured: Water is dropped by helicopter on the Kenneth Fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles
About 82,000 people remain under mandatory evacuation orders and another 90,000 are under evacuation warnings, as of Saturday evening.
The Palisades Fire, which began in the Pacific Palisades on January 7, has destroyed about 5,000 structures. It has covered more than 23,000 acres and is at 31 percent containment, according to ABC News.
The Eaton Fire north of Pasadena also began on January 7 and has destroyed or damaged around 7,000 structures. It's burned over 14,000 acres and is at 65 percent containment.
Windy conditions are set to return to Southern California next week, potentially adding to the spread of the deadly blaze.
Winds gusting up to 60 miles per hour are possible on Monday and Tuesday of next week, ABC reported.
These are fire weather watches for the Burbank and Malibu areas, however such warnings could be upgraded to red flag warnings.
As of Saturday evening, no rain remains out of the foreseeable future for Southern California.