Rick Caruso has made no secret of his thoughts on the devastating Los Angeles wildfires and what he thinks leadership is doing wrong when it comes to prevention.

The billionaire real estate developer and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate is a guest on the Season 23 premiere Live with Bill Maherthe host asked him how he would handle fires differently.

"Know that fires are coming, know that you're in fire season," Caruso said. "Three weeks ago we had a fire in Malibu. Six years ago we had a fire in Brentwood, which for those who don't know the Brentwood area, it's only 15 miles from where the Palisades fire happened. Minutes away. There's 40-year-old vegetation between Brentwood and Palisade, and I said at the time, 'If the fire spreads, it's going to go through and destroy Palisade.'

"I'm sad that I was right," he added. "It's predictable, Bill. What's predictable is also preventable."

He continued, "The bottom line is that during peak fire season, the main reservoir is out of service. I mean, it's border negligence. So we have to understand the backstory, but you have to make good business decisions about management. This city is about running a business for the benefit of its residents, and everyone should be saying, 'We're getting all the warnings about fire storms or high winds coming...why hasn't more been done?'"

After an initial fire in Pacific Palisades on January 7, the fires continued to spread throughout Los Angeles County, driven by strong Santa Ana winds. While first responders worked around the clock to contain the blazes, more than 12,000 homes, buildings and structures were destroyed in the blaze. At least 25 people were also killed.

Bill Maher then asked Caruso for his thoughts on how Los Angeles should approach recovery and reconstruction efforts.

“What we should be doing in the city and what we should be doing now, we have an opportunity: bury the wires underground,” he responded. “But when everyone starts talking about rebuilding, yes we need to rebuild quickly, yes we need to get people back into their homes, but we also need to be smart about it because the Palisade, like Alta. Like Diener, and God bless the families there, Palisades will continue to be in a fire zone so don't build the same damn thing."

Caruso, who also owns Palisade Village, later explained how the mall withstood the fire. It was previously reported that the businessman also hired private firefighters to protect it.

"We built it differently," he said. "We built the entire village without any combustible materials. We knew we were building in a fire zone, so we designed it to be able to withstand the highest levels of fire."

Maher also questioned whether it was "good" for Caruso to hire private firefighters because "not everyone can afford a private fire department."

"It's certainly nice because our home team is there and it frees up the LAFD to take care of everyone else," he responded. "But what I'm telling you is, if we had a better funded fire department with more resources, you wouldn't need a private."

Caruso added: "People are talking about Caruso not saving his downtown village. That downtown village has eight houses that we saved. It includes all the retailers and restaurateurs. Hundreds of jobs. It's preserved. We're going to reopen it. People are not talking about it now. It's about the thousands of people who have lost their jobs and have no support system: gardeners, pool workers, service workers, delivery people, waiters, cooks. Everyone who does business in our village will have their job back. This is the right thing to do. , we have to figure out how to get help to the people who need it most, and there are a lot of people out there.”

Caruso also noted while speaking to Maher that while his house in Palisades was intact, his daughter was destroyed in the fire.

Other guests from the latest episode real time It's Larry Wilmore and Eileen Palin.

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