Blog #79 Why is California Burning?
Simple questions, easy answers, discouraging results. The magnitude of the debacle is breathtaking.
It is now several days after the fires in the LA area started, and still today, multiple fires are burning more neighborhoods with catastrophic results and creating an apocalyptic landscape. Over 20,000 homes and 8,000 businesses burned to the ground, and over 300,000+ residents have been evacuated or are on alert. As of January 11, 2025, over 35,000 acres have burned, and the fires continue! The damages will top $150+ Billion, and insurance companies will go bankrupt. Plus, thousands of homeowners had their policies canceled and lost their insurance coverage.
Between 2020 and 2022, insurance companies declined to renew 2.8 million homeowner policies in California, including 531,000 in Los Angeles County1. State Farm, for example, announced it would no longer offer home insurance to new customers in California due to catastrophe exposure2. In March 2024, State Farm announced it wouldn't renew 30,000 homeowners' insurance policies in California, including more than 1,000 policies in Los Angeles' Pacific Palisades area3. The cancellations went into effect over the summer4.
Even the communications broke down when a false alarm was sent out to 10 million residents.
Without getting into long narratives, here is a simple list for consideration:
It seems one of the fires was started by a homeless person with a blow torch. Then you have arsonist copycats. The areas have been ripe for a catastrophic fire due to a very dry draught. Many reasons would have prevented or mitigated the disaster that continues to unfold at this writing. So, let us list all the obvious and not-so-obvious complications:
- Fundamentally, there was little to no action to prepare for dealing with fires during a long-standing drought and the need for water during the annual Santa Ana winds that can reach over 100 mph. (The weather factors that triggered L.A. County's devastating fires - Los Angeles Times)
- Reagan gave amnesty years ago to thousands of homeless illegal aliens (Why Immigrants Were Given Legal Status by Ronald Reagan - Newsweek). Governor Newsom focused on illegals as well, and billions of dollars were spent on free services (plus such glamor projects as the billions spent on a train to nowhere).
- Newsom cut $150 Million from CalFire’s Wildlife Prevention budget (The Special Session Gov. Newsom and Lawmakers Should Have – California Globe) as forest fires were not a priority.
- Red tape and environmental restrictions and regulations have crippled fire prevention in the forested areas of CA. (How Red Tape Strangled California Forest Management Before LA Fires - Newsweek
- Newsom and local governments were focused on DEI/WOKE/CRT ideology and were distracted from emergency safety plans. Inordinate Firefighting training hours were spent on Woke/DEI training. (Calif. Dems Roasted over DEI Priorities as Fires Burn Down L.A.)
- Newsom did not create more reservoirs to retain valuable water as citizens requested for years. ( How LA ran out of water in the middle of the Palisades fire) and (Environmentalism-Obsessed LA Doesn't Have Enough Water to Fight Fire Effectively) Also, one of the major reservoirs for the LA FF’s was drained by the State and no one told the Fire Dept.
- Consequently, with no state-wide water management, Firefighters (FF) had fire hydrants run dry, and water was unavailable. (CNN’s Scott Jennings Makes L.A. Fire Hell All About DEI) and (What to Know About the Hydrants That Ran Dry Amid the Fires in LA | TIME)
- Land/forest management was not done even when budgeted. The brush around the suburbs was like tinder - ripe for fire (as happened in Hawaii with dry grass around the town).
- Power lines are not buried and could be a cause or contributing cause, as found in Hawaii. Fires that reach the power lines can spark new fires.
- The Mayor reduced FIRE BUDGET by $17.6 million in 2024-2025 (A month before fires, L.A. fire chief warned budget cuts were hampering emergency response - CBS News)
- LA has only 4,000 FF’s. At least 50 personnel were laid off. ('LA has outgrown its fire department': LAFD's 4K personnel struggle to serve population of 4M | FOX 11 Los Angeles)
- Fire equipment was donated to Ukraine (Remember When LA Actually Sent Surplus Fire Fighting Equipment to Ukraine?)
- The Fire Chief is suspected of incompetence (some believe she is a gay/lesbian, DEI hire who spent time doing gay parades/events and DEI training (AFN - Fires that turned L.A. to ash exposed what DEI does in a fire station) and (Megyn Kelly accuses LAFD chief Kristin Crowley and LA Mayor Karen Bass of putting DEI ahead of fire prevention as Palisades wildfires rage)
- City, state, and federal government's response times were too few and too late.
In summary, when there is incompetence in government elected by the people, the people will pay a horrible price. The priorities are well known, but the assessment, prioritization, and execution to deliver results were absent, ineffective, or flat wrong. Socializing operational issues with ideologies distracting from priorities will always lead to self-inflicted disaster. From the points above, it seems obvious that the solutions for future action can be easily defined. But it won’t matter without a will to act and competence in delivering meaningful results to preserve, protect, and promote safe living.
Add to this self-interested, privileged politicians with political motives and greed, and you have a State that will continue to get burned in many ways.
California has them, and sure enough, they are burning.
PS: from Collin Rugg on X
LA's $750,000-a-year water chief who allegedly oversaw the emptying of the Santa Ynez Reservoir, previously said the "number one" thing she cared about in her role was "equity." No wonder why LA is burning. Every leader is a DEI hire. During a recent podcast, Janisse Quiñones, who was hired by Mayor Karen Bass in May, said that everything she does needs to be done with an "equity lens." "It's important to me that everything we do is with an equity lens and social justice and making sure that we right the wrongs that we've done in the past."
The Daily Mail now reports that since Quiñones was hired at LADWP, she took the reservoir offline to "repair a tear" and ignored broken fire hydrants.
What a disaster.