Abject failures from Biden, Newsom, LAFD and others can no longer be ignored

Paul Driessen

Wildfires near Los Angeles have left Pacific Palisades looking like Dresden after the WWII fire-bombings. Over 12,000 homes, schools and businesses have been incinerated, dozens of people have died, at least 70,000 have been left homeless, and fires still rage.

AccuWeather estimates that just two of the fires will destroy $135-150 billion in property!

It’s a doubly horrific tragedy, because most of the death and devastation could have been prevented. 

California has 33,000,000 acres of federal, state and private forestland – equivalent to Wisconsin. As the state’s population expanded, forests and wildlife increasingly merged with human habitats. And yet federal and state land managers – compelled by ideology, activists, legislators and judges – have steadfastly refused to permit timber cutting, tree thinning or brush removal, or take other actions that would reduce the likelihood of conflagrations.

So many trees are so jammed together now that they’re starved for space, water, nutrients and sunlight. Many are diseased. They are skinny matchsticks, primed to erupt in flames. Some 36,000,000 trees died just in 2022, across just 8% of these forestlands. But even dead and diseased trees are rarely removed.

Rainy fall and winter months stimulate tree, brush and grass growth. Parched summers dry everything out. Extended dry periods leave all this fuel ready to ignite for more months.

Lightning, sparks from cars or power lines, campfires and arsonists set areas aflame. Dry Santa Ana winds (40-70 mph, with gusts of 120-150 mph) whip fires into infernos. Depleted, defunded fire departments often arrive long after they could extinguish fires in their infancy.

The conflagrations generate still more powerful winds that carry embers, branches, even small trees thousands of feet – often into communities that are ill-prepared to cope.

This barely begins the litany of California government failures that help cause repeated fire calamities. However, state and local politicians adroitly avoid responsibility.

Their most common excuse is manmade climate change. They even have a new fear-inducing term: hydroclimate whiplash! Fossil-fuel-driven climate change supposedly brought two exceptionally wet winters, spurring unprecedented plant growth – and then caused unprecedented arid conditions and previously unheard-of Santa Ana winds that made these infernos unpredictable but inevitable.

Calling the massive, repeated government failures “incompetence” is too generous. Deliberate, callous, destructive malfeasance is more apt. Criminal may be appropriate.

Governor Gavin Newsom wants a special session to discuss spending $25-50 million to “Trump-proof” state policies. He wants to use a new $10-billion “climate bond” to reduce farm and ranch greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improve “equitable access to nature,” build more parks in “disadvantaged communities,” upgrade ports to handle deepwater offshore wind projects, and more.

California is still pouring billions into EV subsidies, its “clean” energy transition, and the $100-billion “bullet train to nowhere.” It’s spending more billions supporting “sanctuary” status for illegal immigrants, maintaining gender and DEI programs, and ministering to America’s largest number of homeless people – which will now include 70,000+ who’ve lost everything to the 2025 wildfires.

One wonders whether they’ll treat these now-homeless taxpayers as well as they have illegal populations.

Legislated restrictions on how companies may conduct fire-risk assessments and what rates they can charge for homeowners insurance in high-fire-risk areas have caused insurers to leave the state or stop issuing new policies. Hundreds of thousands of families are now uninsured, underinsured or dependent on the state’s FAIR Plan, which has only $385 million in reserves.

Meanwhile, California devoted only $2.6 billion to “forest and wildfire resilience” across all state-managed forestlands, including Topanga State Park, where the fires started, right next to what once was Pacific Palisades – versus $14.7 billion for EVs and “clean renewable energy.”

With memories of the horrific 2018 Paradise (Camp) fire still causing nightmares, Mayor Karen Bass cut $17.6 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department budget, fired 100 firefighters who didn’t get Covid vaccines, and was partying at an embassy reception in Ghana as the fires erupted

LA Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley (salary: $654,000) has spent millions on DEI programs and hiring more women, gays and minorities. Deputy/Diversity Chief Kristine Larson (salary: $307,000) says victims want to see emergency responders that “look like” them, and if she isn’t strong enough to carry your husband out of a fire, he “got himself in the wrong place.”

They then failed to keep extra firefighters and firetrucks on duty as winds picked up just before the first forest fires were spotted – apparently to avoid paying overtime. That meant the LAFD couldn’t get there before fires roared out of control.

Exhausted firefighters trying to save multi-million-dollar homes in Palisades ran out of water. A major reason was that LA Water and Power Department CEO Janisse Quiñones (salary: $750,000) had the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir drained to repair cracks in its base. A full reservoir would have replenished huge storage tanks that feed and pressurize local fire hydrants.

Quiñones has said her “number one” priority is equity and social justice. Does that explain why the reservoir was drained in February 2024; no contractor was hired until November 2024; and even then no workers, equipment or materials were in place for 24/7 repairs?

Just as callously incompetent, why was there no plan (or no action taken) to utilize fireboats, tugboats, barges and other vessels from Long Beach Harbor and the San Diego Navy Base? Many are equipped with water storage, pumps, hoses and nozzles. They could spray seawater directly on coastal homes or run hoses ashore to connect to fire hydrant systems.

Some salt would remain in soils and kill some plants. However, the choice should be easy. Lose some prized vegetation to lingering salts – or have prized vegetation, homes, priceless heirlooms and artworks, and everything else incinerated by raging infernos. Homeowners never got to make that choice.

The incineration of these forests and communities released far more greenhouse gases than all the state’s now-shuttered coal- and gas-fired power plants would have over many decades.

Further complicating matters, the fires sent ash and pollutants into skies and left toxic chemicals behind – from plastics, paints, batteries, solvents and other materials in homes, buildings and vehicles. They’ve contaminated waters and soils, which could result in long cleanup and rebuilding delays.

Governor Newsom says he wants to expedite rebuilding. But LA health officials say debris removal and reconstruction are prohibited until licensed officials have carefully examined sites for toxics – dangerous or barely detectable levels? New building codes for fire resistance? Or homeowner demands for them?

Citizens need to discuss all this at town hall meetings, before the next conflagration strikes – inevitably, if proper forest and water management and personnel hiring are not implemented immediately. Put simply, the woke idiots responsible for this rampant destruction and loss of life must be replaced with people who understand their Number One Job is protecting citizens from crime, fires and other natural disasters.

Mr. Newsom also wants an investigation into the loss of fire hydrant water pressure. Californians have good reason to suspect he’s merely trying to find excuses and scapegoats, so that he and his favorite legislators can save their political hides.

Golden Staters need to revamp their political, bureaucratic, policy and woke systems. They need to rely less on government – and more on themselves, the way the Getty Villa and several neighbors did in Malibu, thereby saving homes, treasures and lives. Otherwise, these needless tragedies will be repeated.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate and human rights issues.