The Los Angeles Fires And Accountability

A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody. (Thomas Paine)

California Politicians are crying “now’s not the time to place blame” for the LA fires. And if you have the audacity to ignore them, then they accuse you of politicizing the tragedy. Nonsense, pointing out the failures of California’s leadership is not politicizing anything. What it is, is holding them accountable for their incompetent, if not criminally negligent acts, so their self-serving policies don’t again cause an unmitigated disaster that leaves a horrific trail of death and destruction in its wake.

As an initial matter, let’s get rid of the canard that the LA fires were caused by “climate change.” Regardless of whether you believe in man-made climate change or not, it is simply not relevant to this issue. The devastation of the LA fires are the direct result of factors we’ve known about for decades, and in some instances centuries, none of which are caused by, or even related to a changing climate.

The Santa Ana winds that rolled into the LA area on January 7 are nothing new, nor were the winds stronger than in other years. The maximum recorded sustained winds at the LA Airport, Altadena, and Santa Monica were 30 mph with gusts to 43 mph. The LA Times did report gusts of 60 mph in Palisades, but it is unclear if these were actual measured speeds or an estimate. However, even 60 mph gusts are not uncommon for Santa Ana winds. To the contrary 60 to 80 mph winds are common for this weather condition. In any event, given fuel, 30 mph winds will rapidly spread a fire. And that is what happened in this instance.

Southern California is also known for its dry conditions and droughts. The two earliest droughts I’m aware of occurred from 850 to 1090 and 1140 to 1320. Other recorded droughts occurred in 1796 and 1831-1833. Then there was the “Great Drought” of 1862 to 1865. Three more occurred in the 20^th century - including the 1928-1934 drought that resulted in the dust bowl. So far this century there have been three more, the last occurring from 2012 to 2016.

Further, as terrible as the LA wildfires are, they’re not unique in California history, not in the number of lives lost nor the number of structures destroyed. In the last 31 years there have been five horrific fires that were exceptionally deadly:

- 2020, the North Complex Fire claimed 15 lives and destroyed 2,353 buildings.

- 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed Paradise, killed 85, and destroyed 18,804 structures.

- 2017, the Tubbs Fire where 22 people died and more than 5,600 structures in Napa and Sonoma counties were destroyed;

- 2003, the Cedar Fire resulted in 14 deaths and 2,820 buildings burned to the ground;

- 1993, the Tunnel Fire near Oakland killed 25 people and destroyed 2,900 structures;

In fact, the second deadliest fire in California history, at least before the current LA fires, was the Los Angeles’ Griffith Park fire of 1933 that killed 29 people.

These fires are known, or should have been known, to all of California’s leaders. But, instead of prioritizing fire prevention and mitigation programs, they spent their available funds on “woke” and feel-good programs.

One of the major causes of wildfires burning hot and spreading fast is the accumulation of dry and dead vegetation in fire zones. California’s leadership has been more than negligent in addressing this known fire hazard.

Following the deadly 2018 Camp Fire, California’s officials committed $200 million for the removal of dry and dead vegetation in fire zones. However, in 2020 Cal Fire reported that in order to just catch up they needed to remove dead vegetation from “half a million acres a year for the next decade” at an estimated cost of $2 billion. California’s leadership refused to commit the needed funds. Instead, they spent $11.2 billion from 2006 to 2023 on a high-speed train to nowhere, which is $658.8 million per year, or over three times the per year cost to clear dead vegetation from the fire zones.

Though dry fuel and high winds are what cause a wildfire to burn hotter and spread faster, they are not the cause of a wildfire.

The primary cause of wildfires in California is its ancient electrical infrastructure. In 2018 over half of all wildfires in California were started by power lines and other electrical equipment. A tragic example of this is an electrical power line that was over 100 years old caused the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. But instead of replacing the state’s ancient electrical equipment, California’s leaders decided to put their efforts into ‘The Green Energy Mandate’ that sets 2045 as the year California will be powered entirely by renewable energy. As a result, PG&E has been spending an amazing amount of money trying to meet this mandate instead of replacing old equipment. In 2018 PG&E spent $2.4 billion on expanding its renewable energy capacity. In comparison, in 2017 they spent $1.4 billion on their existing infrastructure, much of which was built before 1950 and in some cases dates to 1921.

Were the LA fires caused by old electrical equipment? At this point no one knows. But the point is, California’s leaders pursued goals that adversely affect the ability of government and private companies to implement effective fire mitigation and prevention programs in favor of feel good programs with arbitrary dates.

Once a fire starts in a dry fire zone filled with dead vegetation and fanned by high winds, what do you do? Well, having enough water on hand would be a good place to begin. Which is exactly what LA did not have.

The Palisades Fire broke out at about 10:30 am on January 7 and fire hydrants went dry at about 3:00 am on the 8^th. The reason given was the three one-million gallon tanks that supplied water to Palisades were not designed for such a large fire and could not keep up with the demand. This is classic misinformation. The officials forgot to mention that the 117 million gallon Santa Ynez reservoir in Palisades was emptied in February 2024 for repairs to its cover, the contract to repair the cover was not signed until November 2024, and as of January 14, the reservoir remains empty.

Now for some back of the envelope math. Let’s be conservative and assume that the LAFD started using large amounts of water at noon on the 7^th. That would mean they used 3 million gallons of water in 15 hours for a flow rate of 200,000 gallons/hour. At that rate a full Santa Ynez reservoir would have provided 585 hours, or just over 24 days of water. Would LAFD have been able to prevent all of the damage to Palisades if they had those 24 days of water? Probably not. But they would have been able to save large portions that burned to the ground.

In addition to failing to clear brush, conduct controlled burns and emptying a reservoir, the California gang engaged in let’s fund stupid stuff instead of the LAFD.

The 2024 LAFD budget was reduced by just over $17.5 million. That’s not a huge amount given their budget was $819,637,423. But it’s not the amount that was cut, but where they took the cuts that matters. The LAFD Chief complained that due to the cuts she was short mechanics, and as a result had over 100 fire vehicles down for maintenance. But that too is not completely accurate. Yes, the LAFD was short mechanics, and yes over 100 vehicles were down for maintenance, but the Chief could have laid off the DEI department and retained her mechs…she did the opposite. Cutting the DEI budget of $1,777,715 for “Equity and Inclusion Staffing” would not have made up the complete $17.5 million, but it would have been enough to retain a lot of mechanics.

Other programs that were funded on the local level instead of the LAFD include:

- $14,010 for the "Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles";

- $190,000 for the Homeless and HIV Program, which includes a "syringe exchange" program that gives sterile syringes to homeless drug addicts;

- $100,000 to The Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department for a "Midnight Stroll Transgender Cafe" to fund housing for homeless transgender individuals in Hollywood;

- $13,000 to "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Heritage Month Programs";

- $4.5 million to the infrastructure of electric vehicle (EV) chargers.

- $250,000 for the city’s "equity and inclusion" fund;

- $100,000 to pay for Juneteenth celebrations;

- $13,000 allocated to "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Heritage Month Programs."

Chief Crowley is also complaining that she lacks enough firefighters. But not a word about why her department fired over 100 of them in 2021 for refusing to take the COVID vaccination…a vaccine that turned out to be questionable at best.

But the stupid is not limited to the local level…it goes all the way to the top of the state’s hierarchy. Looking at you Newsom.

As the wild fires devastated the LA area, California announced that it expanded its state’s Medicaid coverage to an estimated 700,000 illegal migrants at a cost of $2.6 billion per year and also held a special legislative season in which they approved $25 million for lawfare against the upcoming Trump administration. Not satisfied with this, Newsom took stupid to an art form when he cut the state’s fire budget last year by over $100 million.

The failure to fund programs such as forest management (getting rid of the dead fuel); ensuring the Santa Ynez Reservoir was online in a timely manner; and properly allocating funds to, and within the LAFD are direct causes of the devastation of LA. Simply put, with adequate water, 100 more firefighting vehicles, and no or very little dried vegetation the devastation would have been significantly less than what it is, even with the Santa Ana winds.

What makes the acts of California’s leaders unconscionable is that the dangers were well known. They knew southern California is dry, they knew about Santa Ana winds, they knew they had cut the LAFD budget, they knew the LAFD was short mechanics and fire fighters, they knew the LAFD had over 100 firefighting vehicles out of action awaiting maintenance, they knew the Santa Ynez Reservoir was drained, they knew they did not have sufficient water to fight a major fire in Palisades, they knew they had cut forest management programs, they knew the fire zones were filled with dead brush, and they knew the electrical grid was ancient. They knew all of this, and yet decided to fund feel-good woke programs instead of using those funds to address the real dangers of wildfires.

What makes their acts beyond unconscionable and perhaps criminally negligent is that they not only knew all of the above, but also knew their lack of action in the past cost 136 lives in four fires over the last 20 years – the last of which was only 6 years ago. After every one of these catastrophes California’s leaders mouthed reassuring words about preventing these tragedies from happening again. They then promptly forget their empty words and went about funding an almost endless list of pet projects that make them feel good but do nothing to prevent and mitigate the very real danger of wildfires.

So yes, now is not only the time to place blame but also for Governor Newsom, Mayor Bass, and everyone else who had any responsibility for this horrific disaster to resign.