The big news this week was the Pacific Palisades fire in California that has devastated over 17,000 acres in Los Angeles County and destroyed over 1,000 homes.
For perspective, that is a wider acreage that Manhattan Island in New York (14,604 acres).
It has been called the most destructive fire in the history of L.A.
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| Source: https://ktla.com/news/california/wildfires/palisades-fire-thursday-live-updates/ |
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| Source: https://ktla.com/news/california/wildfires/palisades-fire-thursday-live-updates/ |
It will also most likely be the costliest.
I saw once estimate that places the damages at over $50 billion.
Anyone who has ever traveled the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu has seen the expensive homes that line the oceanfront in that area.
That stretch is home for many Hollywood stars and celebrities.
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| Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/live/pacific-palisades-fire-updates-los-angeles |
A BEFORE image of part of that oceanfront stretch of highway in Malibu.
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| Source: https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1877239402474385692 |
AFTER the fire.
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| Source: https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1877239402474385692 |
Of course, when a horrific event like this occurs it does not take long for the finger pointing to begin as to where to cast the blame.
On cue, Bernie Sanders quickly blames it on climate change and Donald Trump.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass were also quick to blame climate change and Trump.
Southern California did experience less precipitation than average in 2024. However, Southern California has always had a dry climate. However, there is some evidence that the last century has actually seen this area being much wetter than it has been historically.
It should also be noted that while Southern California was drier than average in 2024, Northern California was much wetter than normal.
This is actually positive for the state as a whole because most of the water supplies for the state come from the Sierra Nevada region that is then routed south.
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| Source: https://calmatters.org/environment/water/2025/01/california-rain-drought-north-south/ |
Let's start with the obvious in assessing blame.
It is laughable to blame climate change or Donald Trump for these fires.
Where was the climate change and Donald Trump in 1938 and 1961?
We may never know what caused the fire to start.
Was it a negligent camper? A downed electrical wire? An arsonist? Lighting?
These are the usual culprits.
However, once the fire started it became a natural disaster that was stoked by ferociously high Santa Ana winds that made it challenging to control the conflagration.
That being said, there were many contributing factors that made this fire much, much worse than it had to be due to policy decisions made by government authorities in Los Angeles and the state of California that should be held to account.
Let's list a few.
1. The failure of California to clear underbrush from wildfire-prone areas which acts as tinder and an accelerant for these fires. Environmentalists oppose a lot of the clearing efforts and California has generally not wanted to spend the money necessary to support that effort. Its policy as seem to be let FEMA and the federal government pick up the tab after the damage is done.
2. The failure of California to build more reservoirs and water storage projects despite voters approving billions of dollars of spending for this over a decade ago. A major problem in fighting the Palisades fire was lack of water and water pressure to fight the blaze.
3. It should be noted that while California's leaders decided they did not have the money for clearing underbrush or building water facilities it has enough money to spend billions of dollars on a high speed rail line that is estimated to cost over $100 billion (when originally approved the price tag was $33 billion and will be many years before it is completed, if ever) and billions each year on illegal immigrants including providing free healthcare.
4. The decision by Los Angeles Mayor Bass to cut $17.6 million from the fire department budget inthe past year to spend on other priorities including housing illegal immigrants.
5. You also have to wonder whether the policies of the LA Fire Department that prioritized DEI over merit had any hand in all of this.
This is the current leadership team of the LA Fire Department.
They are all female. They also check other DEI boxes.
What are the odds that these three women would all rise to the top of the fire department?
Does this suggest a meritocracy?
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| Credit: https://x.com/truckdriverpleb/status/1877107652469149990 |
6. It may not have done anything to mitigate the fire's effects but you also have to ask the question as why LA Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana attending the inauguration of the new President when the fire started?
What earthly reason would the Mayor of Los Angeles believe it was important to her constituents and the duties of her office to fly halfway around the world to Ghana for an inauguration?
Does anyone sense that the priorities in Los Angeles are the slightest bit misguided?
7. It should also be noted that the risk of this event was well understood by private insurance companies like State Farm. State Farm cancelled 72,000 policies in the state within the last year after California refused to allow it to increase home insurance premiums for the heightened risk of loss the company saw in some of the areas affected by this and other fires.
Rather than bear a risk that it was not going to be fairly compensated for, State Farm chose to quit writing coverage in those high risk areas.
Note below that the Pacific Palisades area had the most cancellations.
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| Credit: https://x.com/303BlondieLeigh/status/1877152072283328792 |
Homeowners who lost their private home insurance coverage may very likely had to then resort to coverage through the state insurance fund.
Their problems may just be beginning.
The California FAIR Plan (the state insurer of last resort) will soon be insolvent from the claims from this one wildfire.
It only has $200 million in reserves and $2.5 billion of reinsurance.
The claims that will soon be filed from the damages are likely to dwarf these numbers very quickly.
8. Californians have a known propensity to like socialist-style policies.
They will soon find out what that means as every homeowner in the state will likely be assessed a tax to bail out the insolvent state insurance fund.
One expert projects that cost to be as much as $3,000 per homeowner.
Liberals like to state that climate change is man-made.
Of course, that ignores centuries upon centuries that saw temperatures rise and fall, droughts come and go and even ice ages appearing and then disappearing. All of this without the slightest influence of fossil fuels or mankind.
What cannot me ignored are the decisions made by men and women such as documented above that are responsible for making a natural disaster much, much worse than it otherwise would be.
We saw it with Covid.
It is evident as well with the wildfires in California.
The bottom line is that leadership matters.
The decisions and judgments of those leaders matter.
It is reason that we should all fear man-made disasters much more than natural ones.
The big question is when will the people of California start to understand the implications of their votes and the choices of their elected leaders?
Is a reawakening on the horizon beyond the smoke, fire and devastation?
We can only hope so.
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| Remains of a destroyed home in the Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles, on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (Philip Cheung/The New York Times) |
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