This is an extract from a National Review article that explains much about the causes of the devastating LA fires:
“And while the topography is different - the fires around L.A. are burning the chaparral landscape in the mountains and foothills around the city, not in forests — the lesson is the same, said Edward Ring, director or water and energy policy at the conservative California Policy Center: The L.A. fires have gotten out of hand largely due to poor land management.
"Historically, that land would either be deliberately burned off by the indigenous tribes or it would be grazed or it would be sparked by lightning strikes," said Ring, an advocate of continuing to manage the chaparral land's oaks and scrub brush with grazing animals, mechanical thinning, and controlled burns.
But that hasn't happened, he said, due to public policies, bureaucratic resistance, and pushback from environmental activists. The result: The L.A. foothills were primed to burn.
But Ring and others say the biggest problem that has allowed the fires to do as much damage as they have is tied to a lack of land management in the L.A.Basin. He blames the problem on state and local government bureaucracies, lawmakers in the pocket of environmentalist and renewable energy lobbyists, and legal challenges from activist groups that can grind the ability of landowners to manage their property to a halt.
Environmental groups, including the California Chaparral Institute, the Sierra Club, and the California Center for Biological Diversity, have aggressively fought against thinning and burning that state's chaparral landscape. In a 2020 letter to lawmakers, they argued that "adding even more fire to native chaparral shrublands" is not an acceptable policy.
"They make it virtually impossible to do controlled burns of any kind. They make it virtually impossible to do mechanical thinning. And they make it very difficult and in many cases impossible to even have grazing on your property," Ring said.
"Everything requires an environmental impact statement, and everything requires permits from the [South Coast] Air Quality Management District," he continued. "All of these things are just impenetrable bureaucracies. They just tie everybody up in knots."
Ring said a focus on single-species management, rather than total-ecosystem management, makes it easy for environmentalist lawyers to find a single bird or lizard that could be affected by a land management project to put the project on hold.
"The Endangered Species Act and the California Environment Quality Act have both turned into monsters that have not only prevented any kind of rational land management, but they've actually had the perverse, opposite effect in many respects," he said.”
Why do you suppose people of color aren’t interested in fighting fires? I hardly think fires are racist But the left are grasping at straws to explain this disaster as a racist event or caused by climate change How about gross negligence on the part of the left??
I think it’s great that women and people of color join the fire department and other city services. It’s when diversity distracts from the core mission of a department that it could be problematic.
Me and the majority of the US think it is And it’s being proven true every day This is why many corporations and the US government is backing away from DEI So maybe you should do a little research
The main point for any society is to provide for police and fire which are the most basic services for any state or municipality. Without them there is no civility and chaos will insue which is what California has. The other side of the coin is that California is a one party state so there are no checks and balances. It is particularly galling that Newsom called a special legislative session not to provide a much needed overhaul the state’s wildfire response or insurance crisis but to fund the state Department of Justice for filing future lawsuits at the Trump Administration which isn’t even in office yet. Priorities are so misplaced. Incompetent Newsom and Bass have zero leadership and need to resign or be recalled.
You have spent many paragraphs explaining why the DEI issue may have been a contributing factor to these fires, and maybe one line dismissing climate change. That’s unbalanced commentary in my view. The causes are likely a complex set of circumstances which likely do include climate issues as well as poor land management and inadequate prevention. The reduced or misplaced budget to the firefighters is certainly poor government but not the CAUSE of the fires.
You should get your confirmation bias under control.
There is a lot more to write about the “complex set of circumstances which likely do include climate issues as well as poor land management and inadequate prevention.” My point was only the rainfall claims (no rain because of climate) were not right. And that a somewhat obsessive focus on DEI distracted from what the core mission should be….
No, you said “climate is at least a mainstream explanation, even if it’s wrong”, having started with deriding the view that lower rainfall was due to climate change. You then spent many paragraphs attacking DEI policies (and I agree they should be attacked) but they are not the main CAUSE of the increasing frequent devastating fires in California. This IS due to climate change and the whole tone of your article was quite dismissive of climate. That’s my point.
Except climate IS part of it. Yes, there've been dry years and wet years before. But the dry years are happening MORE OFTEN and are LONGER and WORSE than they used to be. Drought is now semi-permanent, which it never was before. It's not just California, it's all across the West. Low snowpack, low snowmelt, Lake Mead being at historical low levels, the Colorado River likewise troubled.
Don't confuse climate and weather. You're better than this.
DEI the scapegoat for lack of preparedness - no.- I disagree. Loss of tax revenue due to covid lockdowns and business closures is unacknowledged source of this problem. One can’t mention this due to draconian Newsom policies that caused this economic catastrophe - governor must be protected from all reality- the reality is this happened on his watch. There is no fiscal transparency in California - each agency polices itself to the detriment of its dependent citizens. Newsom May in fact have raided various state agency budgets to keep the state afloat. Reality In this world of spin today is whatever the powers that be say it is. Wow- See Mike Davis’s books - Economy of Fear and City of Quartz to fully understand the LA region and years of poor policies, corruption and disregard for Mother Natures power over this region despite engineering policies that deny her. We live in an altered universe run by lying narcissists in collusion with corporate oligarchs with their own agenda who think they are gods and can decide our fate. Nature did it or DEW did it- or DEI did it - endless possibilities but it happened and created an inferno similar to all the wars we perpetrate on others- this time California and its citizens are the others. Now the masses parrot it is Build Back Better before the ashes have cooled - they have moved on to the next thing - real issue is man’s short attention span and denial of reality. Meanwhile nuclear war is on the planning table - fires are dress rehearsals for a nuclear holocaust- reality too scary so everyone wants to move on - denial is not a solution. Given the state of the world we may not actually live to see the LA Olympics an elite undertaking that excludes most of us anyway- a false sense of world unity while we continue to murder each other. I am a Californian for over 52 years- answers and solutions would be appreciated when you have the time Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass - start with an independent evaluation of all state agencies and determine where the money went. We are told California has an economy that surpasses many countries - prove it and show us who really benefits from Californias largesse - do include the rail system supposedly being built in the desert - this is a true boondoggle that we need to have e planned further.
You'll be "shocked" to hear that after a horrific collision between a passenger airplane and a military helicopter, Donald Trump immediately suggested DEI could be to blame, before waiting for any facts.
Scapegoating "DEI" for anything bad happening is just racism. These people are assuming only white men can be competent at their jobs.
“That assertion is wrong. The city was in the process of negotiating a new contract with the fire department at the time the budget was being crafted, so additional funding for the department was set aside in a separate fund until that deal was finalized in November. In fact, the city’s fire budget increased more than $50 million year-over-year compared to the last budget cycle, according to Blumenfield’s office, although overall concerns about the department’s staffing level have persisted for a number of years.”
I’m finding it hard to get a clear understanding of the fire department budget question…
But this should also be a bit of a warning to Elon and DOGE that when you start making big budget cuts like he is talking about, important stuff inevitably gets cut. Sometimes things that look wasteful can later be crucial.
It's gross that anytime something goes wrong, conservatives immediately assume the problem must be that white men no longer hold every position of power.
There are many incompetent government officials at all levels. I have encountered many mediocre white men in powerful positions. But somehow the right-wing media only ever question someone's competence if it's a woman or a person of color.
I’m not for any mediocre people “in powerful positions.” I’m for meritocracy being the standard, those best qualified for the positions get them. If the best qualified are women, people of color, LGB, etc, fantastic, then they take the positions. Professional basketball, for instance, is all about meritocracy, not about DEI. In 2023, over 70% of NBA players were black. No one complains about that because we all realize the teams have chosen the best players, without regard to color.
When government (or private companies, for that matter) roll out and emphasize DEI efforts, it casts a pall over every minority and woman who gets a promotion. Many of them are entitled to the position based solely on the merits, but they all get tarred with the ‘they would not have been there without DEI’ mantra.
And I am not sure anyone can reasonably contend that DEI was not a distraction from the core mission of some departments. The head of LA’s Department of Water and Power, appointed only in April, said in July that “the number one thing that attracted her to the job” was “that everything we do is with an equity lens and social justice, that we ensure we right the wrongs we have done in the past…”
No honest broker could look at what is happening in L.A. and see anything but dereliction of duty across the board. Jesus Christ if this isn’t the wake up to say L.A.’s government was utterly distracted by everything BUT safeguarding the community I don’t know what is it going to take. There is zero chance that if we were looking at a group of men right now that was overseeing this colossal disaster there wouldn’t be an insane amount of anger and criticism. What’s your excuse for why Gavin Newsom has become public enemy number one? Last time I checked he was a white male.
I’m not defending Newsom. I’m saying that conservatives now imply that every woman or person of color is an unqualified DEI hire. They also attack Democrats of all kinds (white men included) but their main goal is to get people to believe that white men are the only merit based hires.
If the West doesn’t make a hard pivot back to merit, competence, and accountability, this is our future. It would seem the LA Fire Chief made a life of learning the skills required to fight fire, the problem is she’s part of a system that emphasized everything but what’s required to fight fire and keep people safe. The system is broken and the incentives are bad and it doesn’t matter what your political tribe is, if you elevate ideology over material reality this is the result. Extreme weather is here and it’s imperative that we have the most serious people to deal with it.
This is an extract from a National Review article that explains much about the causes of the devastating LA fires:
“And while the topography is different - the fires around L.A. are burning the chaparral landscape in the mountains and foothills around the city, not in forests — the lesson is the same, said Edward Ring, director or water and energy policy at the conservative California Policy Center: The L.A. fires have gotten out of hand largely due to poor land management.
"Historically, that land would either be deliberately burned off by the indigenous tribes or it would be grazed or it would be sparked by lightning strikes," said Ring, an advocate of continuing to manage the chaparral land's oaks and scrub brush with grazing animals, mechanical thinning, and controlled burns.
But that hasn't happened, he said, due to public policies, bureaucratic resistance, and pushback from environmental activists. The result: The L.A. foothills were primed to burn.
But Ring and others say the biggest problem that has allowed the fires to do as much damage as they have is tied to a lack of land management in the L.A.Basin. He blames the problem on state and local government bureaucracies, lawmakers in the pocket of environmentalist and renewable energy lobbyists, and legal challenges from activist groups that can grind the ability of landowners to manage their property to a halt.
Environmental groups, including the California Chaparral Institute, the Sierra Club, and the California Center for Biological Diversity, have aggressively fought against thinning and burning that state's chaparral landscape. In a 2020 letter to lawmakers, they argued that "adding even more fire to native chaparral shrublands" is not an acceptable policy.
"They make it virtually impossible to do controlled burns of any kind. They make it virtually impossible to do mechanical thinning. And they make it very difficult and in many cases impossible to even have grazing on your property," Ring said.
"Everything requires an environmental impact statement, and everything requires permits from the [South Coast] Air Quality Management District," he continued. "All of these things are just impenetrable bureaucracies. They just tie everybody up in knots."
Ring said a focus on single-species management, rather than total-ecosystem management, makes it easy for environmentalist lawyers to find a single bird or lizard that could be affected by a land management project to put the project on hold.
"The Endangered Species Act and the California Environment Quality Act have both turned into monsters that have not only prevented any kind of rational land management, but they've actually had the perverse, opposite effect in many respects," he said.”
Why do you suppose people of color aren’t interested in fighting fires? I hardly think fires are racist But the left are grasping at straws to explain this disaster as a racist event or caused by climate change How about gross negligence on the part of the left??
I think it’s great that women and people of color join the fire department and other city services. It’s when diversity distracts from the core mission of a department that it could be problematic.
When did it become racist to mention the elephant in the room????
Me and the majority of the US think it is And it’s being proven true every day This is why many corporations and the US government is backing away from DEI So maybe you should do a little research
Typical liberal response to factual statements Your only response is to degrade your opponent rather than present evidence to support your argument
There is nothing wrong with my English Perhaps you should learn to read?
The main point for any society is to provide for police and fire which are the most basic services for any state or municipality. Without them there is no civility and chaos will insue which is what California has. The other side of the coin is that California is a one party state so there are no checks and balances. It is particularly galling that Newsom called a special legislative session not to provide a much needed overhaul the state’s wildfire response or insurance crisis but to fund the state Department of Justice for filing future lawsuits at the Trump Administration which isn’t even in office yet. Priorities are so misplaced. Incompetent Newsom and Bass have zero leadership and need to resign or be recalled.
You have spent many paragraphs explaining why the DEI issue may have been a contributing factor to these fires, and maybe one line dismissing climate change. That’s unbalanced commentary in my view. The causes are likely a complex set of circumstances which likely do include climate issues as well as poor land management and inadequate prevention. The reduced or misplaced budget to the firefighters is certainly poor government but not the CAUSE of the fires.
You should get your confirmation bias under control.
There is a lot more to write about the “complex set of circumstances which likely do include climate issues as well as poor land management and inadequate prevention.” My point was only the rainfall claims (no rain because of climate) were not right. And that a somewhat obsessive focus on DEI distracted from what the core mission should be….
No, you said “climate is at least a mainstream explanation, even if it’s wrong”, having started with deriding the view that lower rainfall was due to climate change. You then spent many paragraphs attacking DEI policies (and I agree they should be attacked) but they are not the main CAUSE of the increasing frequent devastating fires in California. This IS due to climate change and the whole tone of your article was quite dismissive of climate. That’s my point.
Except climate IS part of it. Yes, there've been dry years and wet years before. But the dry years are happening MORE OFTEN and are LONGER and WORSE than they used to be. Drought is now semi-permanent, which it never was before. It's not just California, it's all across the West. Low snowpack, low snowmelt, Lake Mead being at historical low levels, the Colorado River likewise troubled.
Don't confuse climate and weather. You're better than this.
DEI the scapegoat for lack of preparedness - no.- I disagree. Loss of tax revenue due to covid lockdowns and business closures is unacknowledged source of this problem. One can’t mention this due to draconian Newsom policies that caused this economic catastrophe - governor must be protected from all reality- the reality is this happened on his watch. There is no fiscal transparency in California - each agency polices itself to the detriment of its dependent citizens. Newsom May in fact have raided various state agency budgets to keep the state afloat. Reality In this world of spin today is whatever the powers that be say it is. Wow- See Mike Davis’s books - Economy of Fear and City of Quartz to fully understand the LA region and years of poor policies, corruption and disregard for Mother Natures power over this region despite engineering policies that deny her. We live in an altered universe run by lying narcissists in collusion with corporate oligarchs with their own agenda who think they are gods and can decide our fate. Nature did it or DEW did it- or DEI did it - endless possibilities but it happened and created an inferno similar to all the wars we perpetrate on others- this time California and its citizens are the others. Now the masses parrot it is Build Back Better before the ashes have cooled - they have moved on to the next thing - real issue is man’s short attention span and denial of reality. Meanwhile nuclear war is on the planning table - fires are dress rehearsals for a nuclear holocaust- reality too scary so everyone wants to move on - denial is not a solution. Given the state of the world we may not actually live to see the LA Olympics an elite undertaking that excludes most of us anyway- a false sense of world unity while we continue to murder each other. I am a Californian for over 52 years- answers and solutions would be appreciated when you have the time Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass - start with an independent evaluation of all state agencies and determine where the money went. We are told California has an economy that surpasses many countries - prove it and show us who really benefits from Californias largesse - do include the rail system supposedly being built in the desert - this is a true boondoggle that we need to have e planned further.
You'll be "shocked" to hear that after a horrific collision between a passenger airplane and a military helicopter, Donald Trump immediately suggested DEI could be to blame, before waiting for any facts.
Scapegoating "DEI" for anything bad happening is just racism. These people are assuming only white men can be competent at their jobs.
Politico reported that there was no budget cut to fire department:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/08/wildfire-threatens-karen-bass-extended-honeymoon-00197228
“That assertion is wrong. The city was in the process of negotiating a new contract with the fire department at the time the budget was being crafted, so additional funding for the department was set aside in a separate fund until that deal was finalized in November. In fact, the city’s fire budget increased more than $50 million year-over-year compared to the last budget cycle, according to Blumenfield’s office, although overall concerns about the department’s staffing level have persisted for a number of years.”
I’m finding it hard to get a clear understanding of the fire department budget question…
But this should also be a bit of a warning to Elon and DOGE that when you start making big budget cuts like he is talking about, important stuff inevitably gets cut. Sometimes things that look wasteful can later be crucial.
It's gross that anytime something goes wrong, conservatives immediately assume the problem must be that white men no longer hold every position of power.
There are many incompetent government officials at all levels. I have encountered many mediocre white men in powerful positions. But somehow the right-wing media only ever question someone's competence if it's a woman or a person of color.
I’m not for any mediocre people “in powerful positions.” I’m for meritocracy being the standard, those best qualified for the positions get them. If the best qualified are women, people of color, LGB, etc, fantastic, then they take the positions. Professional basketball, for instance, is all about meritocracy, not about DEI. In 2023, over 70% of NBA players were black. No one complains about that because we all realize the teams have chosen the best players, without regard to color.
When government (or private companies, for that matter) roll out and emphasize DEI efforts, it casts a pall over every minority and woman who gets a promotion. Many of them are entitled to the position based solely on the merits, but they all get tarred with the ‘they would not have been there without DEI’ mantra.
And I am not sure anyone can reasonably contend that DEI was not a distraction from the core mission of some departments. The head of LA’s Department of Water and Power, appointed only in April, said in July that “the number one thing that attracted her to the job” was “that everything we do is with an equity lens and social justice, that we ensure we right the wrongs we have done in the past…”
No honest broker could look at what is happening in L.A. and see anything but dereliction of duty across the board. Jesus Christ if this isn’t the wake up to say L.A.’s government was utterly distracted by everything BUT safeguarding the community I don’t know what is it going to take. There is zero chance that if we were looking at a group of men right now that was overseeing this colossal disaster there wouldn’t be an insane amount of anger and criticism. What’s your excuse for why Gavin Newsom has become public enemy number one? Last time I checked he was a white male.
I’m not defending Newsom. I’m saying that conservatives now imply that every woman or person of color is an unqualified DEI hire. They also attack Democrats of all kinds (white men included) but their main goal is to get people to believe that white men are the only merit based hires.
If the West doesn’t make a hard pivot back to merit, competence, and accountability, this is our future. It would seem the LA Fire Chief made a life of learning the skills required to fight fire, the problem is she’s part of a system that emphasized everything but what’s required to fight fire and keep people safe. The system is broken and the incentives are bad and it doesn’t matter what your political tribe is, if you elevate ideology over material reality this is the result. Extreme weather is here and it’s imperative that we have the most serious people to deal with it.