Politicizing the LA Fires

On Wednesday, standing in a burning Los Angeles neighborhood, Governor Gavin Newsom said on CNN, “People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids have lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down. This guy wanted to politicize it.”

He was talking about Donald Trump.

But we should “politicize” it, cast blame, and be specific. The Pacific Palisades and Pasadena didn’t have to burn. The LA firestorms were a consequence of politics and governance, not nature.

Southern California is a desert. Deserts are dry. Santa Ana winds blow in every year. One spark caused by human negligence or malevolence is all that’s needed. Nothing new.

Before the fires started, L.A. was under a red flag warning. Yet Democrat Mayor Karen Bass left town for Ghana.

Why would a Los Angeles mayor have a good reason to make an official visit to a small African nation 7,000 miles away? Especially during a red flag warning.

Why were the fire hydrants dry? That wasn’t fake news. That happened.

Why did Bass and the LA City Council (guess which party controls it) cut the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget by $17.6 million?

Why does LA County’s “Community Forest Management Plan” from April 2024 begin with a “Land Acknowledgement,” include an Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (ARDI) Initiative, and mention “equity” or “equitable” 64 times?

Why are the forests badly managed?

Why is there a firefighter staffing shortage?

Why did Gavin Newsom say that the state conducted fuel reduction work on 690% more acreage than it did?

In 2014, California voters approved a $7.5 billion bond to construct new reservoirs and water capture systems. Why have zero been built?

Why did LA Fire Department Assistant Chief Kristine Larson say, “You want to see somebody that responds to your house … that looks like you.”?

If I’m trapped in a burning house, and a firefighter tries to save me, I care more about how many pounds he can deadlift than whether he looks like me. And yes, I pray he’s a man.

Assistant Chief Larsen is part of LAFD’s “Equity and Human Resources Bureau.” On a college campus, DEI is foolish. In a fire department, it’s lethal.

The devastation we’re seeing is due to politics and policies. Since this is Los Angeles, California, the only people to blame are Democratic Party politicians and their appointees.

In Los Angeles, preventing or mitigating possible catastrophes, especially predictable, regularly scheduled wildfire threats, is a core government function. In Los Angeles, it’s the core government function. Nothing is more important than not burning the place down.

I dug up a cover story I wrote for this paper ten years ago that described LA’s foolish water policies. I was not at all surprised to see that a similar story could have been written today (emphasis added):

“In Los Angeles, an inordinate amount of the rain that falls on us makes no contribution to the city’s water supply — an estimated 80% of our rainfall flows directly into storm drains and heads out into the ocean, wasted before ever being used.

“Los Angeles and much of the surrounding desert region still will rely on a water transportation system that needs rethinking, and is already being rethought by water officials in Orange County and San Diego…The bad news is that the government’s water bureaucracy in Los Angeles is massive and it could take years for good ideas to blossom into policy.”

Because LA has never prioritized rainwater capture, getting water into the region is like the game of Labyrinth:

“The current inefficient water delivery system means the water that flows out of your tap may have arrived from multiple sources, because so many government agencies are involved in moving it through deserts and over mountains to get to your home.

“When rain falls, for example, around the town of Green River, Wyo., 830 miles from Los Angeles, it seeps into a watershed basin, flows into the Green River, which feeds the Colorado River, which flows southwest through Utah and Arizona before reaching the intake point of the Colorado River Aqueduct north of Parker Dam that is operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD).

“It is at that point that MWD must pump the water 280 miles from the aqueduct to Los Angeles, a major technological challenge…On a single November day in 2011, the Julian Hinds Pumping Plant, east of Indio, had to propel more than 6 million tons of water over a 441-foot-high mountain. It took six 12,500-horsepower electric motors to get the water to a Riverside County reservoir.

“And that’s just the water that feeds Los Angeles from the east. Another source is rain that falls in the northern Sierra Nevada, which finds its way to the 1.1 trillion-gallon-capacity Lake Oroville Reservoir, then must travel 450 miles to get to Los Angeles.

“Flowing downhill and emptying eventually into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (one of three of L.A.’s import sources), the California Aqueduct then ferries the water south in huge snaking pipes across the flat Central Valley and over the Grapevine, side by side with the notoriously steep run of the I-5 freeway.

“Pumping water from the Chrisman Pumping Plant over those mountains requires 44,000-horsepower pumps.

“At the Edmonston Pumping Plant 14 miles away at the base of the Tehachapi Mountains (84 miles north of downtown L.A.) … it takes 14 pumps to push water the 2,000 feet over the mountain.

“More power still is needed to transport the water to reach homes and businesses in Los Angeles, and MWD is not in the business of retail sales — that’s where LADWP comes in. As the largest municipal utility in the nation, LADWP purchased more than 126 billion gallons of drinkable water in fiscal year 2013, and 145 billion gallons this fiscal year, for $280 million and about $300 million, respectively, from MWD’s pumped-in water. Last fiscal year, LADWP sold 179 billion gallons of water for more than $1 billion to homes, apartments, businesses and factories throughout Los Angeles, almost all of which eventually became sewage treated for solid waste and piped into the Los Angeles River, Los Angeles Harbor, Santa Monica Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

“LADWP acknowledged the city’s deficient rainwater-capture infrastructure, noting current facilities ‘are inadequate for capturing runoff during very wet years.’

On the enforcement side, California’s and L.A.’s water shortage have led to irksome water-use restrictions, fines of up to $500 for wasting water, #droughtshaming Twitter hashtags used by citizen water tattlers and “water cops,” LADWP inspectors who hand out warning letters and who have the authority to levy fines.”

The existing water system that supplies Los Angeles with water was an engineering feat in the early- to mid-20th century. However, with population growth and technological advancements, L.A. needs a 21st century approach

The existing water system that supplies Los Angeles with water was an engineering feat in the early to mid-20th century. However, with population growth and technological advancements, L.A. needs a 21st century approach, which many neighboring counties embraced years ago. Fire departments should hire based on merit alone. This stuff is too important.

If identifying why this happened and who should be held accountable is “politicizing,” then by all means, politicize. That’s the only way to ensure this never happens again.

Jared B. Sichel is a partner at Winning Tuesday. Follow Jared on X.