By Hank Russell
The images in the newspapers, on TV and on the Internet showing the California wildfires are heartbreaking, to say the least. Residents have described the scene as “apocalyptic,” with businesses, schools and multimillion-dollar homes up in flames and reduced to ash.
Since January 7 — when the Palisades fire started — 10 people have died as of this writing, with hundreds of thousands of acres already burnt. Some outlets are reporting that power lines may have sparked the fire, while most of them said it was started by high winds and dry conditions. But liberals have attributed the fire to another cause.
Climate change.
It is very easy to blame this on climate change, especially when the Golden State had reached record temperatures over the past two years, but it isn’t that simple.
The Los Angeles Fire Department could have beefed up its firefighting force, but instead, it fired anyone who refused to get the COVID-19 shot. In December 2021, firefighters were required to get vaccinated or else lose their jobs. In addition, they would be tested twice a week by a company of the city government’s choosing and the testing would come out of the firefighter’s pockets.
John Knox, who served with the LAFD for 23 years before he was fired, told Fox News’ Jesse Watters on his show that five were recently terminated and 160 got the boot in December 2021 for not getting the shot. Knox told Watters that morale at the department is “in a very poor state.”
And LA’s elected officials wonder why they don’t have enough firefighters.
But it’s not just these nonsensical edicts holding back these firefighters. Water restrictions caused them to fully run out of water by the early morning of January 8. Local residents have blamed the city’s Department of Water & Power and Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom for mismanaging the city’s water supply. However, when CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Newsom why the hydrants ran dry, the governor blamed “local folks” for the situation.
It was also reported that the Santa Ynez Reservoir near Pacific Palisades — which can hold 117 million gallons of water — was empty and offline when the wildfire took place. Newsom called for “an independent investigation” while the DPW is looking at “the root causes’ of what caused the reservoir to be shut down.
The inaction from Newsom drew the ire of one resident, who confronted the governor. Rachel Darvish asked Newsom what he was doing to refill the hydrants, saying there was water dripping from the hydrants and she would “fill it up myself,” to which Newsom said, “I’m doing what I can.”
“But you’re not!” she replied.
Newsom told her he was trying to call President Joe Biden “to get the resources we need,” but was unable to reach him because his cell phone couldn’t get a signal. Biden did fly out to California and met with Newsom about the wildfires, but he also wanted to announce he became a great-grandfather.
No water. No cell coverage. No leadership.
Speaking of no leadership, LA Mayor Karen Bass — another liberal Democrat — took heat (in a manner of speaking) for taking a trip to Ghana when the wildfires broke out. This is the same Karen Bass who slashed $17.6 million from the LAFD’s budget (she wanted to cut $23 million) while that money was diverted to the homeless and other left-wing policies.
Speaking of left-wing policies, environmental bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have put a chokehold of prescribed burns — fires which are deliberately set to prevent wildfires like the one in the Palisades from occurring. Under the National Environmental Protection Act, the approval process for a prescribed burn can take up to over seven years.
“There’s no denying that wildfires are getting worse – and if lawmakers want to get serious about fighting them, they need to make sure we have every possible tool at our disposal, including proven tactics like controlled burns,” Tahra Jirari, the director of economic analysis at the Chamber of Progress, said in an interview with Newsweek.
Liberals love to blame these fires on climate change. It’s their get-out-of-jail-free card when something like this happens. But Californians, including the “local folks,” know better.