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Comment by tlogan | Hacker News Reader

I believe this assessment is intellectually dishonest.

A couple of days before the fires started, I received a major red alert on my phone (I was in Los Angeles just prior to the fires - Recognizing the danger, I decided to leave).

I expected to see a large-scale response—fire trucks stationed everywhere, extra firefighters on standby, planes ready to deploy, and vegetation being watered—but none of that appeared to happen.

This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this. Until we address the root causes (like global warming), these events will continue to occur, and we need better preparedness in the meantime.

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They did prepare though, 3 days before they got units from north California. If nothing would happen they would be attacked for risking safety of

BTW: which locations in the whole Los Angeles (you know how big it is? actually there's no guarantee the fire works be in LA) you should get fire trucks stationed?

There wasn't any rain registered since April, there were unprecedented (last time we had such big ones was 15 years ago) dry, 100mph winds. This means using air support was also not feasible at the time.

We mostly talk about Palisades, but when watching WatchDuty app, fires were constantly popping up in random places.

It was a nightmare, and it is frustrating to see politicizing the whole thing or criticizing that fire men did something wrong.

Why those people aren't volunteering and helping?

There are some things that is impossible to do with what we have.

Much more effective would be for example having all building up to the latest fire code, but majority are of course old.

> If nothing would happen they would be attacked for risking safety of

You’ve pinpointed the core issue. Politicians have little incentive to invest in preventive measures because, as voters, we rarely reward that sort of long-term planning. And who’s really at fault? We are. We don’t demand enough accountability for prevention when we cast our votes.

If they successfully prevent fires, nobody notices—and no political points are scored.

It's the same in Software Engineering, lol. If your service just works no one cares. If you instead have a flaky service, but step in to save the day then you become a hero :)

Though I agree somewhat that politicians don't have as much incentive, but this is what regulations are for. Someone said that regulations are written in blood, because they are results of "lessons learned".

It doesn't help that then those regulations are frequently removed to help businesses and the cycle repeats.

Fire departments do not have the equipment nor the personnel to handle "the entire city is on fire" events. That would require one or two fire trucks with crew for each house in the city. Even if you could do that, you would quickly deplete the available water supply. It's just not possible.

Could more have been done to make a fire of this size less likely? Perhaps. But once it starts, and reaches a certain size, with winds as they were and combustible material in its path, all you can do is get out.

Every city in the state has mutual aid available.

> Fire departments do not have the equipment > nor the personnel to handle "the entire city is on fire" events.

True, but in fire-prone areas—such as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage—we might need to consider a different approach. Whether it’s specialized equipment, additional staffing, or other protective measures, some system should be in place specifically for those regions..

> as those so high-risk that insurers refuse coverage

Maybe in those areas the policy should be "you're on your own."

> This isn’t about partisanship. One of the core responsibilities of our elected officials is to effectively manage situations like this.

Unfortunately, this seems to be fast becoming a partisan position.

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