California Fire Facts
gavinnewsom.com
gavinnewsom.com
"Start with its environmental obsessions. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in 2019 sought to widen a fire-access road and replace old wooden utility poles in the Topanga Canyon abutting the Palisades with steel ones to make power lines fire- and wind-resistant. In the process, crews removed an estimated 182 Braunton’s milkvetch plants, an endangered species.
The utility halted the project as state officials investigated the plant destruction. More than a year later, the California Coastal Commission issued a cease-and-desist order, fined the utility $2 million, and required “mitigation” for the project’s impact on the species.
Since the milkvetch requires wildfires to propagate, the only way to boost its numbers is to let the land burn."
"Consider the state’s response to crime and homelessness, which may have contributed to the fires. Last year’s Park Fire—the fourth largest in state history—was allegedly ignited by a man with two prior felony convictions who was on parole for a DUI. The Los Angeles Times reported in early 2021 that 24 fires on average were breaking out each day in the city’s homeless encampments. A fire in an encampment shut down an L.A. freeway last November, the second time that had happened in a little over a year.
Good Samaritans on Thursday detained a homeless man who they said used a flamethrower to incinerate Christmas trees and garbage cans, around the same time as a major fire erupted. Police arrested the vagrant on a felony probation violation—meaning he had been on parole for another felony—because they said they lacked probable cause to charge him with arson. The suspect reportedly claimed he was using a blowtorch to smoke marijuana."
[1] "information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause", per Kagi. Not all propaganda is bad.
There's narratives and there's reality, they don't always match 1-1 and often times people only care about the story.
Two parties scrutinizing each other is the reason the US is the closest we've got to democracy in centuries. Look at other countries that are mainly one-party states and see how they're doing.
I mean, I have no skin in The game, am not an American, have no idea what are Newsoms politics or capabilities and most of the things I see being told online are crazy weird speculations.
I was mainly exposed to: 1. Fire marshal is bad because is a lesbian 2. Fires are deliberate to advance 'smart cities' 3. Fires were spread in order to get rid of evidence pertaining to a pedophile ring.
So take it from a bystander, this doesn't look like a healthy democratic discourse.
Think about the asymmetry here — if there were a single fact wrong on that page Newsom released, he would be criticized and castigated and he’d have to correct it and apologize. All the people that he highlights spreading misinformation, are any of them going to apologize or correct the mistake? Of course not.
Funny how tables have turned. Once upon a time, the right had to do the same because Facebook/IG/Twitter/etc. were pushing for and allowing leftist propaganda.
Does anyone know what the issue is? Is it the lack of sufficient controlled burns and forest thinning, leaving so much fuel that these fires become impossible to contain? $3.8B seems like plenty of money? Maybe it isn't?
If the answer from govt officials is to yell "climate change!" and then disappear in a puff of smoke well I think that's going to have a substantial effect on Southern CA property values.
(1). Like anything else in 21st century western world, decision making structures are beaurocratic to the point that 10 people need to get paid to get a new highway department truck ordered, another 5 need to sign off on firefighting equipment to be loaded on to it. not built or delivered or driven, ordered. This is the case in every state, either due to politics or due to cost protection policies.
(When it's then time to hire a driver, demands 110k a year minimum in most US states. And most of the time, their job isn't driving that firefighting equipped truck, it's sitting at the office.)
In this Firefighting scenario..... wildland firefighting can and does pay less than most fast food jobs on the coasts. Why is this the way it is?
We have as a society made wildland fire so taboo that it seems folly in most US states to employ a huge wildland firefighting department as a matter of the forestry department. And hey, most of the time it's "unskilled" and low stress!
(That is, until the fire comes and exponentially increases and destroys the most valuable land in america.)
Very hard to call in 10k emergency firefighters when the base pay is 16 dollars an hour in California.
(2). Air power in particular here is abysmal. I reguarly am tracking on flight tracking apps and acros this whole event haven't seen more than 10 copters across LA county and surrounding fighting the fires at the same time. That is unnaceptable in the most powerful, richest country in the history of the universe.
I understand that the SA winds prevent fixed wing aircraft from dropping fire retardant, but I am absolutley flabbergasted how the military and CALFIRE did not have dozens of rotary craft on rotation providing evac and water drops.
Yes. That seems reasonable
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/12/g-s1-42393/la-fires-los-angel...
The lack of any sort of fact checking and relying on community notes to do fact checking is just inherently flawed and works in favor of the disinformation artists. It's going to get worse.
It's wild how much credit and blame we assign to government officials.
For instance: Many Americans essentially believe that the president has a lever in their office to adjust the price of gas up and down
And the opposition is spreading lies.
Seriously tho, "A governor is stating what’s going on." is not the same as him telling facts.