By Douglas V. Gibbs
On Tuesday multiple wildfires broke out in Southern California, so far destroying over 1,100 structures, evacuating over 180,000 residents, charring more than 30,000 acres, and taking the lives of five people. Currently, the fires are zero percent contained. Fire-fighting crews have battled the flames with limited ability to reach containment due to not only the high Santa Ana winds but because of limited water sources. The water tanks that supply the gravity fed hydrants reached such a low level that there was not enough water pressure to fight the fires in some areas. Due to the high winds and thick smoke the conditions were too dangerous to add to the fight an air assault with fire-fighting aircraft. The winds have been reaching 100 miles per hour in the mountains of the region. In Eaton Canyon where the Eaton fire is burning gusts up to 70 miles per hour have been reported. Pumper trucks equipped to draft water out of lakes and swimming pools are being brought in from other counties and states to assist the effort.
Over a thousand fire trucks have been deployed to the scene from all over the western region of the United States with tens of thousands of homes threatened by the fires, and underbrush in the hills serving as kindling to keep the mountains and forest ablaze. While critics have questioned the presence of so much underbrush, officials have assured the press that cleaning up the underbrush in a manner suggested by critics has simply not been possible.
Criticism has also been leveled against California’s authorities in regards to their response. Despite a massive fire a few weeks ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went to Ghana in Africa to attend the inauguration of a politician, and Governor Gavin Newsom waited too long to relocate resources and has restricted the amount of water sent to Southern California via the aqueduct through the Central Valley claiming that the water restriction was necessary to save the Delta Smelt (a small fish that is not indigenous to the area). The Los Angeles City Council also recently cut $17.6 million from the fire department budget in an effort to gain control of their massive budget. However, the city has been spending billions of dollars on new homes and renting hotel and motel rooms for the homeless, as well as allocating funds to efforts associated with DEI policies and pushing the woke agenda in education.
On Wednesday, Governor Newsom announced that FEMA has granted federal dollars to help the effort as the governor declared a state of emergency. Governor Newsom has deployed the National Guard to assist first responders in fighting the blazes.
Evacuation traffic has been at a standstill, with the LAPD sending officers to Hollywood to help alleviate evacuation traffic. With the homes that have been evacuated empty, looters and burglars have taken advantage of the situation and are burglarizing the homes. So far, twenty individuals have been arrested by the L.A. County Sheriff for theft in evacuated areas.
I have been in touch with residents in the Inland Empire (Riverside County and parts of San Bernardino County) and for many of those in the region electricity has been cut and the residents have been told it might take a week or two before power resumes. In one case, I talked to a young man who then went to look for a generator so that he could generate electricity for his household, but was told at a number of retailers that in California the sale of gas-powered generators are no longer allowed by California law. While you can get generators that hook up to your natural gas, gas is also being cut in many areas, and remember that the current push by Democratic politicians is to eliminate natural gas. As of last night, 1.5 million people are without power throughout Southern California, with some of the areas cut purposefully to guard against sparking new fires. As far south as San Diego power has been cut for some customers, with the latest report indicating that 9,600 are without electricity service in California’s southernmost major city.
In parts of Los Angeles County, and in the City of Santa Monica, curfew orders are in effect in the evacuation areas. In Santa Monica about 2,500 households are under mandatory evacuation order, with an additional 8,338 homes under a voluntary evacuation warning. All Los Angeles schools have been closed during the emergency.
The affected areas also includes Hollywood, and potentially Beverly Hills.
Smoke from the fires have turned the sun red and has drifted all the way out to the Inland Empire where the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) has declared that the air quality is at “very unhealthy” levels. Air quality is at hazardous levels in the areas at and near the fires, with the highest risk existing in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.
In Pasadena the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center with more than 100 years of history has been destroyed, as has the Palisades Branch Public Library, the latter partially damaged during a fire in October of 2020, reopening after two years of renovation in 2022.
Included in the loss of homes are properties owned by numerous celebrities and well-known persons, as well as houses owned by Hunter Biden and Kamala Harris. Some speculation by critics of Biden and Harris have suggested that the fires may have been deliberately sparked as a way of destroying incriminating evidence that may have existed in those homes. As with the Maui Fire, heat energy weapons are being considered by some opinion writers, videographers, and podcasters as a possible culprit when it comes to asking how the fires were sparked in the first place.
President-Elect Donald Trump has stated that California’s environmental policies have prevented “millions of gallons of water” from reaching Southern California’s Los Angeles Basin, “including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” State policies have reduced how much water is diverted from Northern California to Southern California, and State and Federal policies require California to direct a portion of excess rain and snowmelt runoff into the ocean to protect the habitat of the delta smelt fish. When officials indicate California is suffering from drought conditions, critics are quick to point out that those conditions are man-made, and can be changed easily.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
P.S. Additional Notes:
LA Gave Away “Surplus” Fire Fighting Equipment to Ukraine in 2022
Reminder: Hundreds of LA Firefighters Were Suspended and Terminated for Refusing the Jab
LA Fire Chief Warned Budget Cuts Would Impact Responses to Major Emergencies Weeks Before Fires
ICYMI: New LA Fire Chief Is a DIE Hire Whose Goal Is to Hire More Sexual Deviants [VIDEO]