VICTOR JOECKS: To prevent wildfires, burn wokeism

Wildfires are inevitable. The devastation seen in Los Angeles is not.

On Tuesday, the Palisades Fire started in west Los Angeles. Driven by intense Santa Ana winds, the fire quickly spread into the residential area of Pacific Palisades. That fire, along with others in L.A., forced more than 175,000 residents to flee. The fire destroyed more than 9,000 structures. Hundreds of thousands of residents lost power. At least 10 people have died.

Raw statistics can’t describe the horror shown in video after video. One video showed nursing home patients being wheeled to safety. Another showed two men in a home surrounded by roaring flames. Reportedly, they evacuated safely. Stunning photos of the aftermath show that the inferno consumed whole neighborhoods.

Tragically, devastating wildfires in California have become a regular occurrence. There was the deadly Camp Fire in 2018. The massive August Complex Fire in 2020 and Dixie Fire in 2021 each burned around 1 million acres.

One might think California is especially vulnerable to wildfires because it has so many trees. But at around 33 percent, California is less forested than most states. In contrast, half of Florida is forested. Two-thirds of Georgia is forested. In Alabama, it’s more than 70 percent.

Yet it’s unusual to hear about a major wildfire in the Southeast. A 2023 Congressional Research Service report found “more wildfires occur in the East” but fires in the West “are larger and burn more acreage.”

This doesn’t happen by accident. Southeast states routinely use controlled burns to clear out flammable underbrush. This fuel is what makes wildfires so explosive and dangerous. In an average year, Florida says it “will issue approximately 88,000 authorizations allowing landowners and agencies to prescribe burn over 2.1 million acres.” In contrast, California’s target for fuel reduction projects is 100,000 acres.

A major reason for the disparity can be traced to ownership. In the Southeast, private individuals or companies own most forest land. They have a personal incentive to take care of their land.

In the West, the federal government controls large swathes of forested land. That turns controlled burns into a political football. Plus, bureaucrats are risk averse. If a prescribed burn goes bad, they could be blamed. But they won’t face consequences for wildfires that controlled burns might have contained. In October, the U.S. Forest Service stopped prescribed burns in California “for the foreseeable future.”

California bears plenty of blame, too. A 2022 report from the California Fire and Forest Resilience Task Force described prescribed burns as “beneficial fire.” It said prescribed burns have been “caught up in regulatory hurdles.” As a result of this inaction, “between 10 (million) and 30 million acres in California would benefit from some form of fuel reduction treatment.”

Other moves by California and L.A. officials read like a Mad Lib of leftism. To save some fish, Gov. Gavin Newsom tore down dams. He hasn’t built needed reservoirs despite voters approving billions in funding. As it turns out, having water available is very helpful in fighting fires. Los Angeles fire hydrants literally ran dry during the blaze. Soft-on-crime policies also resulted in hundreds of fire hydrants being stolen and sold for scrap before the fire.

L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley made DEI one of her priorities and sought to recruit more women. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana when the fire started. She also cut the fire department budget by more than $17 million, while seeking to spend $1.3 billion on homelessness.

Little wonder that leftist politicians want to talk about global warming after fires such as this. They’re distracting the public from their own incompetence. If Californians want to prevent future infernos, they need to fire Democrats.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.