Critical Needs Recognized via Hearings, Committees, and L.A. Wildfire Investigation

According to various special interest groups and experts, the Los Angeles, California wildfires, which struck Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas last month beginning on January 7th, might not have been preventable, but the damage and impact could have been less if the L.A. authorities were better prepared.

This is the opinion of experts testifying at the House Judiciary Committee on February 6th initiated by Congressman Kevin Kiley (3rd District) of California. The meeting was convened on the morning of Thursday, February 6th and overseen by other House Members including Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (Wisconsin), Rep. Jerry Nadler (New York). The Hearing was titled, “California Fires and the Consequence of Over-Regulation.”

Experts testifying at the Hearing included Edward Ring, Director of Water and Energy Policy at the California Policy Center; Steven Greenhut, Resident Senior Fellow and Western Region Director, R Street Institute; Steven Hilton, Founder, Golden Together; Frank Frievalt, Director, Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Institute.

At this initial hearing lasting two hours, the Committee heard statements from the panel of experts, then embarked on question and cross-questions with Representatives. Video clips from the event were published by Forbes Breaking News. Extremely colorful clips were taken with, for instance, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wy) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Ca). For instance, Rep. Lieu asserted vehemently that with the extreme Santa Ana winds in excess of 100mph, nothing could have prevented the wildfire spreading. Furthermore, airplanes and helicopters would not be able to fly under such conditions.

However the consensus of the panel of experts is that the State, which is being provided emergency federal funds, merits regulatory and policy review to investigate leadership infrastructure and response weaknesses. A centrist perspective would be encapsulated by what Frank Frievalt repeatedly asserted, that the immediate need is to amend the state brush-clearing policy, the need to fire-harden all structures in the region, the need to create adequate fire-breaks, and the need to lower home insurance rates. No one would dispute this, not even Rep. Ted Lieu.

Brush Fires or Homelessness Fires

But the theme of over-regulation is one which all the panelists underscore. For years, bureaucracy and regulatory hurdles have fostered an environment in which it takes over 18 months to obtain a construction permit to build a home. To clear vegetation or brush to create a 30 to 100 foot fire-break around the home is another exercise in patience. One may have to seek permits from various agencies such as the California Coastal Commission and CalFire. While ordinarily a homeowner can simply clear brush mechanically and by hand, following the “Brush Clearance Requirements” of the Los Angeles Fire Department, larger activities involving a controlled burn permit are prohibitive. One must also check the calendar for any approved burn-days that CARB will allow.

AGN discovered that the LA Fire Department does have useful visuals on mechanical vegetation clearing, but the Committee also repeatedly brought up the “fuel-load” created by brush build-up along the steep slopes of hillsides and canyons. Property owners can do nothing about the brush buildup heading uphill behind their backyards, such as in Altadena, since that is the responsibility of the State Forestry Department or L.A. County. Thinning or clearing the brush could be done mechanically or by controlled burns. Of course for controlled burns, one would need to obtain permits from agencies such as the California Air Resources Board (CARB), CalFire (Burn Permit), and if on state or county land, even filing CEQA (an environmental quality assessment) may be necessary.

Two years ago, CalFire launched an online application process for the variety of burn permits one might want to apply for: campfire, debris, general, residential, broadcast. The elephant in the room that nobody at the Hearing addressed is the role of homelessness and setting of fires. With an estimated 80,000 homeless people in L.A. County, and open camping permitted throughout L.A., does anyone really believe that street campers file for a burn permit before lighting their campfire at night, or before cooking up some drugs? It’s a $1.3 billion dollar question since that is the budget the Council has passed for homeless-related-expenses this year. But that is not all since a new LA county sales tax is expected to generate another $1.1 billion for homeless housing and services. This is just the tip of the spear in one of the great California boondoggles. According to civil rights attorney James Breslo, a Pacific Palisades resident, in an editorial published at California Globe:

“A few months ago, a LA City Council person reported to me that she spends 80 percent of her time on LA’s homeless problem. Eighty percent! That does not leave much time to focus on the basic needs of the average tax paying LA resident, such as water, power, sanitation, safety, security, roads, sidewalks, traffic, parks, beaches, schools, firefighting, and fire prevention.”

In fact, L.A. residents such as NY Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers told TotalProSports.com that there is a “ton of arson is LA in general. It is one of those things people don’t like talking about in SoCal because of all the money that goes to various initiatives.“ It was mentioned by Diana West in an interview with RAIR Foundation, that fires happen multiple times a day, and often related to outdoor camping. The campers do not just stay on L.A.’s streets: they venture into the hills for various reasons including for privacy, an “authentic camping experience,” belonging to an encampment community, tending marijuana grows, even spying on home-owners.

This comes at a cost, as attorney James Breslo, a Pacific Palisades resident who stated that his house was one of the lucky ones. In “I Live in Pacific Palisades and I Know Who Caused the Fire,” Breslo pointed out the paradox that the same LA City Council that passed a budget providing $1.3 billion dollars for homeless-related expenses decided to cut spending on the L.A. Fire Department by $17 million dollars. This is why Mr. Hilton, who represents Golden Together, a think-tank assessing the number of Californians fleeing California, responded to Rep. Lieu, it’s not pointing to “Diversity-Equity-Inclusion” that is shameful, but pointing out the “I” standing for “Incompetence” that is germane to the topic of over-regulation in California and its role in the devastating catastrophe—and possibly in future catastrophic wildfires.

Ordinary firefighters not only are putting their lives at stake, their firehouses are falling apart and filled with mold, according to an investigative survey of 20 firehouses in the Los Angeles metro region. The investigation by Austyn Jeffs of The Free Press, published at the Independent Sentinel, found that many of the buildings badly needed repairs, needed supplies, and the toxic mold was so bad that one fire chief had to be hospitalized and have his leg amputated, as well as one of his thumbs. When firehouse facilities such as garage doors can’t open quickly enough because of jams, it slows down their response, and the personnel are penalized. They are even punished for undertaking repairs themselves, such as trying to eliminate the mold, or trying to fix the garage doors.

Insufficient Evacuation Drills, Event Planning, Logistical Mapping

If the L.A. Deputy Firechief is on record stating that it was not his/her responsibility to help victims they could not carry; if the LAFC Kristin Crowley is prioritizing identity politics over preparing a safe, secure, robustly functioning and fire-hardened fire district; if they stated that the amount of water coming out of the hydrants and water system was “someone else’s responsibility”; then hard questions need to be asked. Also everyone knows that these government public servants are earning obscene amounts of money: the LADWP head salary is $750,000 per year, and over six thousand of its employees earn over 100K per year. With Crowley earning over $650,000 per year, she should be living and breathing and investing in firefighting 24/7; she should be holding everyone accountable, making sure that all evacuation routes and evacuation buses and transport vehicles are in tip-top shape, holding disaster management drills for the safety of nursing home and rehab residents, and chasing down the latest in aerial fire-dropping capacity.

Of course they were not, according to a variety of sources, including former Chief Los Angeles County Sheriff, Alex Villanueva in an interview with California Insider on January 25th. According to the former LA Sheriff (2018-2022), there are various steps that can be taken to improve future responses in light of the obstacles faced by responders during the firestorm. In the interview, Villanueva asks why people at the top did not open up the command center in time: it opened two days later. Why did it appear that they did not know the plan for evacuation, pre-identify which places needed mass evacuation for vulnerable populations? As a leader of the community, it was painfully obvious to Villanueva that the LA law enforcement is short-staffed, and his estimate is by at least 3,000 officers. The officer percentage is less than 1/1000 people, inadequate for the Olympics 2028. He sees this as part of the fall-out from the “Summer of Love” and “Defund the Police” woke policies that create such a thinly spread force it is impossible to prevent looting. This has been exacerbated by statewide policies allowing petty crime to go unpunished—even serious offenders are released early—and a demoralized workforce because of fast-tracking of woke ideology candidates.

In an emergency under red-flag warning signs of hurricane force winds, everything should have been ready to go under a unified command. Instead, the LA Council and County Board operates by committee, meaning that it is not a top-down hierarchy, with everything ready to go in an emergency, whether it is public works, police, highway patrol, where the leaders of each group have met and discussed how to speedily clear out the roads, prepare for evacuation, use designated law enforcement to do evacuations, while the fire personnel put out the fires. Just like conducting war operations, at the signal CalFire must know where to send in the aerial assault, the tankers, while sheriff and deputies prevent disruptions and looting. Villanueva stated that due to the shortage in personnel, people were working far too much overtime, such as 17-20 hour shifts under conditions with a high level of contaminants. The worst part is some of the firefighters themselves had their homes burnt down, really not ideal for being prepared to save others, and hardly enough time to decontaminate.

Knowing how to delegate authority is very important because under a head sheriff, fire and law enforcement personnel must be coordinated to execute mass evacuation. There should be a mutual aid coordinator to contact the National Guard to provide help within 4 hours, not 4 days as was the case. The coordinator and State National Guard are trained to fight fires, but could help in directing traffic. CalFire would do air drops, distribute the helicopters, super-scoopers, C-130 fire suppressant bombers where they are needed most. From Villanueva’s sources, there is currently a mismatch in authority and titles, so that the Office of Emergency Management Director cannot make judgment calls independently, maybe because the top-dog with the highest salary might be, for instance, mistaken for the LAFD Chief. Villanueva and others wonder if PG&E and LADWP even shut off the power lines in time, executed a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS), because evacuation footage shows power lines sparking, which could have set off fires.

How long did they wait to execute PSPS? These are questions the public has the right to know! And tertiary investigative questions are how many electric vehicles were abandoned on the road, and did they catch fire? Lithium battery devices can heat up suddenly; this is why they are part of the FEMA/EPA Phase 1 Hazardous Material Removal underway for properties impacted by the fires. (Visit Recovery.LACounty.gov to find out about Opt-In/Opt-Out Options to the Government-Run Debris Removal Program.)

There are also severe problems with the egress/ingress of evacuation routes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena and West Hollywood, because the roads have not been widened. As Rep. Scott Fitzgerald read in the opening statement of the Hearing, the extent of over-regulation has created obstacles for roadway widening projects along Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1), or replacing wooden power pole lines with steel poles. At the Hearing, Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman also argued that the “Roadless Rule” (Roadless Area Conservation policy) is an impediment for effective forest management and developing and accessing critical resources such as future water supplies. In any case, numerous videos by news stations on the California wildfires depict the difficulties of ingress/egress along two-lane roads (such as in Laurel Canyon) blackened by billowing smoke, with embers flying about, and frantic firetrucks trying to scream through. It is an evacuation nightmare, and it appears that officials still have not worked out the logistics.

According to Mr. Villanueva, during the evacuation order at Altadena (which in itself drew his criticism about the Wireless Emergency Alert System not being specific enough, so that many people ignored it), Good Samaritan municipal bus drivers commandeered school buses on their own and loaded the nursing home people up so they could be evacuated in time. Villanueva also wondered if LA residents have given enough thought to pack their Go-Bag and have it ready with the essentials: papers, people, prescriptions, photos, pets. Too many people thought that if their water and utility bills were paid for, of course the government would do its job making sure that it was fire ready.

Santa Ynez Water Reservoir Left “High Dry and Empty”

Of course right now to deflect from criticism and investigation probes, the California Democratic leaders are already attempting to shift any culpability for the wildfires onto “Climate Change” and also “Politicizing the” dialogue. As the now homeless Altadena and Hughes Fire residents would assert, this has nothing to do with politics, but with leadership responsibility for public safety, and for adequate provision of firefighting and fire prevention services. As tax-paying homeowners, they have the right to ask why was there not sufficient water at the fire hydrants? Why was Santa Ynez Reservoir out-of-service since February 2024? Why was it completely emptied except for three tanks (providing a mere 3 million gallons as opposed to the 117 million gallons that the full reservoir could provide)?

Mr. Hilton pointed out that a several feet-long tear in the reservoir cover could have been taken care of within a three month time window, while keeping the reservoir full. It is difficult to assess what kind of framing system the reservoir cover required, but the fact that it has taken over a year, and that as of this date the reservoir still stands empty, is shocking! To Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY) who implied that a small reservoir being empty would not affect such an enormous firestorm:

“Mr. Nadler said it was a small reservoir, no, it was 117 million gallons built in the 1960s precisely for purposes of dealing with wildfires, that’s why it was built. It was offline for a year to remedy a small tear in the covers [over the reservoir] to bring it to federal compliance [Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)] but it left the reservoir empty for a whole year. This isn’t about politics but this is about policy choices that exacerbated the scale and impact of destruction.” — Steven Hilton, Founder, Golden Together

Residents from Pacific Palisades are already filing lawsuits against the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, however, these lawsuits generally take years to clear the courts, and in the meantime, many citizens and netizens are comparing the possible outcome for the 250,000 residents affected and the 18,000 structures burnt with other catastrophic fires, most recently in Lahaina, Hawaii. Almost a year-and-a-half later, the Lahaina Old Town area stands mostly burnt out and empty; cleaned up but with no indications that a rebuild is taking place since it is now part of a special designation zone requiring (in addition to other building permits) a Special Management Area (SMA) permit. No wonder people are speculating that a coastal landgrab is underway, that a massive rezoning is underway to force residents away from envisioning Single-Family-Homes, but instead, Multiple-Family-Units. To this purpose, Reform California recently pointed out that a new bill passed in California last year allows landowners to divide their existing lots into four parcels with ten people each; meaning essentially the existing lot can be converted into “5-Over-1” multifamily mid-level highrise (with the ground floor typically being for retail).

As Wendover Productions and custom architects point out, these ubiquitous gentrification developments have spawned the “Corporate Housing” life-style where the residents are shuttled into a managed community with luxury doled out based upon how much one can afford. The gentrified building is typically located in a “smart, sustainable” community where everything of convenience is located within a 15-minute radius: grocery, coffee shop, eatery, gyms, post office, church, entertainment-plex, park. This concept sounds diverse and equitable, but it also reduces the American Dream into the size of a concrete-box, and the Route-66 travel-log into a 1950s myth. (Your EV won’t get you very far without a convenient charge-up.)

“Fix Our Forest Act” Approved by the House

The Hearing had a good outcome. There was less an adversarial attitude and more a focus on the LA wildfires catastrophe being a clarion call to the nexus of overregulation involving the administrative state: brushclearing, housing, insurance, climate change, firefighting policies have become an entanglement obstructing the accomplishment of priorities. As Mr. Greenhut pointed out, people can now see beyond the legislative smokescreens: horrific wildfires created the worst smoke and pollution in 16 years; the FAIR state insurance plan faces insolvancy from rising costs to build; insurers dumped California home-owners because they see the writing on the wall with regard to wildfires; little to no new water infrastructure has been built in over 40 years; while environmentalists routinely hire lawyers who see CEQA as a “business model” for filing lawsuits, holding up water project proposals for decades.

When Californians can gather the will to counter the bureaucratic trend to densify urban areas and create roadless forests, it is the dawn for a new golden age. It is, as one pundit observed, as if there is nothing so much that the State loves as creating more homeless people; because the nonprofit industrial complex makes a killing. For instance, recently the House of Hope opened Echo Village, a village of 45 pallet shelters for homeless people in Providence, Rhode Island. At a final cost of $4.5 million, the average cost of each tiny pallet home (not much bigger than a storage shed, but with heating, electricity, and access to separate restroom/shower facilities), works out to $100,000 dollars per shelter!

Arguably the resistance to Tiny Home villages comes not from the residents or owners but often from the city, county, and state regulations or lack thereof, meaning they are frowned upon as substandard, at least until such time that new exceptions are written into the planning, land-use, and building codes, so that the city, county, and state can “earn their cut.”

Thanks to the willingness of Republicans in the State of California to argue these issues for the benefit of their constituents, there is a new demand for re-examining the policies, rules, and regulations that prevent or obstruct the creation of truly affordable housing, independent living, and rejuvenation in local trades and construction industries.

With the triumph of President Trump re-elected to the White House as the 47th President, there is a new spirit in the Congress, which at least for the next two years, is led by a Republican majority both in the House and in the Senate. Even with the inevitable suspicion that probably Mr. Trump, a transnational real estate magnate, is looking to make a deal over the Olympics 2028 land development himself, most millionaire developers are tired of the crime and thuggery that awaits residents just outside their luxury condos. They are tired of the unsightly grafitti, the angry homeless person spitting, the crazy loon who decides to push a New Yorker onto the path of a subway train—and rising endless taxes.

With the “Fix Our Forests Act,” a first-step is being taken to empower Americans to conduct forest-thinning, which will rejuvenate California’s lumber mill industry. There are billions of board feet of lumber to process into plywood, paper, paper-products, and thereby subsidize and even turn a profit for private lumberjacks. A laudworthy tradition of lumbering has been recorded in the Northwest as well as in California, including sawmills and logging flumes. Young people will be empowered to enter the labor market and construction supply materials can be supplied locally, meaning we can Buy American.

According to supporter Rep. Eli Crane (Arizona), the “Fix Our Forests Act” passed by a wide margin in the House. The Act will simplify and expedite environmental reviews; end frivolous litigation; utilize state-of-the-art treatment of forests for fire-prevention; incentivize collaborative and healthy forest management practices (such as forest thinning as opposed to clear-cutting); provide for watershed restoration and protection of the wildland-urban interface; incentivize the adaption of new technologies to address threats such as droughts, wildfires, insects, and disease.

Whether H.R. 471, which passed the House by a vote of 279-141, will proceed in the Senate is not just a matter of record. What is commendable are the number of Democrats who voted “Yes” including many Californians: Reps. Judy Chu, Ted Lieu, Maxine Waters, Derek Tran, Jimmy Gomez, Doris Matsui, Eric Swalwell, Pete Aguilar, Adam Gray, Laura Friedman, Sam Liccardo, notwithstanding some vehemence on the floor about the inevitability of the L.A. wildfires’ scale of destruction. This is hope in itself, that some of the name legendary AAPI Congressional Reps. are also seeing the writing on the wall, that unless we at least try to start taking some steps to Save California, there will be less and less future for our children.

Image from Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP.org, Archive), Report prepared by Christine H. Kroll, P.E. (Civil, Oregon)

A Prayer for Shielding from Malicious People

Lord, I ask for Your shield to be placed around me, guarding me against the malicious people who seek to cause harm. Protect me from their jealousy, hatred, and evil desires. Fill my heart with peace and confidence that, with You by my side, no evil can touch me. Help me to respond to their malice with love and forgiveness, and may Your peace reign in my life.

Psalm 34:7 “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.” Lord, I trust that Your angels are watching over me, keeping me safe from every evil plan. Amen.

Dear God, I ask that You protect me from those who wish to harm me through their malicious actions. Guard my heart and mind, and fill me with Your peace. I pray for the strength to forgive those who may try to hurt me, and that You would work in their hearts to bring them to repentance. I ask that You send Your angels to watch over me and my loved ones, ensuring that no harm comes our way. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.