Footnote

     If you're one of the people chortling how the "lib'ruls" of LA voted wrong and now face fires, two bits of information:

     -Post hoc ergo propter hoc is still a logical fallacy.

     -In the 2024 Presidental election, more people voted for Donald Trump in Los Angeles than voted for him in Arkansas or Oklahoma.  This nonsense about "red America" vs. "blue America" ignores the reality that we all live in purple America, a bit redder in some places and bluer in others, and when bad luck falls on Texas or New York, Oregon or Florida, it falls on millions of people who voted the same way you did and hold similar values, no matter how you voted or what policies you favor.  We're all in the same box. 

     But neither voting patterns, election results or efforts to attracts a more diverse pool of firefighters caused the recent and current fires in and around LA.  They had a fairly wet year or two recently, then things got dry (as is normal in that part of our country) and then--  Then the dice came up snake eyes (or double sixes) for the Santa Ana winds, roaring with an intensity rarely seen.  People being people, anyone with a yard has stuff growing in it, and it was all pretty much tinder.  Add strong winds and all you need is a spark.

     Strong winds kept firefighting aircraft on the ground (and still are, at their worst), leaving the greater Los Angeles area with exactly the same resources as any other big city: a hydrant system and trucks and personnel adequate to battle normal fires, a building or three at a time.

     Information about LAFD funding is muddled; they were in the process of negotiating fire department pay (and apparently other terms) during the overall budget process.  LAFD's portion was left for another bill, later, and their funding went up, not down (as has been claimed elsewhere), but reports on how much and what it was for vary.  All I can tell for sure is that it went up some tens of millions -- not much less than 20, nor more than 50 million over what it had been.  Call it a couple week's income for Elon Musk, or more than you or I would see in ten lifetimes.  They've got the money.  They're not worse off for staff than fire departments generally -- and, faced with a wall of flame pushed by katabatic winds exceeding 60 miles an hour, blowing embers ahead of it into paper-dry shrubs, grass, trees and wooden houses, all they can do is fight for time, no matter who they are.  Against a calamity this enormous, all people are the same size, and it's too damn small.  Additional help is pouring in, from as far away as Canada.

     It's probably ironic that the best tool against this kind of disaster is slow and about as nannying as it gets: building codes and zoning.  Requiring more fire-resistant construction and materials for homes and commercial buildings, mandating largely vegetation-free "clear zones" around them, incorporating firebreaks into neighborhood design -- all of those things would help mitigate the kinds of harm we're seeing happen.  Towns and cities in Southern California have made efforts to create such rules -- and it has been decried as liberal interference in personal freedom to do as people wish on their own property.  Like most things in politics, like most things involved in living with neighbors nearby, it's a matter of compromise and sometimes it works out badly.  It's a part of life -- and only a ghoul revels in the bad outcomes.