What We Know About What Led to the L.A. Wildfires - FactCheck.org
What We Know About What Led to the L.A. Wildfires - FactCheck.org
What We Know About What Led to the L.A. Wildfires - FactCheck.org
Multiple fires continue to burn in the Los Angeles area after flames have razed neighborhoods, forced mass evacuations and claimed at least 27 lives over more than a week. Some fires have been contained, but three are still active.
That includes two of the biggest and most devastating infernos, the Palisades fire in West Los Angeles and the Eaton fire in Altadena, which are already projected to be the most costly in U.S. history.
As the fires have spread, false or unsupported information about them — particularly about how they started and why they have been so severe — has also escalated.
Some people have cast the fires as largely the result of global warming, while others have denied any climate change connection and pinned blame on a lack of water or vegetation management. (As we’ve already written, many of the claims about water are bogus.) Meanwhile, some have baselessly pointed to lasers or directed energy weapons, among other fanciful conspiracies, as ignition sources.
Here, we explain what’s known about how the fires started and the factors that scientists do — and don’t — think contributed. [...]
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It's kind of "strange" that nobody talks about the insanity of developing in a burn zone. Instead they're rushing to "rebuild" by suspending environmental regulations. How many more years until Malibu burns again? Why do people have to risk their lives and waste so many resources on these luxury fire traps? It just shows the subservience of the media to capital, landlords, developers, etc. that these things are never mentioned or questioned.
(On the other hand the Eaton fire was worth fighting.)
It's the same logic that leads to millions of people (re)building in flood plains. Short term thinking, poor regulations, and a head-in-the-sand attitude enables developers to make good money selling these properties, despite the risk to residents. And once people have moved in, they aren't going to move out without a fight. Plus, there is no appetite in government circles to relocate people out of these high risk areas. Where would they go? Who would pay for it? It's too hard (apparently) for a hyper-capitalist government to properly deal with such vexing questions.